Mask artist main stay, Darrell Vidaurri has given the mask community numerous, classic monsters to fill our shelves with over the years. Whether it was giving us the gift of the EC Ghoulunatics or reviving the classic Topstone Shock Monster, Mr Vidaurri has certainly filled our collections with much latex joy!

HMA writer Bobby Beeman was fortunate enough to catch up with Darrell for this very rare interview.

INTERVIEW WITH DARRELL VIDAURRI of VXX-FX    6.13.09

Interviewed by Bobby Beeman, aka Toy Ranch

HMA:  When did you first become interested in monsters?

DV: I drew a lot when I was a kid, and in probably 3^rd grade a friend and I were drawing monsters in school and my interest grew from there.  I got my first mask at Disneyland.  It was a Don Post Frankenstein mask, a ¾ mask.  I think it was the one that was sold in the back of FM with 3 clips on the forehead.  I don’t know what happened to it and don’t have any pictures of it, I can only see it in my memory.  I remember it had a Disneyland sticker inside and it cost a couple bucks at the magic shop.  I loved that mask.

HMA:  And after that?

DV:  I kept drawing and drew monsters on t-shirts for the neighborhood kids for $1 each.  I copied Rat Fink and stuff like that.  The demand grew so I raised the price to $2 and that gave me money to buy monster magazines. Then I reached the age when I got out of it for awhile and became interested in cars and other things, like many people do.

Later, I moved up to the mountains from the Bay Area, where I live now, and got into the sign and graphics business.  I worked for someone else for a while and then started my own sign business.  I started doing some movie work.  There’s a train station here that has antique trains and quite a few movies are filmed here, going back to High Noon in the 40’s.  I started doing the lettering on trains, and signs they needed for the sets.  I worked on quite a few movies, The Unforgiven, Back To The Future III, and others.  Then after 17 years I retired from the sign business.

While I was still in the sign business, I started doing toy shows in the 80’s.  I did toy shows all over Northern California, and used to collect, sell, and restore antique toys, and got back into monsters that way. I started collecting monster toys and one thing led to another and I found a couple Don Post masks that were falling apart during this time. They were very hard to find so I didn’t collect that many in the 80’s, but you may remember Toy Shop in the 1990’s, when that came out.

HMA:  Oh definitely.  I advertised in it, bought out of it, etc.

DV:  I bought a few masks out of that and started collecting them actively at that point.  Then I remember I wanted a Teenage Frankenstein mask, and there were a couple out at the time, but they weren’t quite what I had in mind, so I decided to try and make my own.  Before that I had made a couple of masks that were my own design, just fooling around, but my first real mask was the Teenage Frankenstein mask, and it turned out pretty well.  I didn’t really know what I was doing.  I went to the local hobby shop and bought a bunch of Crayola clay, the kind made for kids in school.  I sculpted it and molded it and almost lost the whole thing during the molding process.  I turned out one and cast a few for myself and friends.  I put one on eBay and it sold for $450.  That was encouraging.

HMA: Yes, I’d imagine.

DV:  It made me feel pretty good, so I started making other masks.  The next mask I made was a Killers From Space alien and I’ve been doing masks ever since.

HMA:  How many masks have you sculpted and  produced?

DV:  About 21 of the masks I’ve offered were my  sculpts.  I’ve sold almost 600 masks that I produced and even though it’s not many by Don Post standards, for one guy that’s a lot of masks.

HMA: Yes, for one guy working in his house, that’s a lot!  And then you got into the Topstones.  Most of the most identifiable Topstones, the ones in magazine ads and such, you have the masters for now.  When did that start?

DV:  That started right before I did my Teenage Frankenstein.  I had an original 60’s Shock Monster that I found at a flea market.  I had that in my collection for maybe a year and noticed it was starting to crack.  I was worried about it and was talking to a guy who said he could mold it and make copies of it, so I’d have something out of it.  I had him make a mold and of course when you have a mold you can make more than one, so I started selling them around.  That was my first Topstone.  I like to think that might have sparked some of the early interest that led to the Topstone revival in the late 90’s.  In about 2000, George Ligouri found those masters.  I remember when the people put the ad on the HMA and George went to get them.  I think I contacted him at that time, or maybe it was after he started selling them on eBay.  He sent me pictures of them and I happened to ask if he had the Shock Monster and sent him a picture of it.  He said he had it so I bought that one from him and there were others I bought on eBay.  I was trying to get the icons.  The others are cool, but I was after the main ones.  I got a few from him and some from others he had sold them to, so I was able to get the ones I have now.  I had others, but sold them.  When I bought them, I wasn’t really thinking about molding them, I was buying them as a collector.  Others started molding and selling copies so about a year later I did too. I have the Ghoul, Teenage Werewolf, Caveman, Mummy, and Shock Monster.  The Melting Man never turned up so I did my own version of that.

