Slightly OT: Dragon Dress... Tell me tailmakers, is silicone my material?

[Seatan]

Sorry, I know this is a little OT, but I put it in tailmaking since it involves scales and silicone! I want to make a dragon dress based off of Smaug. I plan to mold it onto a plaster cast of my upper body and thighs. As shown in the picture by way of shading, the "tail" that wraps around will be raised three dimensionally. The entire body is scaled, even though I was too lazy to draw the scales on the front side of the image. The material needs to be flexible since the dress is fitted, more flexible than most cosplay armor. Do you guys who have cast in silicone think it is my material, or is there another material that you would recommend for a project like this?

17216

[emma11]

This is going to be HEAVY if it's In silicone. Without a super stiff baking, like corset boning through out the whole dress, this will sag and distort.

I'd use either scale chain mail, or craft foam. Even worbla would probably be really good for this. Basically anything that's heat set, will hold the shape of scales but be light enough to not distort or be 40 pounds haha.




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[Seatan]

No, I am not looking to do scale chain mail--this is a realistic dragon, not a form of armor. Nor is extreme comfort a concern--cosplayers believe not in comfort! Considering that my huge tail is less than 35 pounds (including fiberglass monofin), this would not be that heavy, particularly with the distribution throughout the body. I have worn worse, including costumes that were flat out painful!

I've seen lots of dragonskin silicone props, masks, and armor that doesn't distort. As for fit, that is why I would mold the clay to a casting of my body to make the mold--so that it would fit my shape. Things don't need boning if they are molded to your dimensions. I am just wondering whether I should go silicone or latex. This cannot be made out of chainmail or craftfoam. Craft foam can be heat shaped a little bit, but it cannot be formed into a realistic dragon shape. I am not a huge fan of latex, though, if only because it has a higher tendency to degrade than silicone.

[Seatan]

As for Worbla, it is not flexible enough. This dress is skin tight.

[Echidna]

Maybe latex? More realistic than mail or cloth, but lighter than silicone?

Awesome design, by the way!

[emma11]

Scalemail doesn't look like armor at all!

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/97/7d/02/977d0269ebe1723129d9479231e02523.jpg

It's really neat stuff, just a ton of work.

And 35 pounds is basically what you're looking at for that dress if it's out of silicone, which is really really heavy. Another thing to think about is Foam latex. You have to have a huge oven to bake it in, but instead of 35 pounds it'll be around 1 or 2 pounds.

Make sure when you do a plaster cast of your body you use alginate first, then plaster gauze, and then ultracal on top of that. It should be AT LEAST 5 inches thick. Seal that in the two parts of your body, then pour ultracal into it and let it sit for 2 days. This will all cost about 400, but it will give you an accurate mold of your body so the silicone won't have any bubbles or areas that are too tight etc.

Sculpt on top, mold again, and don't forget the keys.

All an all you're looking at about 1,000 dollars for this.

Another thing to remember is that if your dragon's head exceeds 5 inches thick, you should probably be looking at a gel filled silicone piece, which requires an injection mold and vacuum seal.

Don't limit yourself by simply picking silicone! You could do a ton of stuff with this, and a lot of really awesome cosplayers have done some incredible smaug cosplays!

This one in particular, though I know it's not what you want, but if you look at the scaling on her breast it looks extremely realistic.

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/346/7/1/smaug_cosplay_by_ravengrl14-d6xr2tx.jpg

Good luck!

[Seatan]

I don't actually like scale mail very much. I do think it looks like armor. I'm not sure I conveyed the image of what I want very well... Those examples are cool looking, but they are nothing like what I want. What I want is what I designed. I WOULD use Worbla if I wanted to make flat scale armor as showed. This is basically a dragon wrapped around my body, hugging it very tightly. The head and the wrapped tail are raised, but not much. Foam latex would not be a good choice. Foam latex in general is best used only a few times as it tears much more easily than regular latex, is more sensitive to certain chemicals, and will eventually degrade and fall apart in a year or so. Also, you can never cook again in an oven that you cooked foam latex in, so even if my oven was big enough, I would have to build an oven. Latex, on the other hand, would work as it has a much longer life span and is much hardier. I have cast latex before, but never silicone. I was just wanting opinions from the many silicone tail makers here as to whether it would be a good choice. After getting my tail, I really love the feel of the stuff, and its relative hardiness (I hate how careful you have to be about storing latex not to end up with the closet equivalent of the Great Sex Toy Travesty--a drawer full of melted latex!)

I agree, caltuna, latex would be lighter and somewhat cheaper, and it may simply be that not using latex would be an excuse for me to play with Dragonskin. Though I really do hate how it can rot, its storage issues, and the fact that even after you seal it, you need to be careful who you hug because lots of people have such serious latex allergies. That was one thing I learned from being in the fetish community--be careful who you brush with your latex clothing!!! You do not want to be responsible for other people's hives! I'm glad you like the design. I want Smaug as my bodybuddy. ;P

[MerEmma]

I love the second design and I dunno, I don't see there being an issue with making it from silicone...if you lined it with mesh then it would keep its shape, be stretchier, etc.

[emma11]

I didn't mention worbla the second time? You asked for opinions and in my opinion I don't think silicone is the logical way to go. Latex would be number one, but you said you didn't want that, so I'm just giving you other potential ideas.

I'm not trying to tell you what to do, just giving options since that's what you requested. I've used all these materials before, and the concern is the head piece. Just dragon skin silicone isn't the most efficient way to make that dragons head. The body will be fine, depending on how large the head on your shoulder piece is, that's where most of the weight balance is going to be thrown off. It looks large compared to the rest, which is why I suggested gel filled silicone. That would alleviate some of the weight since you want to go with silicone.


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[Mermaid Lorelei]

I believe you could make it with silicone just fine, but I do think you would need to address a few things first.

Would you cast the head and tail completely out of silicone, or (due to their thickness) simply wrap a layer of silicone around a different material core?
What hardness are you looking for in the scales? If you like the feel of your tail, then you might not have a problem, but if you want the scales to be tough like a reptile, you'll want to use a different shore grade of silicone than what was used for your tail.
Would you attach the silicone to an underlining of fabric or mesh, or simply leave the silicone bare to touch your skin? This could cause issues with sagging in some places, and strange wrinkles in others (as well as create a sweat bath inside the dress).

There's other things to think about, but I just got home from a full day of flying, so my brain is a bit fried. In all, yes, silicone would work. It just has different questions to answer than other special effects materials.

[jazz2453]

I personally would cast a thin layer of dragon skin and back everything with expanding silicone foam that I found on the Smooth-on website.


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[jazz2453]

http://www.smooth-on.com/index.php?cPath=1253


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[PrettyScorpio]

I make armour. I also make scale maille armour.

I can promise you there is no way to make a scale armour do what you want. I have made a skin tight scale dress for a client but it had lacing points in three places to make it skin tight and so the actress could get in it. (Hidden by the rest of the costume) Armour does not stretch .

[Mermaid Wesley]

I started to answer this before realizing that it's over a year old. Lol I wonder if it ever got made...


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