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Chin flaps on masks/hoods?
Zhurrie
Posts: 617
A more light-hearted topic, but one that continually draws my attention and thought when reading comics is how do chin flaps on hoods/masks stay tight to the chin instead of just flopping down? A wetsuit type hood has to come up around the face to keep the chin secure but most hoods/masks are cut way out yet still have a large protruding bit under the chin... do they use spirit gum to keep it stuck in place? Surely it would droop down otherwise.
Side question masks like Robin is shown with (among others) that are just tiny "masks" around their eyes... how are those attached?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Side question masks like Robin is shown with (among others) that are just tiny "masks" around their eyes... how are those attached?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Comments
If you look closely, at the Tim Burton Michael Keaton batman masks, they have plasticy stuff coming all the way up to, but not covering his chin, in an effort to give him some semblance of a chin. Always thought that was funny.
As far as Robin's mask, that baby is glued on... I always liked the version that wrapped all the way around, and tied in the back... like Earth 2 Robin (you know, the real one from the real Earth 2, in the 70's).
(That's all I've got)
I think things like the chin strap thing and the domino masks, and I think this is well-observed, are instances where costume conventions have defied physics and physiology for so long that many of us have stopped noticing that it could never have worked in the first place. And I think a lot of people, from cosplayers to professional costume designers for film and TV have likely found out just how gravity and flesh defying a lot of these traditional costumes are.
The mask thing reminds me- a detail I really liked from Kick-Ass was that Big Daddy would apply eye black to his face before putting the mask on. I loved that detail (heck, all the Big Daddy/ Hit Girl scenes were by far the best parts of that movie) because it felt like a strange, scary looking thing he was doing to emulate what HE had seen in comic books. And the whole thing played out in a harshly-lit bathroom, making the whole scene feel like something out of Taxi Driver.
On the chin strap thing, I can remember doing a modern dress version of The Iliad that was costumed in WW2 surplus, and I think I had a helmet with a chin strap, but the straps connected to a kind of small cup that your chin fit into. And that stayed snug, but only because there was a sort of (sorry, this is the only image that fits) jock strap for your chin. But I can't imagine a simple strap, as we often see drawn, ever working. It would either have to dangle, or be so tight you wouldn't be able to open your mouth and scream "NOOOOOOO" when a teammate was going to be dead for awhile.
In that same production some of the helmets had simple straps, but they would buckle under the chin.
But, yes. Many of the costume pieces we are so used to accepting are actually part of the make-believe.
As a sometimes-costumer, the extra bits and pieces of masks is a big pain in the butt. In a drawing, masks can have useless-but-supposedly-cool-looking points around the mouth or over the chin, or on the cheeks... but in reality, the mechanics of such a fashion decision are only slightly less complicated than nuclear fission.
Okay, that may be overstating, but it seems like that.
Same goes with costumes that have shaped openings on the front. Take Dagger, from Marvel's Cloak and Dagger. That dagger-ish shape cut into the front of that costume? Yeah, just try to cut that out and expect it to look like that. I had a friend that spent almost three weeks working out the various invisible strap/underwire support to get it to look remotely like it does in the comics.
The cosplay aspect is definitely a time when it enters the real world and even in some films they cheat. My mother is a seamstress and occasionally she'll do a costume for someone and these kinds of things always crop up.
I was speaking a while ago to a friend that is a pretty well known concept artist and he mentioned that he always takes reality into creature and costume design. I find it funny and it always catches my eye when something is just really improbable.
Anything else could be tightened up chin strap wise but would be pretty difficult to talk with.
In the films they actually do go for the less open face so that it does stay, which I find an odd choice because you'd think they would want more face showing and just stick the chin flap on to hold it in place:
But this would never work:
Also my favourite thread, after all, I don't see Captain Canuck mentioned everyday, and his creator lives around these parts.
Just got the Captain Canuck hardcover collections and MAN do they take me back and give me the warm fuzzies.
;)
I bought a cowl from a guy that makes them (latex), and a black pleather cape. I put together a gray top and pants, some black trunks over top, black boots and gloves, made a pair of gauntlets, bat emblem, and a utility belt.
It turned out to be the warmest Halloween in over a decade that year in southeast Michigan, with temperatures in the mid-70's.
For about three hours, I was in this costume. The boots and gloves/gauntlets would have kept me toasty on their own, but add in the black pleather cape and a rubber cowl, and I was pretty sure I was going to die in that costume.
When it was time to get out of this thing, the boots and gloves were moist... but, wow, when I pull that cowl off, it was like someone pour a bucket of water over me.
Mad respect to the folks that wear the full neoprene/rubber costumes at conventions for 8+ hours, because I could NOT do it.
I still own all the pieces to the costume, but I haven't even considered putting it on again since then. Pretty sure, Batman in real life would die from dehydration and heat exhaustion before a bad guy ever got him.