HMA:  I was wondering about that, because the sculpt looks more like your work than a Topstone and it’s dead on, but the style is slightly different.

DV:  Yes, I tried to make it clear that my recreation was taken the drawing in the ad.  The actual mask is much more crude. I think the ad drawing is what collectors identify with most, so I based my mask off that.

HMA:  A lot of the Topstones were so thin they distorted when you wore them.  It’s a wonderful thing for collectors such as myself that we can see and have them as they were intended to be seen by the sculptors.  Being able to see the ones we had as kids or remember in “full flower”.

DV:  I think they’re right up there with any of the Don Post masks.  As far as the sculptures, the characters, and everything else, they’re pretty good. They got a bad rap, because most people were only accustomed to the thin masks that were painted in like 2 minutes. The copies folks remember from their childhood weren’t so hot, but when the masters came out and you could see the detail in the sculpts, it’s really night and day. There’s so much life in each and every one of them.

HMA:  I totally agree.  Getting back to your drawings, do you still draw monsters?

DV:  No, I don’t.  That’s all I did as a kid and wanted to be an animator for Disney and thought I would pursue an art career, and I guess I kind of did with the sign business, but I lost interest in drawing and the only thing I do now as far as ‘art’ is in clay.

HMA:  Do you have any drawings from when you were a kid?

DV:  I sure don’t.  I used to have tons of them but I don’t know what happened to them.

HMA:  What are your influences in your mask work?

DV:  There isn’t any one sculptor, but I am influenced by the Topstones and early Don Post masks.  That’s what I really like and although I don’t collect much anymore, when I did that’s what I looked for.  Some of the newer stuff is great, but it’s not my thing.  I come from the background of  antiques, old toys, and old masks!

HMA:  I got back into monsters the same way you did.  Girls and cars and rock ‘n roll pulled me away in my teen years and I started doing toy shows and got back into it that way.

DV:  Yes, and there weren’t many monster toys around here at toy shows, at least in those days.  I remember when eBay started and the monster toys started coming on, it was like an explosion.  They became available, but the prices were crazy because the stuff hadn’t been available before and everybody was going nuts over them.

HMA:  When did you first start on the internet?

DV:  Probably 1996.  The main reason I got on the internet was because of eBay. My wife and I used to get up at 3AM and drive down to the Bay Area for shows, but when we heard about eBay we borrowed a computer and went on to check it out. After that we started selling online exclusively. Of course, a couple years later the shows just died.

HMA:  EBay made something that was very difficult easy.  We’d go to shows, shops, Toy Shop, and it was hit or miss, but on eBay you could find stuff you’d been looking for.

DV:  It’s all there in front of you, you don’t have to go anywhere, you just have to bid.  It’s that way for selling, too.  From 1996 to 2000, that’s all we did is sell on eBay for a living and we didn’t do shows anymore. Eventually, things became more common, and prices came down.

HMA:  I miss the personal connection, getting to meet people, and the tangible part of picking something up and looking at it before you buy it.

DV:  Yes, I always liked dealing with the public and having people come over and ‘talk toys’.  Now we end up behind our computers and you’re isolated a bit.

HMA:   What are your favorite masks?  The ones you’ve made and the ones others have made too.

DV:  I guess my top favorite is the Shock Monster and also, the Calendar masks.  One of my favorites is the Thin Frankenstein (Don Post 800 line).  I guess the Universal Monsters, Don Post made, are favorites, also and the Topstone icons.  I call them icons, the ones in ads that you remember. As far as m y own masks, they are all my favorites, they are all equal in my mind…lol

HMA:  What was the first copy of Famous Monsters you bought?

DV:  I can’t remember which one I bought first, but the two that I remember most are the yellow #12 with the Curse of the Werewolf cover and the blue Gorgo cover. I wasn’t aware yet when FM #1 came out.  I was into Mad Magazine a lot when I was a kid.  I still have my collection. I do remember buying right off the rack Castle Of Frankenstein # 1 with the painted cover of the Frankenstein Monster.

