Futuristic Tribal Mask w/LEDs (Help design & build)

I am interested in finding someone to design and print me a very special, high quality mask.

Attachment 11177

This is a sculpture called "Obsidian" by Colin Christian.

I am interested in recreating & designing a similar style concept, with a black base and white/clear areas to be illuminated by LEDs, but in an actual wearable mask.

Can this mask be printed in both black and a clear/white resin at the same time or will the colors bleed in an application like this?

Or does it have to be printed in all clear/white and then the black areas painted on?

I want the LEDs to have that perfect hue like they do in his sculpture - I don't want to individual LEDs to be visible when the mask is in operation. It should be smooth & seamless.

I want this to be done as high quality as possible and don't want to see any print lines at all - so whoever would take this job on needs to have the right kind of printer to eliminate this as much as possible and then also be willing to sand and finish the mask with sanding.

I'm pretty sure I want this done in hard plastic, not flexible resin.

So who on here is capable of this kind of job that could help me start designing this?

Thoughts?

You'd need to get permission from Colin Christian first, before any reputable designer will help you copy his work. There's this thing called "copyright" which is part of the law in most countries; violating it incurs civil and criminal penalties.

I'm not looking to rip the guys design off, I'm using his sculpture as a reference of the overall look I want. I plan on changing the design quite a bit and adding esoteric symbolism and circuit board pattern to it.

Shouldn't be an issue with copyright at that point.

Maybe, but "derivative" works are still covered by the copyright. When you say "I want it to mimic it exactly" it sounds, at the very least, derivative.

I guess what I meant by mimicking it was the color changing LED areas.

I've fixed my post in regards to that.

Can a mask like this be printed in 2 different colors, with black being the main base and the white/clear resin used for the areas that will be illuminated by LEDs or would it bleed into itself & instead need to be fully printed in white/clear and then be be painted to create the design?

I kind of want to lean towards a black panther style helmet maybe too, I'm not sure yet.

There aren't too many printers that do a good job with multi-colors in the same part. It's usually better to make the main part with voids into which you can glue differently-colored parts that are printed separately. I'd still advise you to contact Mr. Christian and ask permission to make a wearable version of his mask. He might just say yes, especially if this is a one-off for a video or something. If this is something you're planning to sell, then a licensing fee would be appropriate, but it wouldn't necessarily be a huge one. At least you'd know where you stand.

Hmm, but some are capable of printing a multi color piece? Which types of printers are these and what would that kind of printer push the price up to?

This is going to be a one off for myself, no interest in selling them. I'll reach out to Colin and see what he says, but I'm already past his design and want to create a 2-3 piece helmet.

Any suggestions on who is capable of designing/drawing, printing and finishing this type of a project?

Theoretically, any dual-extruder printer that's big enough should work; like one of these: https://www.lpfrg.com/en/bolt-pro-3d-printer/. But it sounds like you want better surface quality than most of these machines provide, which means you'll probably need to use a more expensive printer, like the Objet, http://www.stratasys.com/3d-printers/objet30-pro which is a multimaterial machine that's quite expensive, but gets good results. You'd need to contact someone who offers custom printing on the machine of your choice to get a price quote, but it won't be cheap.

If you don't want to do the modeling, printing, and finishing of this project yourself, you'll need to convince someone else who can do all that to take it on. How much do you have to spend on this project?