hiya! a couple years back, i made my little sister a fabric tail with cuttlefish ruffles, and i never got around to posting about it! it was sort of a last-minute project i made before going on vacation in the summer of 2014.... i made it in like, 3 days i think? speedy stuff...
[she wouldn't pose for pictures]
it's made of black spandex with a turquoise foil coating, and the ruffles are made of stretch mesh [bought all of it from spandexworld]. the ruffles are actually a bit interesting- they're flounce ruffles! they were cut on a curve, not gathered. so they're very flowy in the water, but still seamless like a real cuttlefish! i got the idea based on the hyperbolic geometry sea creatures like coral, cuttlefish, and sea slugs are structured with, where a "straight line" is actually a curve. which... maybe doesn't make a ton of sense to say, but basically, it's one of these
they're the same shape! the ruffles are similar in structure to the ones real sea creatures have, so the look really organic in the water. unfortunately i don't have an underwater camera, but here's a couple pics of them on land...
i painted the fluke with jacquard lumiere paints, and heat-set it with a hair dryer. the paints didn't take well to the foil coating at all, but in my experience they are great on fabric that doesn't have a coating... still looked pretty cool tho
this is the finished tail about a year later.... as you can see, some of the paint is flaking off. understandable, considering the paint doesn't bond to foil and that thing has honestly taken a real beating, lol. still, it's held up a lot better than i thought it would! the fabric itself has been really wonderful- almost zero flaking, and still shiny even today after 2 years of use! the mesh has never frayed or torn at all, either, which is really excellent. i love the flowyness of stretch mesh too.... i highly recommend it
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