HMA:  We spoke a bit before the interview about your style and what you are trying to do with your work.  What do you have to say about how you see your masks and what you’re trying to accomplish?

DV:  When I started doing this, people said my masks were “retro”, but that wasn’t a conscious thing.  I just did what I saw in my mind. The masks I’m interested in doing are usually the ones I want for myself.  Like “there’s no Teenage Frankenstein mask” or “there’s no Melting Man mask and I want one, so I’ll make one for myself” (laughs).   There’s a trend today with mask props getting super realistic.  They’re truly amazing and really almost belong something of the nature of a Wax Museum.  They’re all fantastic, but for me I like a good old rubber mask. Like something you’d buy at your local 5 & 10 or sent away for years ago. That’s what I am trying to recreate, an old mask or maybe monster make up from a B monster movie that I like.

HMA:  I think of your work as 3-D representation of graphic images.  Where some are going for realism, I look at the stuff that you’re doing as having a graphic, cartoon style.

DV:  Yes, like my EC stuff.  I guess what I’m trying to do when I make a new mask is replicate something I think is cool, like the EC Zombie or a 50’s schlocky monster.  When I did the EC Zombie it was something that hadn’t been done before.

HMA:  Your new Frankenstein is another old style “monster mask”.  It’s not an EC or anything.  Is there an influence for it, or is it just something that you saw in your head that should have existed then and hasn’t been made until now?

DV:  Yes, that’s kind of what it is.  Recently I had to discontinue my full head masks because of my back.  I couldn’t lift them anymore and if I kept trying to I was in danger of doing some real damage, so I had to make the tough choice of getting rid of them all.  I found I could still lift the smaller masks, the ¾ molds.  When I got rid of the full head masks I wanted to replace them and I wanted to have a Frankenstein in my lineup so I did this new one in ¾ .  It looks like a vintage mask, something you would get in the old days.  It has a bit of a Glenn Strange look to it like the toys did in those days. It’s basically influenced by the toys, masks and cover art of the 60’s and 70’s. That’s where I mostly get my influence.

HMA:  I don’t think there’s anyone else doing that kind of thing.  You’re probably the only one doing that kind of thing in masks.  I know others who do old style, retro toys and figures.  Fantasy items like the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde board game Matt Jaycox did in the style of other monster board games of the day, but you are the only one doing that with masks.

DV:  Yes, that’s what it is.  There’s nothing wrong with Jason, Michael Myers and that, but my interest is in the old monsters.  If I’m going to go through the process of making a mask, the sculpture, mold and everything, I’m going to do something I like. Hopefully others will too. That’s the thing about having a mold, you can make more than one. When I did the Devilman, the cover monster from FM#2, I did it because, ever since I can remember I wanted that mask.  I thought it was the greatest thing, but of course I wasn’t going to find one, so I decided to make one.  A few others who are like minded have appreciated it.

HMA:  I’m sitting here looking at my copy of it right now and I certainly appreciate it.  Do you know anything about the history of it or where it came from?

DV:  Someone asked James Warren about that recently and he called it a Hyde mask.  He just went around the corner and bought it for that shoot, which if I remember correctly was done sitting on his bed in his New York apartment..  That’s what I was told about it anyway.  It’s some kind of store bought mask, but I’ve never seen it for sale and they never sold it in Famous Monsters.  They did sell photos of it, but not the mask itself.  It’s a great mask, I do know that.

HMA:  What do you have on your table now?  Do you have anything in the works?

DV:  Yes, I’m trying to replace the full head masks, as I said, and right now I’m working on another EC zombie.  A Feldstein zombie.  It’s about halfway through, and after that I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet.

HMA:  You stopped making masks and then started up again.  What was behind that?

DV:  I did stop once, and it was because of my back.  I have a back injury from about 25 years ago and these molds are made of cement.  You fill them with latex and they are heavy.  It was pretty bad at one point and I decided to get out of it, but I couldn’t stand being away from it and had to get back in.  My back was doing better and mask making gets in your blood.  I started again and was OK for a while, but then recently it got a lot more severe.  My doctor told me to stop lifting, so I made a tough decision to discontinue the full head masks that were doing the most damage to my back and try to restart with the ¾ line.

HMA:  Have you ever thought about bringing in an apprentice to help?

DV:  No, I’m a control freak…lol.  I like to do it all myself and make sure it’s done right.  Some people have asked me to sell my molds and let others cast them, but I just couldn’t do it.  They are my creations and I like to have full control over every aspect of them.

