making a tail

[babyteresamarie]

I am going to attempt in January to make a tail but I am super confused on what I need to make a silicon tail. I have a practice tail with the swimmy fabric, but I want/need a silicon one for jobs I want to take.

What supplies do I need, and where might I find a tutorial or outline of how to do it????

[Mermaid Alea]

Look through this thread: http://mernetwork.com/index/showthread.php?2633-%E2%98%86%E2%9A%A0TAILMAKING-REFERENCE-INDEX%E2%9A%A0%E2%98%86-Look-here-BEFORE-you-post-any-questions!

Also, just look over all the silicone tailmaking topics in this forum. Try to take knowledge from more than one tailmaking topic. Each person does things a little differently and thus you can pick up on a lot of these special tricks by reading multiple threads and keeping good notes. Reading through the other tailmaking question topics is a good way to learn things as well.

My advise before you make a tail is buy some clay (like monster makers or plastilina) and start playing around with sculpting if you haven't sculpted much before. Buy a trial size batch of silicone from Smooth-On and make little silicone objects (such as starfish or maybe even a silicone mermaid top) to get a feel for what it is like working with silicone and what it is like painting it. Your silicone tail will most likely be much easier to make if you have experimented with smaller things and have learned how to make molds, pigment silicone, etc ahead of time.

To make a silicone tail you of course need silicone (Most use Smooth-On Dragon skin 10 Medium or Slow), pigments (This is what colors the silicone), mold making materials such as shell shock (or whatever you think would work best after reading what most people use for molds with good success in capturing detail), clay (it can't be just any clay - it has to be a non-drying clay and I think it can't have sulpher - most use either Monster Maker's clay or plastilina clay).

Those are just a few items as you will also need other items but those are the main important things. You also need a monofin to put in the fluke. You might also want to use powermesh in your silicone to give it extra strength.

Research, research, research! Then test things before you do it for 'real'.