illus5020: Corona Masks

guaranteed to protect you from 99.99% of viruses

The initial mask I made was a mask of my little mascot character Pibis, she tends to say inappropriate things in Welsh which is the vibe I was going for. 

I originally came up with Pibis during lockdown I believe, she's based off an emoji that was going around last year, she has no mouth but now in more recent designs she's developed a nose. The speech bubble translates to cock and balls, by the way. Felt appropriate somehow, and I don't know how I got away with not saying it on call. Guess I'm amazing at distracting, probably not though. 

The second and final mask I made was another one of me, I decided to take it a bit more literally however and I also decided to challenge myself a bit and make it out of only shopping bags I had accumulated in my room. I kind of like paper shopping bags, there's just something about them that makes me want to put my head in it. Does my mask count as a helmet or a mask? It feels more like a weird helmet thing. I believe what I used was a mix of a Lush paper bag (it still had a bath bomb in it before I tore it to shreds) A Hobbycraft shopping bag from when I bought overpriced art supplies and a Waterstones bag where I bought overpriced books. I used the Waterstones bag and the Lush bag to make the hair, you can make out part of the designs of the bags in the hair. I of course drew on the fact, the glasses are made out of the handles of the bags and then there's me, going around wearing it and it's almost creepy somehow. 

I could make some long metaphors about it being about anonymity and it could be about me feeling shy and anxious all the time and putting a paper bag over my head to cover the fact I just want to curl in a ball and hide from the dangers of the world a high majority of time. Perhaps that is the point of this mask, to hide myself with my little mascot characters and pretending I'm bigger than I am. When I was mulling over what to create, part of me was tempted to create a mask which looked like every annoying anime character ever to mock the fact that most people just see me as another anime artist. Maybe I am. I do try and stand out in this world but everything has been done already and nothing feels unique anymore. 

This got deep real quick.