HMA:  What about the hobby makes you happiest, with your masks as well as the Topstones?

DV:  The best part of mask making for me is when I have the first one finished and I’m looking at it.  After the whole process of sculpting, molding, painting, it’s always a bit of  a mind blower for me to look at it and think “Hey, I made that”.  Then when I start selling them and I get an email back from someone who says they like it, it’s very satisfying.  With the Topstones, the people who buy those and my masks are usually people who like the same things I do,  so I usually become friends with them and we talk masks and monsters and that’s a fun part of it too.

HMA:  What about customer service?  Your reputation is among the best, if not the best, in the business.  What is your philosophy about your customers?

DV: I think of myself as the customer / collector and I handle things like the way I would want other artists to treat me.  I like to keep good communication and let people know about the progress of their piece.  If I send money to someone I’d want to know what is going on with it.  When I receive their payment, I send an email letting them know I received it and stay in touch until I send the tracking number once an item is shipped.  I don’t send out the finished product until I’m absolutely happy with it and I think people appreciate this, because I’ve received a lot of great feedback.

HMA:  As a collector, I sure appreciate it.  If I have some funds to put into my collection and it comes to someone who is going to attend to my order and stay in touch or someone that might take a while and be hard to reach, I am much more likely to let that be a deciding factor.

DV:  Well, I hope so from my end.  I try to get things out as quickly as possible and as pleasantly as possible.  Hopefully people appreciate that and it’s part of the reason they want to come back.

HMA:  Do you think your background in business, with your sign company, toy dealer, plays into that?

DV:  Most of my adult life I’ve been in business for myself, so I think so.  Also I think it’s my personality that keeps my business in order.  I like to get everything done and not procrastinate as It keeps me and my customers both happy.

HMA:  What about the process of making a mask is your favorite, and what do you like the least, from beginning to end?

DV:  Probably the least enjoyable thing to do with making a mask is the molding process. My favorite part is what I mentioned before, painting and looking at the finished product. Another favorite thing is choosing the next subject for a mask. I never choose by what will sell or make money but as I said before it has to be something that interests me.

HMA:  So you make what you like and want, and if someone else likes and wants it too, then great.

DV:  Well, I guess.  It sounds funny but that’s how I’ve always approached masks.  It’s enjoying to me that everything I create is something I myself like.  I never know if something is going to sell or how it’s going to be accepted by the mask collectors,  but nine times out of ten there are always a few weirdo’s out there like me…lol.

HMA:  Your paint work is unique, and lends itself well to the style of your masks.  Do you get a lot of paintwork?

DV: Off and on.  Sometimes people want the Post Calendar mask reissues re-painted in the style of the old ’60’s Calendar and I get a lot of requests to paint Topstone blanks.

HMA:  What’s your favorite mask that you’ve made?

DV:  I have a few favorites.  One that has a lot of feeling for me is my first, the Teenage Frankenstein.  Another favorite is the EC Zombie that I did.  The three Ghoulunatics was an accomplishment.  It was not easy to transfer that into masks.  The Cyclops is another favorite. When Bert I. Gordon (director of 1957’s The Cyclops) saw it he was amazed because it was so close to what he remembered of the makeup.  I guess I can’t say I have just one favorite, but the 50’s monsters and EC guys I love.  EC Comics probably influences me a lot in a subliminal way.  I had a bunch of originals back in the 70’s.  There was a revival of horror comics in the early 70’s.  There was an EC convention in 1972, when a lot of the original artists were still alive.  William Gaines was there, and a lot of the other guys.  A booklet shows up on eBay every once in a while from it.  I loved EC comics and had a collection of over 500 originals, but when our second kid was born, I sold them to help pay for that.

HMA:  I know all about selling collection to pay for kids.  It’s something we have to do sometimes.

DV:  Yes, I’ve sold several collections over the years.  Antique toys, I guess the only thing I’ve kept is masks, but I’ve sold probably over 500 masks over the years, not the stuff l make, but from my collection, mass produced masks.  I’m down to about 100 masks now in my collection, just what I really like.

HMA:  What do you collect now, and what have you collected in the past?

