Subject: [Homestead] Home business, maskmaking links
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 17:46:17 -0700
This is essentially a rerun of a past post on maskmaking that probably
didn't make it into the archives. One of my favorite home businesses
with great sales potential. As mentioned before, grandparents can
always be depended on buying toys or anything the grandchildren ooh and
aah over at craft shows, flea markets, County and State Fairs etc.
Something flea market dealers would die for, since none of their
competitors stock such an item. I like flea market dealers
myself---everything is cash, no paper trail. They pay some taxes to
pull the wool over the eyes of tax collectors, but it is a token amount,
like small retailers in the Bahamas who might pay five or ten percent
of the twenty seven percent sales tax that is theoretically exacted by
the Bahamian Government.
My gut feeling is that the price range of masks should range from about
five dollars to as much as one hundred to stay within grandparents'
area of comfort. Horror masks would certainly sell well, but I'd lay
odds on dinosaurs and dragons being more consistent sellers. At the
near-one-hundred dollar level, you could provide some cable-control or
pneumatic articulation of jaws, ears and eyeballs, simulated smoke from
dragon nostrils, and from a Taiwan or Mainland China toy component
supplier, a roar-device.
I would be iclined to enlist the help of a Virginia Tech art class to do
the initial sculpture, possibly an engineering class to work on cable
controls. Offer a prize or royalty to get their attention. A professor
is always looking for a new and unusual class project, so I'd go to the
professors first.
http://bayard.daysofyoreevents.com/ursula-masks.htm (cheesecloth masks
and various themes, i.e., Nordic, Greek, Roman, muthical creatures
etc.---don't forget the leprechauns, banshees ghosties, ghoulies and
things that go bump in the night)
http://www.brainsofbaines.com/mask.html (good instructions for latex
mask using someone's head as a pattern. I don't much care for latex in
contact with the skin, and prefer a mask that uses a universal mount to
the head---a lot of small balloons would be self-adjusting, or an
adjustable headband. The more elaborate the mask, i.s., with
articulated jaws, various visual and sound effects like a dragon blowing
smoke, dinosaur roaring, the more money you can charge for it.
Use some discretion in pricing, you want a range within customers
ability and willingness to pay.)
http://members.aol.com/c40179/ (the above link on animatronics is
dead---don't feel bad, here are hundreds of others you must read)
http://www.animatronics.org/ (some animatronic specialists, their
creations and the computers that controls some of them)
http://www.lifeformations.com/ (lifeformations.com is one of the above,
Flashplayer 6.0 and Quicktime necessary to have or download to view the
streaming video here)
http://www.zerocommv2.com/ (If you want to draw your demons before you
make a pattern of some kind (as opposed to simply sculpting them), I
suppose Macromedia Freehand or Adobe Illustrator would be useful. Not
my schtick, I'd make a wax or clay three-dimensional demon.
http://www.getspfx.com/Plastic%20Eyes.asp (plastic full-orbit eyes for
your demon mask, brown eyes are cheaper than blue eyes (no comment), and
I don't who makes bloodshot Gee Gee eyes) Have to get some ping pong
balls and paint them. Put a red LED inside to make them look Gee-Gee
natural as he staggers from lamp post to lamp post on the way home.
This is an improvement---he used to crawl home on his hands and knees.
http://www.drakenmasks.com/masks/skullred.html (I think dragon and
dinosaur heads would sell better than skulls, but here is a skull with
an articulated jaw--directly jaw-operated, not by cable mechanism)