Alternative to fx silicone (dragon skin)

[emmaray]

So I've been planning and working on the design for my tail for a month and a half now, and now since I have my monofin ready, I want to add some 'bumps' to it (I'm not coating it in silicone, but rather using it to create the lines in the fluke) what are some ways I can do this without buying dragon skin?


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[emmaray]

This is the fluke by the way!


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[Dancing Fish]

If you want the lines to be silicone, you can get little tubes of squeezy silicone gel that you can apply like puffy paint. They're in kits that are marketed to little girls under the name "gel-a-peel" for making little silicone bracelets and stuff. The gel comes in bright colors, and also metallics. I bought a kit for fun at Target. Here's a link: http://www.target.com/p/gel-a-peel-d...t/-/A-50546661 Not sure if that's what you were looking for, but I've been eying them for awhile. Michael's also has another brand of gel in tubes called Spikeez. The gel also sticks very nicely to Dragon skin and I was considering using them for embellishing my silicone fins and flukes.

[Luna Dreamtide]

Thats a really good idea Dancing Fish! I'd been wondering if the silicone gels using in decoden and similar crafts could be used in that way.

[emmaray]

If you want the lines to be silicone, you can get little tubes of squeezy silicone gel that you can apply like puffy paint. They're in kits that are marketed to little girls under the name "gel-a-peel" for making little silicone bracelets and stuff. The gel comes in bright colors, and also metallics. I bought a kit for fun at Target. Here's a link: http://www.target.com/p/gel-a-peel-d...t/-/A-50546661 Not sure if that's what you were looking for, but I've been eying them for awhile. Michael's also has another brand of gel in tubes called Spikeez. The gel also sticks very nicely to Dragon skin and I was considering using them for embellishing my silicone fins and flukes.

Great idea! Do you think it would stick to acrylic paint?


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[AniaR]

dancing fish for the win that's super cool

[Mermaid_Izzy]

Just thought I would add that the Micheal's in my area have the Spikeez on clearance if you can find it at all because the demand for it was low. It's like $1 per small tube.


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[Dancing Fish]

Great idea! Do you think it would stick to acrylic paint?

I'm not sure...probably depends on how thickly the paint is applied. Silicone sticks to fabric because it can seep in and grab itself through the fibers. When I put dragon skin over thickly painted spandex, it only stuck to the spandex portions (it looked very weird and the paint started chipping off underneath the layer of silicone over time). I haven't tested the tube gel on anything other than more dragon skin.

[emmaray]

I'm not sure...probably depends on how thickly the paint is applied. Silicone sticks to fabric because it can seep in and grab itself through the fibers. When I put dragon skin over thickly painted spandex, it only stuck to the spandex portions (it looked very weird and the paint started chipping off underneath the layer of silicone over time). I haven't tested the tube gel on anything other than more dragon skin.

Awesome! Do you know if it is still okay to paint a fluke with a Acyrillic paint? Like will it chip off or is it safe?


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[Dancing Fish]

I know there are a lot of folks here who paint spandex, though I haven't had a lot of luck with it. Either the paint beads up on the surface, or it soaks right in and turns the color really dark. I was painting diamonds on blue spandex, and using Jacquard Lumiere metallic paints. The silver and metallic blue were beautiful, but the gold and green were AWFUL and needed 5-6 coats to look nice. Experiment! I also had good luck using a white spray fabric paint from Jo Ann, spraying through a mesh overlay (I found this great big diamond mesh at JoAnn around Halloween). I imagine airbrushing would also work well. Just be sure you've pre-stretched the spandex as you paint it. Puffy paint also works well on spandex. Oh! And painting works much better on spandex if it's that printed foil-dot shiny spandex-- the paint sticks nicely to the dots and keeps the colors more true. I was painting just regular blue lycra. LindseyLu has some gorgeous painted spandex here, though I bet she used an airbrush.

Painting on neoprene seems to work better- there's a tutorial here somewhere showing a technique to paint very realistic scales. I think this is it. I couldn't get her technique to work on spandex though.

If you mean painting directly on a rubber/plastic monofin, I can't help with that. I've never tried it! And don't bother painting polycarbonate, nothing sticks to that stuff.

[emmaray]

I know there are a lot of folks here who paint spandex, though I haven't had a lot of luck with it. Either the paint beads up on the surface, or it soaks right in and turns the color really dark. I was painting diamonds on blue spandex, and using Jacquard Lumiere metallic paints. The silver and metallic blue were beautiful, but the gold and green were AWFUL and needed 5-6 coats to look nice. Experiment! I also had good luck using a white spray fabric paint from Jo Ann, spraying through a mesh overlay (I found this great big diamond mesh at JoAnn around Halloween). I imagine airbrushing would also work well. Just be sure you've pre-stretched the spandex as you paint it. Puffy paint also works well on spandex. Oh! And painting works much better on spandex if it's that printed foil-dot shiny spandex-- the paint sticks nicely to the dots and keeps the colors more true. I was painting just regular blue lycra. LindseyLu has some gorgeous painted spandex here, though I bet she used an airbrush.

Painting on neoprene seems to work better- there's a tutorial here somewhere showing a technique to paint very realistic scales. I think this is it. I couldn't get her technique to work on spandex though.

If you mean painting directly on a rubber/plastic monofin, I can't help with that. I've never tried it! And don't bother painting polycarbonate, nothing sticks to that stuff.

Ah thank you for all of this! You're so generous to put the time in to answer in this detail! And I'm actually painting on electrical tape (it's part of an add-on) would that possibly work?


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[Dancing Fish]

Give it a shot and report back to us!