Vivid Victory

Marked out the other screw holes with the exception of the one by the trigger, and masked off/scored a line underneath the slide which is basically to denote the section I shouldnt paint if I want to avoid the slide binding up when I try and move it/how far in the paint needs to be to make sure using the slide doesnt expose unpainted resin. Not really a big deal for the static ones but useful all the same.

The yellow mask I have is a little too pale so I want to paint it before I start gluing on adornments, but I'm really struggling to determine which of these colours match the original mask best.

I'm trying to compare to the pale patch around the left dot (viewers left, mask right)

Here's my main reference and all of the colours I've narrowed down, though I dont know if six is really that narrow.

So with the various designs on screen covered, lets look at some different brands of domino mask out there.

These seem to vary a lot in quality and a little in size, though most seem to be priced <$10 which is nice. Heres my ranking from worst to best from what I've found so far.

The mask I've been least pleased with is the "Seasonal Visions International" domino mask. The seller I bought this from used the following image, which looked suitable

However this is the mask that arrived

Needless to say I was not impressed. This is the second smallest domino mask brand I've found, theres barely any shape or definition around the eyes, the rim is non existant, the cuts are off-centre and the fabric is wrinkled and janky. I managed to clean one up into a suitable killjoy mask, this one however was garbage. I will be cutting it up to make my triangle appliques for the poison mask. This mask was also the most expensive at $11.99 or £8.90 on ebay *before* shipping 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ needless to say soon as these arrived I went looking for better ones.

Next up is the "Franco's" domino mask.

This is the smallest of the four brands that I've found. But its well made, the rim is well defined, and the only inaccuracy is the angle and shape of its eyes, theres good demenionality in its shape all the same and at $3.99 on the price tag its the second cheapest mask. I paid about £2.70 per Franco's mask when buying three franco masks and one of the next kind as a pack.

Next up is the "Peter Alan Inc" domino mask.

This, much like the Franco's is a decent quality mask, its the biggest of the 4 brands by a tiny bit. However, while the eyes are the correct shape compared to the Franco's mask the lids are a little bigger thannthenscreen used mask and the rim is a wee bit less defined. I dont know if these are available without the fringe at the bottom but it can easily be cut off. At $5.99 on the price tag or £2.70 in my order of 4 masks its the second most expensive mask.

These previous 3 brands have all come from the US, this last one, and in my opinion the most accurate to Gee's mask on screen, is the Papillon mask from italy.

This mask has the correct size and shaped eyes, lids and rim, quality wise its similar to the Franco and Peter Alan mask, but the satin fabric has a tighter weave than the more matte finishes of the other masks. Its the second largest mask and maxing out at £2.50 ($3.36) per mask on the upper end and £1.50 ($2.02) on the lower end this is the cheapest mask I've found for single masks and when buying a 4 pack I paid about £1.38 ($1.86) per mask. This one is a clear winner for me.

Heres all 4 brands side by side.

And some stacked size differences (blue is a pappilon)

Please note the currency conversions arent consistent, when I have a US and UK price I'm stating them both from the listing. For Franco and Peter I'm stating what I paid for the 4 pack ÷4 compared to the US price tag that were on the masks when I got them, and for the papillon masks I'm converting what I paid into USD because there isnt a US price tag on the listing or the mask. Idk the RRP for the papillon like I do for the others so likely theyre about the same price as the franco or peter but I have no way of knowing so this is my best way to estimate.

So end of day what mask should you use for your killjoy mask?

Honestly the answer varies, are you looking to make a screen accurate replica of Gee's mask? I'd say papillon is best. Are you smaller stature and want something more proportional? Franco's is probably a good shout. Does your local shop only have seasonal visions international?... eh I'd maybe question *how much* you need the mask 🤣 but jokes aside I did manage to make a half decent mask out of the other seasonal visions mask I bought, so while its the worst of the ones I found, it might be fine for your needs if you dont get the QC issues I had.

