Sashi's Tail Quest

[sashiyoop]

So, a little bit of background: I'm in Australia busy being a foreign exchange student for the next few months, and one of my classes is an art class. In this art class, you can literally do anything you want, as long as you make a folio to track your progress. Seeing the opportunity, and with an excuse and my parents not here to shut the idea down (and enough money to do it), I decided that my form of art would be sewing.

You can probably see where this is going, but for those of you not gifted in such ways, I'm making a mermaid tail for my final project. I need to get my materials together, but I've committed to it in front of other people, which usually forces me to follow through on things.

As you may guess, it'll be a fabric tail (I don't have the money to make a silicone one yet,) but what I'm going to do is cut scales out of green and clear plastic bottles and sew them on. I'm also making my own monofin, so I'll be incorporating the lexan's transparency there, but I have no idea how the plastic will interfere with the tail's swimming capabilities (and I do plan to swim in it), so if anyone has any advice to give, that'd be great. I'll post pictures and stuff when construction gets under way~

[Mermaid Jaffa]

I think it depends on the type of plastic you use. It could be too heavy to swim in.

Other plastic options could be using those colored plastic folders. You know, the really flimsy kind with thin covers. Then you won't have to worry about beveling each scale to round off the sharp edges.

[MerAnthony]

Lexan is the perfect choice to make your monofin. It will NOT break. For it to break you would have to bend it on itself many times before you see any stress. It is the same stuff the make bullet proof glass out of. But you don't want it to thick. 3/32 should be thick enough to make your monofin. You could go a tiny bit thinner, but I wouldn't go to thin because it would not give you enough movement in the water.

[Kishiko]

Instead of plastic you could also do sequins. They are more readily available and have many colors. There are two threads currently in Tailmaking on two different companies: vector enterprises and Cartwright sequins. I like the Cartwright and they have a bunch of big clearance sequins atm. (: good luck!

[sashiyoop]

@ireneho I didn't even think about that! They whould peobably be easier to use, but I'm not sure because I wanted to do something with recyclables, but I'll definately keep that in mind. :)

@MerAnthony yeah, I was wondering about thickness. Now I just gotta convert that to cm.

[sashiyoop]

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The colors are slightly off as colors tend to be in photos, and the fabric is actually a lot less blue in real life (stop it, spell check. color is a perfectly acceptable way to spell the word). I may have accidentally gotten twice as much fabric as I needed, so I'll be able to make just a simple fabric tail along with the more detailed scaled tail. Yay. Maybe a bikini top, too.

[sashiyoop]

Update: Progress is starting to actually be made. I got a hole punch for the plastic, but it doesn't seen to work on anything, and I'm just gonna go with Kishiko's suggestion of sequins. It'll be a lot less trouble, even with painting them by hand, which I intend to do. I have some friends who have volunteered to help me out on that front.I got my Lexan, and while it's a tad thicker than I expected it to be, it's a good size for a monofin. It's definitely bigger than my current monofin, and I won't have to worry about the fin ends folding over themselves.

[sashiyoop]

I've traced out my fluke pattern on my lexan and made the pattern for the fabric.

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Now on to cutting out the fabric! (uhg kill me, this is my least favorite part)

[Mermaid Galene]

Excellent progress!

[sashiyoop]

Thanks! I've got everything cut out and I'm starting on the sewing, but I'm gonna wait until I have more pics and just dump them in one post 'cause it's a lot easier mass downscaling them to fit the upload restrictions.

[sashiyoop]

I've got the tail sewn and tje monofin in, but those pictures won't be up until I get back to a computer, but I do have a picture of the fluke, which I just painted!

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[Mizuko]

A little off-topic, but how long are you in Adelaide for? :)

[sashiyoop]

I'm going back in the end of June. I've been here for about four months so far.

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[sashiyoop]

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/06/05/jusyzu7e.jpg
Here's the back scales, still drying.
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/06/05/a9anesyv.jpg
The front ones are white in the center and fade to a light purple, and that fades to dark purple on the back.

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[Mizuko]

Beautiful! :D
Have you been for a swim with any of the other mermaids yet? If not and you aren't too busy, we'll have to try organize it before you go home! :D

[sashiyoop]

Miel and I and anyone else who can come are meeting up in Marion on Saturday, but other than that, I don't have any plans.

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[Mizuko]

Ah yes, Miel told me about that! XD I'm still a maybe :( I hope I can make it though!

[sashiyoop]

It would be great if you could!

[sashiyoop]

Went for a test swim today, and the shoes started peeling off the lexan. The glue I used didn't stick to the lexan as well as I hoped. Also, and fin is way too thick. :(

[Mermaid Wesley]

Oh no! What glue did you use?


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[sashiyoop]

A silicone-based glue recommended by someone at the hardware store. Of course, they didn't know it would be for tail swimming, so there's that. I'll probably just redo the entire monofin when I get home.

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[sashiyoop]

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[Mermaid Wesley]

Pretty!!


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