hey Adam Savage here in my cave with a show-and-tell
that i'm really excited about here um okay
you know i love cosplay you know i love the transformation of cosplay and
costume i'm also a helmet junkie i love helmets
whether they're military from whatever time in history
space helmets specifically safety helmets in general
but i'm not sure how much we have talked about masks as
a category i have certainly worn masks i have a beautiful v for vendetta costume
that i assembled uh many years ago um and i actually have
some pretty impressive pieces in my collection of masks i have some masks
from eyes wide shut made by some of the finest mass makers in italy
from what i understand today's show and tell is a fan
who reached out and asked to send me some of their wares
what i have before me is four masks i i don't know if these are based on
traditional characters if they're very specifically
japanese masks this one definitely feels like the lower
half of a samurai helmet and man yeah i could put a mask
behind this this would be a really fun way to to
socially distance right but um this is beautiful
um the sculptural form on these as you can see in these close-ups
is it's perfect it's really really gorgeous it's super sculptural the paint
job is gorgeous um here is another one now
the other three all have these tassels so i believe that the way you put them
on is you put this behind your ears and then the tassel
sort of holds this in place which actually kind of it's kind of great
i mean um i know it's not ideal uh but it's moderately secure especially
because of how lightweight these masks are
they are apparently made entirely out of paper paper mache
right i know i mean if you follow rick baker's instagram
you've seen how what can be done with paper mache in the hands of a master and
i'm here to say that this fan who made these masks is a
master um this is a a birdman with a little
pillbox hat uh it goes on in the same exact way i
mean this is that is a lovely
form and i've saved my favorite for last and maybe i love this one because
it kind of reminds me of me
just reminds me a little bit of me we've got the pillbox hat again
but we've got this beautiful beard um and again look at this in close-up you
can see just how much rigorous detail there is
uh this is a piece built by a master crafts
person from what i understand of their of their process they sculpt
each mask in plasticine and they sculpt half of the mask first and then they
mirror their sculpt for every single mask
after that they apply layer after layer after layer
of paper and glue and it i'm a maker of things
i work with materials when i first got these
i couldn't figure out how they were made i it doesn't feel like paper it feels
like it sounds like paper but it feels like
resin except there isn't a resin this that you could cast this thin that
is this uh robust and in fiberglass it would feel
totally different so i kind of concluded that they had to be made out of paper
and yet it's sort of astonishing that they are
um this is the kind of thing that makes my
job like the best job in the world um that
other craftspeople who make lovely things see the things
that i make and talk about here on tested i realize that this might
sound like i'm asking people to send me stuff really don't don't send me stuff
you don't have to i i this is a lovely thing to get but i
realized i was about to start sounding like i'm
trolling for gifts and i'm not just calling out that
this craftsperson and i now have a relationship based on
their work and that makes me really excited and if anyone knows
the legend of this mask because it feels like there's a whole story
behind the half crappy teeth this is this is good and evil right here
this is this is some cultural this is there's some cultural
depth going on here i don't quite understand it but
i'm looking forward to being educated in the comments
below um
i now have uh to figure out how to display these and my other masks
i i have over a dozen uh masks of all sorts of
different kinds and so the question is how best to
display them they can't just go in boxes because i don't want to hide this light
under a bushel look at this thing this is this is how i want to handle my
lockdown there we go
all right ladies and gentlemen this is adam savage
this is a show and tell of some beautiful mask work from a fan
thank you guys for watching i'll see you next time