Theres likely dozens more mask makers out there. I'm not sure if they used Pappilon masks for the music video, i dont know if they're widely available in the states or not, however I'm of the opinion the Pappilon mask is the best option in terms of shape, size and accuracy to gerards mask, the quality and price in the UK is just icing.

Check your local craft and costume stores, check vinted (all the good masks I bought came from there, the rubbish ones came from ebay) and determine what your personal needs are and see what works best for you. In the end all that matters is you're happy with the mask you're using. The chasing screen accuracy thing is sadly just my brand of special interest 🤭.

At some point I'll likely buy some veg tan leather and pattern a more screen accurate harness design off of this one since it not fits me after modding it last night.

I keep mine from falling off with the epaulettes I made for the jacket and a few strategic chicago screws that go through the harness and into the jacket itself, one at the top of the shoulder under the epaulette, one at the back of the shoulder where the rivet hole already existed for the cross body strap, two that come from the holster, pass through the harness and then the jacket, and one at the bottom of the holster that goes through the jacket, that one usually holds on the leg strap when the holster is configured as a drop leg.

The first two are to stop the harness from slipping on my shoulder, and the last three to hold the holster down in the correct orientation so I can take out the raygun without the holster coming with it.

Something I want to spend some time doing with this blog outside of doccumenting my own custom killjoy costume, is talking about the costumes and props from the music videos. Specifically breaking down pieces, talking about where they came from, what theyre inspired by, and in the cases where its applicable, what every day or pre-existing items were transformed to make the world of the fabulous killjoys.

Firstly, lets talk about one of the most iconic things from the music videos, the domino mask.

Domino masks started their fame in Venitian carnival in the 18th century as part of a domino costume, which comprised of the half mask and a cloak. They likely pre-date this popularity, but I dont want to bog down this post with excessive history as its already going to be long. Since then Domino masks have become prevelent in western pop-culture as the classic "robber mask" and later as the quintessential superhero mask.

In the Art is the Weapon and NaNaNa videos, at least seven domino masks were made for the music video, of which two are worn by killjoys, Gerard's classic yellow, blue and black party poison mask, and Ray's Blue and red jet star mask.

Party Poison's mask is the only one we have extensive references of thanks to the NaNaNa lyric video. It is made from a yellow domino with black triangles applied above and below the eyes, these triangles have a slight fabric texture similar to the masks themselves which leads me to believe believe they're made of cut up domino masks. There are blue glitter-paper dots on the forehead and "cheeks".

Jet Star's mask is made of a dark blue Domino mask with red oval details applied around the eyes which have the eyes and clown-style triangles cut out (on some masks of this design it almost looks like a 4 pointed star cutout more than an eyes and triangles cut out). Its really hard to tell what these are made from due to lack of decent references but they look like EVA foam, maybe some kind of fabric with stiff interfacing, or maybe cut outs off of other masks as seems to be the case with the poison one.

The other five masks we know of are two black ones, one red, one white and one yellow. All appear to be in the style of Jet Star's mask, though on some you can only see hints of the top of the ovals aince theyre stacked up to the side of the shot. Both of the black seem to have yellow ovals (I can catch a quick glympse of yellow on the very back one in the video these are from), the yellow has light blue ovals, the white has pale green ovals, and the red has white ovals. I'm assuming the blue mask in this screenshot Is Ray's and you can see a hint of red in the video to back this up.

"But Vi, I've seen Fun Ghoul and Kobra Kid masks and Jet stars doesnt look like you're describing!"

This is where the officially liscenced masks come in. For the California 2019 Deluxe box set, two new things were added to the peripheral of the Killjoys canon, the officially liscenced masks, and the bad luck beads (I'll talk about the beads in the future). The officially liscenced masks are a whole different creature, I dont know what their design origins are, but one thing I do know is that they have nothing to do with the video other than design inspiration as far as I'm aware.

