Scalie scale suit.

It is very odd that you just posted this, as I woke up this morning with the complete design for a T-rex suit this very morning.

To be used in water, a suit can't be expected to be 'waterproof', but you can easily take a suit in water and not damage it (or drown) if it's made with the right materials. You're right that you can't use foam and fur. They both get weighed down with water and will probably pull you under.

You can use fiberglass as a skull structure. I'm not sure about resin; it may be troublesome to cast resin into a full skull structure, but you could certainly try. It takes a knowledge of how to cast resin, though.

Another thing you could use for an underskull is that plastic mesh that you can find at Wal-mart or sewing stores for about fifty cents a sheet. It's very cheap, very durable and lightweight, and if you construct the head well, it should hold it's shape very well and not 'flop' into the wrong shape. (It's floppy by nature, but if you cut pieces and attach them together at angles to design your skull shape, you can increase the strength of it.) Many people use this stuff for foam fursuit head construction, and it works quite well.

If you were to cast an entire suit out of latex, it would need to be done in many parts. You can't just make a mold and cast the entire suit because it'll end up being too 'tight' for you to get into, and the lack of breathability would cause you to sweat profusely. Plus, if you wore it in water like that, it would also fill up with water and probably drown you.

The best way to do it, if you're looking for a 'latex-like' feel, would be to use an 'undersuit' material of something relatively quick-drying or waterproof. (Some kind of strong plasticy water-resistant material would be good; I can't think of the name of anything that immediately comes to mind but you can probably find something at a fabric store. A good, strong pleather might be good (fake leather, the kind that's shiny), but a lot of them are cheaply made so you'd have to find one that's strong enough to 'sew with' so you have a durable suit instead of one that will fall apart.) Then, on top of this undersuit, you can attach the latex pieces that you cast to give it a more realistic, 'scaley' look. I would NOT cast individual scales; it would take ages. But casting things like large square-ish scales down the back, shoulder and arm pieces, leg pieces, etc, would probably work quite well.

Don't get me wrong; casting latex still takes a LOT of time, but it's definately worth it if you're looking for that specific detailed effect. (You need to make the piece you want to cast out of clay, then make a 'negative' mold out of plaster (or another suitable material) around your clay model, then eventually you have a mold you can pour latex into and allow to cure, and then you have your latex piece finished, but this process takes a number of days for each piece you're casting. Plus, you need things like 'mold release', etc, to keep the latex from sticking to your plaster mould.

Casting resin is quite similar, which is what you might want to do for your claws, teeth, etc.

Personally, I'd either go for 'fake eyes' on a T-rex suit, or use your 'real eyes' with coloured contact lenses. You can use sunglasses, but if you're going to go to the trouble of casting latex pieces to make a good-looking suit, I think the sunglass lens idea would take away from the overall effect. The nice thing about sunglasses is that they give you a fairly wide area of visibility, but you can also achieve that using your real eyes, or using fake eyes with a large area for you to see out of around the eye. (Using mesh, etc.)

You probably won't get your head to be 'waterproof' unless you go to a LOT of trouble, so I would plan to get your body and head wet if you want to take this suit in the water, and try to plan around the fact that the whole suit will be soaked through.

Hope that helps;
-Lady Serpent

	Author	Topic: Scalie scale suit. (Read 678 times)
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