DV:  I don’t know if you call it something to collect, but I like buying reprints of the pre-code horror comics, just to read.  There are many of those out now.  Sometimes I look for old Dick Breifer Frankenstein comics from the ’50’s,… those that I can afford.  As far as masks there’s nothing I want that much and if I did want it, it’s probably out of my price range.  I don’t collect anymore, and haven’t for a year or so.  After comics, I collected toys and antiques through the 60’s.  Cast iron, pedal cars things like that.  I used to restore Buddy L trucks and pedal cars.  I did the body work, repainted them in the vintage style.  Later, we got into general antiques.  I had a lot of old Western memorabilia and Wells Fargo items. I also had a lot of antique signs because I was a sign painter. I also collected, sold and did minor repairs to vintage guitars both acoustic and electric some of which I still have and play.

HMA:  Do you have any other Topstone masters that you haven’t molded?

DV:  Yes, I have one.  It’s so hard I can’t mold it.  It’s this crazy looking thing that was only in Famous Monsters #2 if I remember correctly.  It’s called Werewolf and has horns all over the face and ears.  I’d love to mold it but that thing is hard as a rock and so thick it would be impossible to get out of the mold.

HMA:  You released the Shock Monster in a limited edition.  What is the future of the mold and the master of that?

DV:  I am doing a limited edition of 20 -25 of them, and at last count I believe I’d sold 15 or so.

HMA:  So if you want a Shock Monster, you better get it quick.

DV:  Yeah, I’ll do 5 more copies or so depending on the condition of the mold. It’s still in good shape. Once a certain number is reached the mold will be broken and that will be it, but the regular Shock Monster will be available as long as I’m still making masks.

HMA:  How long does it take to make a mask, from the start to end?  I know some take longer than others, but the average?

DV:  Every mask is different but the paint process can take 2 to 3 hours for a simpler mask.  With the color changes and waiting for the base to dry, sometimes a little longer.  If there’s hair it can take a few hours for a Frankenstein mask.  In fact, when you asked what I like least about mask making, should have said hairing.  It’s not that bad for a zombie or the Shock Monster, but for Frankenstein, that can take a long time. I do a lot of sculpted hair and I like sculpted hair masks myself, like the Topstones and the lower line Post masks.  I think as far as collecting, my favorite thing to collect is a sculpted hair Frankenstein. I’m one of the few mask makers that do sculpted hair masks now.

HMA:  That’s one of the things I appreciate about your work is that it has the whole retro vibe going.  I collect classic monsters and you capture that with your work.

DV:  Well thanks. That’s good to hear.

HMA:  How about the sculpting and mold making process?  How long does that take from clay to mold?

DV:  You know, I couldn’t even tell you.  The sculpture takes countless hours, but I work on it a little here and there between doing other things.  I get away from it and come back to it, look at it, etc. But if I counted up the hours, I’d probably have to ask myself what in the heck am I doing?  I just don’t even go there.  I do it because I enjoy it and work on it until it’s right.  After that, the molding usually takes 2-3 hours for a ¾ mask.  It’s a lot easier than for a 2 piece mold.

HMA: Which is your most popular mask?

DV:  Now that I discontinued the full head masks it’s hard to say, but probably Dead Weight Fulci zombie was one of the best sellers. I sold those all over the world, and it was pretty big in Japan. The EC Zombie sold a lot.  The Devil man does well, believe it or not,  as I sell those pretty regularly.  With my stuff, it’s over time and they all end up selling well.  I’ve sold a lot of Shock Monsters too throughout the years. Recently, though, things have slowed down a bit.

HMA:  The economy is having an effect on that.

DV: Yes, it’s affecting a lot of us. Also not everyone gets what I’m doing. They see a mask like my Teenage Frankenstein and think it looks ‘crude’, of course I replicated ‘crude’ make up…that’s the point…lol.

HMA:  I’ve never really thought about it that way, but the old style stuff you do is so deeply set in me that it’s hard to look at it that way, but I guess someone who grew up reading Fangoria instead of Famous Monsters does look at it that way and wonders what you are doing.

DV:  I know what I’m doing has a limited market. I’d love to sell a lot of everything I make, but I know only a certain number of people are going to get it and that’s just how it is. And the economy, like you said, is affecting all of us. I’ll just keep doing what I do as long as I’m having fun.

HMA:  Thank you very much for taking the time out for this.  I can’t wait to see what you come up with next.

To contact Darrell about his world of monsters, email him at vxxfx@hotmail.com

A HUGE thanks goes out to Bobby Beeman, aka ToyRanch for conducting this interview!

Tags: HALLOWEEN MASKS, horror, latex masks