Gerard and Ray's masks don't match their on screen ones, Frank and Mikeys seem to be entirely new. Gerard's is yellow with black oval, red clown makeup and no dots, Frank's is white with green clown makeup and an X over one eye, Ray's is blue with purple ovals (though some pics look more burgandy or red) and light blue clown makeup, and Mikey's is red with black clown makeup.

More importantly, theyre all 2D printed designs directly onto the fabric of the mask, where as all of the masks for the videos have a 3D element to the designs, fheyre all raised. This is obviously just to make them easier to manufacture. As for the designs on screen being raised? I believe this is due to the fact that these fabric masks dont paint very well, edges bleed badly and painting on them is kinda a pain in the ass. I still have no idea why Ray and Gee's are different. Ray's sorta makes sense, not a lot of references and its similar enough that it could just be a best guess interpretation of the one on screen, but Gee's really bugs me 🤣.

All of these officially liscenced masks were made into 2D paper masks for Battery City Underground, the launch event for the 15th anniversary of Danger Days in London.

Fans will reguarly use the Ghoul, Kobra and Jet masks as they appear in the 2019 boxset (and later for individual purchase) as the canon representation of the masks, especially since Jet's on screen mask is more promenant in Art is the Weapon and may have been left out of NaNaNa alltogether so the blue and red version is less associated with him (I'd need to analize every shot of Jet in the video to be sure, which I cannot be bothered doing 🤣) fans treating the Jet boxset mask as the canon design bothers me a little since his mask is different on screen but the Kobra and Ghoul masks seem reasonable.

The final detail in the world of killjoy masks is non canon, but I believe very useful for people making custom Killjoy masks. The Planetary Go! music video.

These were custom made and handed out to fans in the audiance for the filming of the music video and honestly I'm in love. They look like the costume designer custom painted the base colour of the masks (theyre unusual colours for store bought masks and have variance and depth in thenintensity of colour) then hand painted/glittered the details, this is basically the only way you can easily hand paint these kinda masks is by first spray painting a base coat or sealing them with matt clear coat first to saturate the fibres and prevent bleed, but I'll be getting into that in more detail in a future post. This is the first time we see the use of smaller domino masks that are more like classic super hero masks than classic Venitian domino masks. I find these masks from planetary go are a vetter source of inspiration for custom killjoy masks since theres a little more uniqueness to them, different designs and shapes, etc.

Sources: Wikipedia (for domino stuff), Art is the Weapon teaser video, NaNaNa music video, Planetary GO! music video. Making of NaNaNa video. Official MCR marketing Material, official MCR twitter accounts, BTS photos archive (i forget who made it or the sources of some specific pictures sorry!)

None of these photos are mine, sadly I dont know who took any of them, many are screenshots of videos, others are marketing/product photos.

Thats all for now folks. Tune in for next time (follow for future posts 🤣) when I detail different brands of the classic domino mask, which ones might be best for you in particular, and how to customise them.

But it got me thinking about poses that would be awesome for the gang in fan art.

I lowkey wanna see art of the fabulous killjoys pre-war participating in laser-gun equivelant of professional sports shooting.

This project is happening in three parts, the original mold master from 13 years ago is getting cleaned up and made more accurate, the remaining original casting from 13 years ago getting similar upgrades, and new molds of the master getting made (then secret fourth part of making new casts but thats future work, for now I'm focusing on the current jobs)

The master has to be able to come apart again to be molded, so I've been making some slight mods that will allow it to be assembled with bolts so I can paint and finish it after casting it, but still take it apart to make new molds if I ever need to. The safety pin greeblie doesnt have a bolt there on the original rayguns but with some creative paint and maybe some filler youll never see it and the bolt on the guitar pic greeblie is going to be covered with the piechart shaped one

I also needed to make the cover for the trigger area accessible for the same reason, so this bolt is offset to allow it to pivot out of the way when either the safety pin greeblie or the grip is removed, allowing me to lift out the trigger assembly. It also has the added bonus of holding the cover on without the use of glue.

