Lizard Skin, Part Two
Last week, i posted the first half of a two-parter on how third-year grad student Adrienne Corral has been creating a range of different samples for a lizard-skin costume effect, using the silicone effect known as gicking. I left y'all on a cliffhanger with the spandex stretched and masked, and here's what happened next.
First up, Adrienne applied clear silicone bathroom caulk to the stretched samples in a series of dots and blobs and stripes. For most of the samples she left the caulk thick, but for some she scraped some away with a squeegee to leave a thinner amount to bond with the fabric.
Adrienne Corral scrapes the caulk across the surface of the spandex with a rigid squeegee.
After the caulk is applied it gets sandwiched with a top layer of clear vinyl and rolled flat with a rolling pin.
We put some glitter in there on some of them...
After curing for 24 hours and peeling the vinyl top layer off, Adrienne applied some foiling to the still-tacky caulk surface. The result was this effect we decided to call "Disco Blisters." The big wrinkly ones are the squeegeed sections.
Here's the sample with glitter scattered into it from before, once it comes off the stretcher boards.
Same diamond masking technique but with wider masks.
Eww! Yucky-cool!
One of the samples on which Adrienne painted into green ground fabric before applying the caulk.
Another sample on which Adrienne painted into ground fabric (in this case white spandex) before applying the caulk. Refer back to Part One of the post to see what they looked like before caulking.
These, I like to think of as "Barbie Blisters."
So, there's our set of lizard skin samples on spandex! Of course, we are also looking at the possibility of using embossed vinyl or crocodile leather, because at this point in the process it's all still very much in development. As more happens with the lizard, i'll share more, but for now, I hope the disco-blisters adventure was worth the wait.
First up, Adrienne applied clear silicone bathroom caulk to the stretched samples in a series of dots and blobs and stripes. For most of the samples she left the caulk thick, but for some she scraped some away with a squeegee to leave a thinner amount to bond with the fabric.
Adrienne Corral scrapes the caulk across the surface of the spandex with a rigid squeegee.
After the caulk is applied it gets sandwiched with a top layer of clear vinyl and rolled flat with a rolling pin.
We put some glitter in there on some of them...
After curing for 24 hours and peeling the vinyl top layer off, Adrienne applied some foiling to the still-tacky caulk surface. The result was this effect we decided to call "Disco Blisters." The big wrinkly ones are the squeegeed sections.
Here's the sample with glitter scattered into it from before, once it comes off the stretcher boards.
Same diamond masking technique but with wider masks.
Eww! Yucky-cool!
One of the samples on which Adrienne painted into green ground fabric before applying the caulk.
Another sample on which Adrienne painted into ground fabric (in this case white spandex) before applying the caulk. Refer back to Part One of the post to see what they looked like before caulking.
These, I like to think of as "Barbie Blisters."
So, there's our set of lizard skin samples on spandex! Of course, we are also looking at the possibility of using embossed vinyl or crocodile leather, because at this point in the process it's all still very much in development. As more happens with the lizard, i'll share more, but for now, I hope the disco-blisters adventure was worth the wait.