Sh*t No One Tells You About Tailmaking
I'm starting my third tail now for a new client and I wanted to share some of the unexpected things I experienced while making tails thus far. I thought I went into the process fully prepared after reading a million tailmaking threads on here, but there were still some surprises/pitfalls/WTFs. Hopefully someone else can learn from this, and feel free to contribute your own!
1. Holy crap, this shit is HEAVY. I knew that tails themselves were heavy, but for some reason it straight up never occurred to me that each individual component would be heavy as well. Cut to me wrestling an 18lb fluke around my dining room one night, utterly surprised it's so dang heavy.
2. The static. EGADS THE STATIC. I have long-ish hair (just past my shoulder blades) and the first time I pulled silicone from the mould my hair stood up like the bride of Frankenstein. It stuck to each piece so hard I'm amazed I didn't lose huge clumps of hair each time I moved my tail. Eventually I learned to clip my hair up but jeez, it was a huge SHOCK the first time. (See what I did there? :lol:)
3. You will ruin your clothes. I am so pissed that I wasn't more careful with my silicone in the beginning because now there are little spots of it on some of my favorite clothes and they WILL NOT come out. Mixed uncured silicone, unmixed A or B, doesn't matter, it won't come out. The unmixed leaves little spots that just look permanently wet, while the mixed cures and leaves little flecks of silicone embedded in the fabric that sort of flake around the edges and look really weird. Now I "walk wide" around any uncured silicone like it's a particularly angsty horse and I don't want to get kicked. Also, full-body coveralls: https://www.rosiesworkwear.com/category/coveralls/1/ I originally bought these for my painting classes because I'm a super messy painter, but they work well for keeping your clothes free of silicone, too!
4. Rubbing alcohol is your friend. I use it to wipe any lingering skin-oils off the silicone before painting, and for cleaning all my miscellaneous tools that somehow get all silicone-y. It will clean up unmixed components as well as uncured silicone in a snap. It's great for getting silicone off your skin, too, which leads me to...
5. ALWAYS get silicone off your skin as quickly as possible. It itches something fierce if you don't. I get less of a reaction from unmixed components than I do from mixed silicone, but it's very unpleasant and the itch will linger long after you get the silicone off the affected area.
6. You will stab yourself with pins A LOT, even through your gloves. My first tail literally has my blood, sweat, and tears in it lol.
7. Speaking of gloves, buy way more than you think you'll need. I use blue nitrile gloves because they're safe for silicone, and I've gone through over 20 pairs at this point. Some rip when you stab them with pins or scissors, some get so sticky with silicone that you can't get your hand back in them to reuse them, and some just vanish, stolen by the Glove Gnomes for use in their secret underground caves. I rub mine down with rubbing alcohol before taking them off, which helps with the stickiness issue, but you will still go through them like you wouldn't believe.
8. Every second is worth it. When you hold your new tail for the first time, take your first swim... it's magical and I would take a thousand needle stabs and ruined shirts to have my dream tail in my arms. :swoon:
