“The Kirk mask was turned inside out.”
Myth
Correction
No first-hand account says this. Every one of them describes paint, bigger eye holes, sideburns and hair, with the mask right-side out.
Wallace, who did the work, has described the same operations for twenty years: cut the eye holes bigger, pull off the sideburns, darken and muss the hair, spray-paint it white. Carpenter's account matches. The write-up of Wallace's 2014 demonstration calls the process "more than just turning the thing inside out." The finished mask shows the Kirk sculpt's nose, brow and lips and the hair on the outside, which is why collectors reproduce it by painting Kirk masks. An inverted latex mask would show its featureless inner surface with the hair trapped inside.
What people actually said
“I took it home and doctored it a little, cut the eye holes bigger, yanked off the sideburns, darkened the hair and spray-painted the whole thing dead white.”
“The process for transforming it was more than just turning the thing inside out.”