Amigurumi Superhero 2: Mask Experiments

As I mentioned in my post about the Steem Superhero, I thought the "mask" element of the pattern needed work, so that's what I decided to focus on for my next experiment. Based on how the previous one worked out I was skeptical that mere color-changes would ever read like a mask over a face, but I felt like I should at least try it with some yarn with more contrast than the light gray/tan combo I used last time. I had a lot of green and orange yarn so I figured I would use those colors for experimenting (along with the tan I use for fleshtone). I also figured I would add some fleshtone areas around the plastic eyes rather than doing the eyes directly onto the "mask" color. As expected, with just color changes the green and tan wasn't really reading like there was a face underneath a mask layer, so I figured that the next thing to try would involve more physical layers. My next experiment involved doing the regular head shape in orange, but then when I would get to the "cutout" parts I would chain some stitches and cross behind a "virtual layer" of fleshtone underneath the orange layer, and cross back out front when it was time to resume the mask. That seemed to work pretty well in terms of feeling like there was a "cutout" effect on the mask, but the 3x3 grid of stitches looked way too square.

So I decided to try a full experiment using a variation on that technique -- rather than having the chains just hang behind and having to maintain the "virtual layer" (the geometry of that gets confusing) I decided to try using the chains but carrying them along behind the visible stitches, the same way I would with a strand of yarn when doing a round that has color switches. And I hoped that knocking the top corner out of the eyeholes would fix the "too square" problem. It sort of worked? I think the mask definitely reads as a layer over the face, but it was very labor-intensive to do it this way (maybe it would get easier with more practice?). Also, since crochet stitches aren't nice little square pixels but a slightly more complicated shape the eyeholes are more asymmetrical than I expected.

I had originally intended to use orange as the second color for the superhero costume, but I worried that green-and-orange with a white section might read too much like the flag of Ireland, so I switched to purple since I also have a healthy supply of that (although green and purple is usually a supervillain color scheme). To sew a symbol onto the logo area of the costume I pulled the four strands apart from a length of green yarn and used a single strand. I went with a "2" symbol since this is my second attempt at an amigurumi superhero and I couldn't think of anything else that would make sense. I think there are also some asymmetry issues with the 2-4-4-2 block of white stitches that's supposed to look like a circular background for the superhero's symbol/logo.

Overall I think it went OK. I feel like the technique I'm using for the mask is not quite there, I may need to bite the bullet and try just creating the mask as a separate piece that surrounds a complete head (possibly even making it removable). I think I also need to pay some attention to the direction of the head -- I'm not sure if it was just where I placed the eyes or of the entire head is out of line due to the amigurumi "twist" effect, but I need to get that figured out at some point.

I think I need to do at least one more superhero experiment to get a pattern I like, but I'm kind of burnt out on it right now, so I will probably try something else first so I can come back to it fresh. And here's a photo of both of my amigrumi superheroes together: