Selkish's First TAIL!

[Mermaid Clarity]

I've been swimming with a makeshift sleeve and a monofin but finally I got my shit together enough to start making my first tail!

I'm going to be documenting everything here first and then posting it to my sewing blog The Stitchin' Bitch (http://thestitchinbitch.blogspot.com/) but I figured I could get feedback here first. :D

So here's what I've got so far:

The Design Process:

So I started with the fabrics I had. I got spare swimsuit spandex from my mum (she's a designer.) Since it was free, I didn't get a lot of choice on color. From there, I had to figure a design. With fabric tails I always worry about them looking like a costume and just super unrealistic (I know, unrealistic? Mermaid tail?! Whaaaa?) but I have a stick up my butt so I went with what I realized would try to work towards the fabric's strengths and do a tail that would play up the fabric's fluttery/flowiness in the water. So what fishie might have a fluttery/flowy look to it? Hm...

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I wonder...

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Anyway, from there I started some doodles. Here's the final tail concept:

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Present are pretty much all the fins from the original betta and I wanted to find a kind of middle ground between a more traditional broad dolphin-ey fluke and a betta fish's veil. I also wanted a lot of movement past where the leg ended because I kind of wanted to give the impression of a very bendy snake-like appendage rather than having that single joint where the knees are. Hopefully the extra fins will distract and make the movement more fluid.

From there I decided to go hunting for something a little flashier for the edges of the tail.

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Pink Gossamer

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Red gauze

Those were the offerings from Joanne's Fabrics unfortunately so that's what I ended up with. They're not too bad layered over each other, which is what the plan is for the extra fins.

So here was the final design sheet:

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You can see the swatches with the two spandexes, the gossamer and the sheer. As well as some doodles for proportion purposes.

[Ryanne]

I love your design <3 cannot wait to see further progress!

[Mermaid Clarity]

Part two! (mostly because I just finished this bit.)

Pattern Making!

So I got together with a friend because she is my costuming partner and crime and got some patterns made up:

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I swear she was wearing pants, you just kind of can't tell because of the angle.

Anyway, it's rather hard to get a picture of yourself getting the pattern made so I just laid there...

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So there's the full tail without the fluke. Also my friend's beautiful notes about where everything goes.

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and the mess from afterwards. It's hard to tell but this stuff takes up a LOT of space.

Finally, 3 weeks later, I've cut out all the pieces so I can start cutting the fabric.

Please ignore my MESSY MESSY floor.

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you can faintly see how long the anal and dorsal fin are in proportion to the rest of the tail, they're going to be much shorter once everything is gathered in for maximum FLOOF.

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The fluke, with my finis monofin for size reference, it's going to be massive. I have horsehair braid to sew along the ribbing to make the whole thing a little stiffer out of the water.

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Dorsal, anal and pelvic fin. Again these patterns were made to be twice as long as they will be attached to the tail so that they're gathered to half their length. Again, MAXIMUM FLOOF.

That's what I got for now. Next step: Fabric cutting!!!

[Atlantisblue]

I can't wait to see what you do with this design :)

[Mermaid Clarity]

Thanks guys! I'm really excited for this design. I think Fin Folk have made a betta fish inspired tail before but this is the first I've seen with fabric :P

[OceanWhisper]

This is going to be really awesome when it's done! :)

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