Kids’ Halloween costumes are rarely meant to impress. They’re supposed to be cheap, fun, and an excuse to run around the neighbourhood all night collecting candy. But as Steven Richter demonstrates, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to look great on Halloween; just spend a lot of time with some well-honed airbrushing skills.
Although Richter first made a name for themselves through a YouTube channel that initially featured time-lapse videos of the artist making incredibly detailed and accurate sculptures of pop culture figures, the channel has since expanded with videos of Richter upgrading cheap toys and collectibles, including Grogu and even a plastic Jumanji board game, with paint job upgrades that make them look more like real Hollywood props.
For the past few years, as the weather gets cooler and thoughts turn to tiny chocolate bars, Richter has also been sharing videos where they turn cheap, mass-produced, vacuum-formed plastic Halloween masks into cosplay masterpieces using their artistic talents that include sculpting and airbrushing. This year, we get to see some expert fur application as well, as Richter rounds up four Star Wars masks and gives them an expert glow-up.
In this 10-minute montage, Richter transforms a Jango Fett mask into a battle-worn Boba Fett, a shiny plastic Chewbacca into a truly furry Wookiee, and makes Darth Maul and Jar Jar Binks masks look eerily lifelike with extra careful attention paid to the eye repaints, as well as skin detailing.
The results are incredible, and while each of the masks featured probably cost no more than a few bucks, the time lapse video unfortunately glosses over just how much work went into making them look anything but cheap. A few minutes of moulding and painting represents hours and hours of work in a studio, and when you factor all that in, each of these are probably worth a small fortune now.
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