Kellie Dunn

In 2020, YouTube personality “ItsF0xy” commissioned me to design and build sound-responsive light-up costume masks. The masks are not intended to be protective, but are a costume design choice for the character he plays in his videos: intended to disguise his face, fit into the brightly colored visual aesthetic of his channel, and free him as a performer to get into character.

The masks needed to not only look fun, but also be comfortable for extended wear while filming under studio lights, lightweight enough to not inhibit vocal sound quality or normal breathing, and easily usable so they were an enhancement to his creative process, rather than a burden to use. F0xy requested a specific color palette, and that the LEDs be on the sides of the mask, not in front, so that they were a non-distracting, subtle enhancement. The LEDs light up when he is speaking.

We went through a few rounds of sketches and feedback, and eventually settled on a design. I made a mockup for fitting, prototyped the electronic components and wrote code in Arduino to get the system working, purchased fabrics, and hired local artisan Brent Roberts to custom dye the materials to match our color palette. The top and sides of the mask are a lightweight nylon spandex, and the center and bottom of the mask are a few layers of nylon mesh that look opaque but allow F0xy to breathe and talk unimpeded. The LEDs are chained, sewable Adafruit Neopixels embedded into a lining fabric with conductive thread. The sound input component is a small electret microphone amplifier set inside the mask near the ear. The LEDs and microphone are driven by an Adafruit Flora microcontroller, extended down behind the ear loop of the mask on a fabric-covered stranded-core ribbon cable, and powered by a rechargeable LiPo battery. The microcontroller and battery are built into an unobtrusive flat wallet-style case that F0xy can keep in his pocket.