SCARY BUSINESS
It’s Halloween year-round for mask maker
October, for many, marks the beginning of Halloween celebrations, but for local special effects artist Tony Buck, whose job entails creating everything from bone-chilling custom masks to props, the spookiness runs year round.
Previously an insurance agent, Buck said he has always loved Halloween, as well as the decorating and costumes that go along with it, which is how he wound up in special effects artistry five years ago. It all started with the creation of a “cut” on his arm made from modeling clay and inspiration from a YouTube
video tutorial.
“I made it look like I had cut my arm a little bit, so I thought ‘Well that’s cool,’ so I tried something else and something else, and then the next thing I knew I started making bigger and bigger masks,” he said. “Like they say, it happened overnight, so now it’s all I do full-time. … I never thought it would be this big; I wish I had done it 20 years ago.
“Ever since I was a little kid I wanted to be a special effects guy. I remember I saw that movie ‘E.T.,’ and I saw the behind the scenes and how they made E.T. move and talk, and I thought ‘Man I want to do that when I grow up,’ and I just never did until a few years ago. I thought,” at 39 years old, “I’m not getting any younger.”
Over the past four years, Buck has worked from a shop in his backyard, making masks for Netflix shows, independent filmmakers and fans of the heavy metal band Slipknot; props for HBO shows, and, most recently, a 14-foot-tall replica of comic book character Jason Voorhees to stand on stage with rapper 21 Savage during his current tour.
“The cool thing about what I do is I’m one of the only people in the entire world where people can say ‘Hey man, I’ve got a drawing, I’m going to send it to you, can you make it for me?’” he said. “Custom commissions for people; and I get some weird requests, let me tell ya.”
One of the “weirdest” requests Buck has received was from a Nigerian man who contacted him via Facebook.
“I had this guy one time, on Facebook, he messaged me,” Buck said. “He sent me this photograph of this normal looking white guy with glasses holding a cat, and he goes ‘Hey man, can you sculpt this guy’s face exactly for me?’ I said, ‘OK, wait a minute. You want me to sculpt this guy’s face in this photo?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I need you to make it exactly like this photo, this guy’s face.’
“I was like, ‘ Does this guy know about it?’ And he was just like, ‘ Yeah, man, whatever. Can you do it or not?’ I started looking, and I went on the guy’s page who was messaging me, and I saw his photos, and in the background of the photos it showed him and all these other guys and they had like machine guns and I saw all these tanker ships.
“Come to find out, that guy (in the photo) was one of the captains of one of the ships, so I think he was going to try to like wear that guy’s face to try to get on the ship and hijack it. So I go, ‘ No, man, I don’t think I can do that.’ And then he started getting mad and he was like, ‘You can’t do it or you won’t do it?’ And I was just like, ‘Man, I’m just really busy right now, I can’t take any orders, bye.’”
While he declined that particular request, Buck said he easily could have made an exact replica of the man’s face if he wanted, noting he can sculpt “anything” from clay.
“That’s something, too, that I have to mention,” he said. “I had never sculpted anything in my entire life. I’ve always been like into art, like drawing and stuff when I was little, but I had never ever worked with clay until four years ago. I bought some clay from Hobby Lobby and just started watching YouTube videos.
“My first sculpts were terrible; I look back now on them and I’m just like ‘ Wow, I cannot believe I posted that.’ … My sculptures just started looking more and more realistic because I would learn something new every single time. They’re getting bigger and better, and I’ve got more people calling me.
“I use to go and advertise on Facebook in mask groups and stuff, and now it’s like become a brand and people come to me. I’ve got people from all over the world calling me. … If you want a mask, say if you order one today, I’ve got a five-month waiting list because it’s just me; I don’t have any employees. I’d like to; I’m getting there. I’ve built this from the ground up.”
Buck noted anyone can come to him with a custom design idea by reaching him via Facebook at @tonybuckfx.
“If you’re not a Nigerian tanker wanting to hijack a ship … big or small I can make whatever anybody wants,” he said. “When I made a little prosthetic cut (four years ago), it was something that was going to be a hobby, and then I never realized that it would become a business — a good business.”