MORE ABOUT FRANK

To be perfectly honest, although I do love Donnie Darko (2001), I really had no interest in cosplaying Frank. I never looked at the design and thought to myself about how I wanted to wear that on my body. But I got an assignment in my Mold-Making and Casting class while I was studying at MassArt to create a mask using a very specific set of techniques and materials, and I got the assignment when I was in full-on Halloween mode, so I decided to recreate Frank's mask the best I could while following the guidelines. Then rest of the cosplay just kinda followed from there because I figured why not — I had spent so much time on it already — might as well.

The suit is really quite simple. It's just a boxy bodysuit made from two types of faux fur and little bit of black spandex around the hands. The mask was much more difficult. With the help of classmates, I made a life cast of my face in plaster, sculpted the mask in clay on top of that, made a mold of the mask in plaster, cast the mask in Free Form Air using the mold of my mask and the cast of my face, and then finalized the mask with elastics, paint, teeth, and sunglass lenses. The mask doesn't cover quite as much of my head as I would like it to because each of us in the class were designated a set amount of Free Form Air and I prioritized the ears, but all things considered I think it came out pretty okay! I'm assuredly a better sculptor now than I was then, but it was an amazing learning experience and I've utilized the knowledge I gained while building the mask in many projects since!

I originally documented this process in a Twitter thread but I'm content to let the link to that thread die along with that horrible app and it's horrible ownership. Please do not search it out and support that site. I have the images saved and I intend to make mock build book in future so the the documentation of process itself is not lost. If this isn't done by say Fall 2025 (when I'm through a few upcoming projects), feel free to message me about it on Instagram.