This is an unproduced wax sculpt of “Walter”, a villain from The Mask comic book series in the early-mid 1990s. The Mask: From Zero to Hero was a line of Kenner toys in 1994.
It’s unclear if this is part of the Zero to Hero line or possibly another line. The detail of the sculpt would seem to suggest that it was to be a part of a seperate Mask line, influenced more by the comics more than the Jim Carrey film.
When developing ideas for toys, Kenner utilize sculptors to create a three dimensional representation of their idea from photos or drawings. The sculptor would sometimes work in clay, but most often would work with wax. Most Kenner sculpts from the early 90s were developed in the same way. In this particular example, a resin sculpting buck served as base for the torso, which has pins and holes in it to accommodate the head, limbs and arms, as well as an additional two pins to attach the front and back halves of the torso to itself. The arms and legs would have plastic cones with metal pins to allow a smooth connection to the torso. Use of plastic and resin to hold or receive the metal pins was essential to creating a smoothly workable and useful sculpt. The sculpting wax itself is not as soft and fragile you may think. It is actually quite firm and can be handled without much worry of damage.
The detail in the sculpt is remarkable. Even though the sculpt never ultimately progressed beyond this stage, it’s clear that a lot of work went into making a very good looking concept. It would be interesting to see other Mask concepts in the same vein as this one!
Special thanks to Chris Georgoulias of The Star Wars Collectors Archive for his knowledge of the sculpting process at Kenner.