The locations of these holes will be visible on castings so they can have the accessible trigger area if I wanna add electronics in the future, or if it'll be completely static I can glue the trigger area shut and sand around before gluing all the greeblies down. The holes for the bolts at the safety pin greebly will be handy for insuring they're properly aligned when glueing down on casts, and can either be filled over to hide the bolt or removed and have the hole filled in.

Finally I started planning the molds.

I lost one of the guitar pic and safety pin greeblies, so I took the pie chart bit off of the guitar pic so the pieces could be cast seperatley and assembled into whichever side is needed. I'll be making seperate molds for the left side and right side so I basically use the same guitar pic, pie chart and safety pin greeblies for both molds with the opposite side grips in each mold, this means I can cast all of the needed pieces with one resin bathch without the need to make a second set of castings after the fact if I only made one mold with both grips but only one of each greebly set.

Last pic above is the rough mold layout for each side. I had a bit of extra space so will have both side's sim card/port greeblie for redundancy incase theres any issues with getting clean castings of them at any point.

With all the danger days hype and my flatmate being a little insulted that I didnt tell her I had one of the officially liscenced party poison rayguns (dug it out of storage to put on display finally) I then went digging for the rayguns I made in college. These are full size to the ones seen on screen, unlike the officially liscenced ones which are approximatley 90% scale, presumably for production reasons.

I wasnt as good a model maker back then as I am now. Given the coice I'd do a lot of things very differently, some things I cannot make more accurate and some things I very much can so I decided to have a go at re-working the two I made in college to try and make them more screen-accurate to the ones used in the music videos.

This one pictured is the master, made from scratch out of acrylic and car body filler. The other one was a resin casting I made of the master back in college. (This was in the days before consumer 3D printing was really viable.

Both needed the following:

*Area at the bottom of the frame infront of the trigger shaped as they were too boxy.

*Trigger area needed to be more defined.

*Sight needed reworked entirely.

*Slide needed lowered so that it hugged the frame better.

*Sim-card detail on the side of the frame needed the centre detail to be recessed not raised.

*Correctly sized bolts (small headed M1.6 on the body, M2.5 on the slide)

*Safety pin greebly moved to a more accurate location

The master also needed the following:

*Guitar pic greebly moved to more accurate location.

*Grips recessed into the handle a little.

*Slide extended a little. (casting could do with this aswell but I might not bother)

*Circular hole detail at the back of the frame added.

At this point the master is nearly finished. Theres some spot filling and minor clean up work needing done on the main body then I intend to make a silicone mold of it so I can make myself more replicas, then the master will be painted up as a BL/ind "Individual" raygun for display.

The castings from the new mold will be getting made up into the gang's rayguns, along with Show Pony/DrD's and a custom for myself. If theres any life left in the mold I might make a few others to sell and recoup the cost of the mold. Gonna cast everything in bright white resin so that any paint wear makes them look like repainted BLI rayguns instead of just painted beige resin. I'm also going to be using white primer for the same reason.

The current casting was originally going to be getting made into a custom raygun for myself, but my flatmate expressed an interest in a custom raygun for her birthday at the end of the year and since I decided to re-make the molds 'm going to make the current casting into hers. Its going to be a wee bit less accurate than the others but she doesn't mind a whole lot, at the end of the day I'm the detail freak, few other people will really notice.

This is starting to feel a little ridiculous and I've got 10 more random masks on the way (mostly bundle buys), plus 3 official merch masks (ghoul, kobra and jet)

Top and bottom masks are cheaply made ones that I was really disappointed in since they were actually more expensive than the proper papillon ones. Managed to make a decent looking mask out of one, the other is going to get cut up to make the triangle appliqués for poison's mask.

I've determined,since working on a few of these masks, that the appliques for poisons are likely cut outs of the same kinda mask material due to the texture on them. At first I thought theyd have frayed at the edges but these masks seem to be heat bonded in a way that means they dont really fray when cut. So for my poison mask replica I'll cut the triangles out of a spare mask and paint them black, then I'll make the disks out of glitter paper.