Fancy Fish Fashions: silicone flukes/fins for tails and fancy beaded swim tops

[Dancing Fish]

I'm rather terrified to announce that I've finally opened an Etsy shop for my beaded mermaid bras. I just love seeing them all up there, finally, so colorful! I'll have other mermaid themed stuff posted soon, including (hopefully) weighted blankets and sequined beach bags. Check out Fancy Fish Fashions! (Dancing Fish Designs was already taken, drat it.) If you're from Mernetwork I'll give you a 15% discount...assuming I can figure out how. I've only been playing on Etsy for a few hours!

Far off in the future I'd love to add sequin tails with silicone flukes to my shop. But before I jump into serious designing, I'd love some feedback from anyone who already has a neoprene/sequin tail, preferably with sequins sewn on instead of glued-- how is it holding up for you? Is it difficult to maintain? Do the sequins wear out after a few dunkings or are they pretty strong? If anyone has a Mermaid Shelly tail with the large sequins, I'd love to hear about how they lasted. If the sequins were all falling off, breaking, or peeling apart after a year then it's not worth it. Also, is there anyone interested in being a tester for a neoprene/big sequin/silicone fluke tail? The cost would be in the $300-400 range, not including monofin.

[Mermaid Caspiana]

Just favorited your shop. Your products look great!

[Mermaid Lorelei]

Your tops are breathtaking!

[Mermaid Jaffa]

I love the pink bra! But too big for me. I may end up buying one because I'm currently failing at all my fish bras!

[Mermaid Lorelei]

This is by far my favorite! I just wish it wasn't so tiny! :P
https://www.etsy.com/listing/3871401..._home_active_6

[Dancing Fish]

Thanks so much! I was really nervous. .
Many of these tops could be made in different sizes. I'm working on a 42DD right now.

[Trade Winds]

I love that lily of the lake bra!!!! Too bad that band size is faaaar too big for me.

[Mermaid Arabella]

Oooooh, I love the idea of the separate fluke!! I'd love to make myself a silicone (or at least hybrid) tail, but in a 1 bedroom apartment, I just don't have the space (let alone ventilated space) to do that! But I might jump on that fluke! I need to go home and measure my monofin, haha!

[Elodea the Mermaid]

OMG Dancing Fish! I was literally just talking to Theo about a separate fluke situation!! And yours is one of my all time favorite sculpts. I will be patronizing your shop very soon!!

[Mermaid Freyja]

Adding to the cheers, I will also say that I adore the idea of a separate fluke base! I too, live in cramped quarters, and while I still have enough room for large sewing projects, it's not the right kind of environment for large sculpts and full scale molds.
I've been hoping to do a fabric/neoprene and silicone finned hybrid tail, and this would make things SO much easier!
Rock on with your Etsy awesomeness, Dancing Fish! xoxo

[Dancing Fish]

Oh, wow, seriously?! I've never seen anyone selling fluke covers on Etsy before so I assumed there was no market for it. I wasn't even sure what to call them when I posted it on a whim! Would anyone be interested in boatload of individual scales, or untinted scale sheets, too? I don't have the time to put full tails together, because fitting is the hardest part, but I can certainly offer premolded pieces for DIYers. My daughter wants a silicone fluke on her next tail, and I need to make a smaller sculpt for her anyway. So hopefully I'll have a couple of fluke styles available, as well as some hip/ankle fins. The plan is to have it fit the Fin Fun shapes so folks can just encase their preexisting monofins instead of making entire new inserts.

Cool!

And to the other folks-- I can easily adjust straps if you like a bra. I can go smaller or remove the original straps and go bigger. Or lop straps off entirely and add fishnetting. Customizing the existing bras is totally easy. I should totally put that up there.

[Fifi Tigg]

Your fluke is beautiful
Just thought I would let you know I am making a silicone fluke which was ordered back in March after my clients photo shoot and I don't want anyone thinking I stole your idea. It's scheduled to start in October

[Mermaid Freyja]

...So hopefully I'll have a couple of fluke styles available, as well as some hip/ankle fins. The plan is to have it fit the Fin Fun shapes so folks can just encase their preexisting monofins instead of making entire new inserts.

Yeah! I'd definitely be interested in hip, ankle and a dorsal (if dorsal fins are ever something you end up making, too) <3!

[Dancing Fish]

Hey Fifi, no problem!
And Freyja, I was considering sculpting a matching dorsal, actually. I already have a mold I made that I never used of a larger fin...perhaps I should pour some silicone into it and see how it turned out...

[Dancing Fish]

Now offering little and big silicone fins! PM me for the coupon code.

[Mermaid Aria]

Those purple ones are gorgeous! I need to get some of these when I get around to making my tail

Sent from my LG-D851 using Tapatalk

[Mermaid Jaffa]

Looking at the monofin cover, is it a thing where you can attach it to a tail body?

I'm not understanding how it works.

Plans to fit a Sun Tail Nunui?

[Dancing Fish]

Thanks Aria!
Jaffa, it's just two silicone flaps, intended for folks who are making silicone tails. I'm assuming the person who buys them has read about making tails. I call them covers because if I called them flukes, someone would think they were getting a full monofin-containing fluke. I can embed fabric so one can sew it to a fabric tail. There's also threads here about how to attach them to fins.

As a matter of fact, I'm working on a silicone cover for Fin Fun fins so my daughter can play. I assume Sun Tails are similar in size. If you posted measurements of their monofin with a pic, or even better a comparison of their fin with a Fin Fin fin, I could tell you for certain. With a spandex tail you can easily adhere the silicone directly to the spandex. But we're going to try it just as a removable cover that you just stretch over the fin first, because how cool would that be?

[Mermaid Jaffa]

The Sun Tail monofin is much bigger in all directions, than the Fin Fun. Its nearly the same size and width as an adult merfin.

Anyways, no hurry, I'm just looking at future options and such.

[Dancing Fish]

New H2O-inspired fluke shape, with a Fancy Fish flair! Available soon! This one fits a Rapid or a Fin Fun monofin.
I was experimenting with the top, so I cut off the top portion in these examples. The full mold is shown below. The scale pattern didn't turn out all that well, so I'm filling it in so that portion will be untextured to match the upper portion of the fin.

Attachment 37961

And yes, that's a sequin tail in progress. For my daughter, who said, "just mix the two colors together." We'll see how it goes!

And sadly, I had to raise my prices for the silicone flukes and fins...because I'll get maybe 3 whole flukes out of each $200+/gallon order. Woah! What's this stuff made out of, real platinum?!