So naturally the first thing I had to do was cut, sand, and clean up the resin shell. (Falcon base and tongue by  Crystumes)

Since this was sculpted and cast by hand, it was made for a different species of falcon, and I'm not amazingly accurate with cutting and sanding with a dremel, there was a LOT of prep work to do to the base. All of the darker grey areas are the parts I went in and sculpted on top with apoxie sculpt, honestly my first time working with that material too and I really like it!

I had to completely re-construct the tip of the bottom beak so the mouth and tomial tooth scissor effect would line up properly when the mouth closed, since that got all messed up when I cut the beak apart and there were a few bubbles in the cast.

Fun fact about falcons, they use that little notch in their specialized beaks to sever their prey's spinal column- this notch in the upper beak (tomial tooth) is the key trait of falcons. That's why I couldn't use any other bird masks, the beak would be all wrong ;p



The part I'm easily most proud of is sculpting the eyelids and having them turn out so clean and symmetrical 👌 Birb eye has lots of lovely little skin ridges I wanted to capture. So first thing I had to do was create a nice cradle for the eyes to pop in to. The mask was not originally intended to provide vision out of the clear eye domes, but honestly that became my main source of vision and I needed all the help I could get XD So I had to dremel out the eye holes completely and build up an apoxie sculpt frame to hold the clear domes in place around the edges. I had to do both sides of the head at once to ensure they matched up right and were symmetrical from all angles.

After I lined the eyes up, I carefully popped them out from the inside so they would not become permanently attached to the head (yet) from the apoxie sculpt while it dried completely. Turns out they could then be popped in and out of the head and would sit really well on their own in there because the fit against the apoxie sculpt was so good.

Then I rolled out a tube of apoxie sculpt and carefully laid it around one eye to create an eyelid shape with the little tear ducts and everything. This was one of the rare times I sculpted with a tool instead of only my hands; I had never really worked on texturing something so small before. I very carefully smoothed out the lids and then went over it a few times making the ridge lines in the skin, carving them a little deeper with each pass. I used a mirror to copy the eyelid design onto the other side of the head.


I used my own hinges for the moving jaw. I should have really went to town on the Steel Stick and would recommend to cover the edges and backside of the hinge too, not just the scored surfaces of the mask and hinge that touch since one side popped off recently. The eye mesh looks nice and clean and I'm super happy with that effect; I dremmeled a notch into the inside edge of the eyelid so I could slide the mesh riiiight up against the eyelid and clear dome so it lays really smooth on the outside.

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Topaz is an aplomado falcon crossed with an amur tiger and this is my character account for her. You may also be more familiar with my work under the name  CanineHybrid, and I also go by my business name  Mythimorph