Starting a sequin tail!

Wow. okay. im so excited for my new project. i have decided to make a second tail (the first one is all worn out, ripped, stretched) but its inspired by the amazing Hannah Fraser. :) I'm going to make a neoprene sequined tail! i know it will be very laborious but in the end i know it will be well worth it. I'm still deciding wether i should cover the whole tail with sequins or just part of it. Hannah Fraser's signature blue tail is a good example of what I'm going to try and achieve. she's modified in by putting sequins around her waist and fluke and it still looks dazzling.

http://www.hannahfraser.com/mermaid/...nceid=324&p=76 if you click on picture number 10, it a perfect example of what i would hope to achieve if i were to cover the entire thing.

i have already ordered a finis competitor monofin, the largest you can choose from, and and it should be arriving in the mail any day now. :) once it arrives I'm going to order the 4mm thick neoprene to paint and sew on.

here is the quick sketch i did of how I'm going to want my tail to look.
Attachment 1855
you might not be able to see it, but i will be using rubber matting or vinyl floor matting for the fins on the back side of the tail, the back of and bottom of the fluke and some on the side of my waist. super excited!

just make sure you do not copy her ideas exactly.good luck.

I really love the colors =)
I can't wait to see this done!

Nyorio your sketch it's beautiful! There are some news? *w*

odette-
oh of course! i know to respect hannah's original design. no copy cats here. :)

so i ordered the monofin at the beginning of the month and have gotten no word about it till now! it should be here between the 28th of this month and the 5th of march. apparently they wait until its ordered before they actually make it... :P
i also found a great website for sequins of all different colors. I'm planning on using the shell shaped ones. the more texture the cooler it will look. :)

http://www.ccartwright.com/shells.html

here is a picture of my monofin. its huge! i just got it today and its in perfect shape. although i was worried the sockets for my feet would be to big, they fit just fine when i wear socks, so I'm going to order neoprene socks. better safe than sorry. :) when i put the mono fin on the ground it went nearly a foot past my knee, and I'm 5 8'. so yeah it big. now to order the neoprene!
Attachment 2034
sorry i couldn't get any other pictures on. my computer is being weird...

Wow. Yeah, that's big. XD

Thts huge! Are all of their monofins tht big?! :0

Yeah this one is the finis competitor monofin. It's supposed to be the largest of all the different monofins. :) but it is the most expensive....

News? ^_^

so i was able to cut my monofin today! hooray! it was really scary cuz i didn't want to mess anything up, but it turned out quite nicely!
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...type=1&theater
sorry, but I'm having to post my picture to Facebook then link them here....my computer doesn't like this site for some reason...
well anyway, i didn't cut all the way to the edges because I'm going to add rubber or some other stiff material to extend the fluke a little more.
im ordering the neoprene today so it should come some time next week. then the real work begins... :)

Hmm, I got this when I clicked on the FB link:

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At any rate, HOORAY for successfully cutting your monofin! That first cut must have been nerve-wracking. :) Can't wait to see how it turned out!

That's what I got to. I wanna see! :D

Sounds like you are really going strong with this! Keep up updated for sure. I'd like to see how it turns out :)

Thanks you guys xD I'll try and keep the updates coming. :)
And I'll deffinetly work on fixing my computer so I can actually post the pictures... :)

They have cool sequins on there. I have yet to purchase anything from them. Have you figured out the amount you will need? I'm making a scaled tail as well but I don't know if I want to fully cover it or just do accents.

yeah I'm going to use the shell shaped sequins. the more texture the better. :) but they are slightly smaller than the round ones so it'll take longer, but i think it will still be worth it.
im not covering the whole tail with sequins though. most around the top, down the sides and around the top of the fluke and maybe on the sides. :) then like hannah mermaid, maybe ill add on more sequins the longer i wear it. change it up every once and a while.

because I'm not covering the whole thing I'm going to buy around 5 bags of sequins (200 per bag for a total of 1000 sequins) which will only cost around 10-15 buck. then ill buy more if i need any.

OKAY! good news and bad news...and then some more good news....

GOOD NEWS
braces are off! whoo! no more metal mouth. haha :)

BAD NEWS
i got an email about my order saying that i ordered 4 different sheets instead of one! thats 300$ more than i was supposed to being paying for! ahhhh! so i quickly called to tell them about the problem and they gladly fixed it. so i ordered the neoprene asking for the size of 60" x 80" in order for the neoprene to fit all the way around my fin + seems but the problem was they don't have neoprene that comes in that size. :( so they called me back telling me the sad news and i had to cancel my order. dang....

GOOD NEWS
so i was talking to my mom about what i would do, along with my seamstress grandma and we solved the problem with the amount of neoprene. i just bought the largest amount they could give me (51"x84") and use the extra pieces after cutting the main pattern, to cover up the rest of the fin. whooo! I'm so glad they are master seamstresses. :)

my neoprene should be coming sometime next week. :) hooray!

Awesome, glad it worked out!

I'm gonna get the bags that have 2000+ and get a few colors. I don't know if that will be enough to cover my tail, but it's a start. I noticed on Hannah's tails, the scales are very close together. I'm going to see if I can get the scales to overlap, but not that much! Also I haven't decided if I want to paint the fluke or sequin it.