My friend is working on making a Leeloo costume. Does anyone have an idea on how to make her orange suspenders?
My friend is working on making a Leeloo costume. Does anyone have an idea on how to make her orange suspenders?
It's kinda late for me to try to answer this, but I might as well while I am here cruising the RPF. Never know when I'll be back online.
When I made my groups orange suspenders in 2004 I used Smooth-on's EcoFlex 5 and it was waaaaay too stretchy. I would probably recommend Ecoflex 20, maybe even 30. The silicone only needs to be 1/4 inch thick or so, and at that thickness, the silicone will absorb body heat easily and that will soften the material up even more.
I drew out a pattern of the suspender shape needed on a piece of mylar film, laid the mylar down onto a flat and LEVEL surfurce, then superglued 3/4 inch tall walls along the pattern lines with .020 styrene. Where need be, I added triangle supports to the outside of the walls. I also added cut acyrlic tubes where the holes in the suspenders were. (Better to add the holes in now, then try to punch the holes out of the silicone later and risk a tear/nick in the silicone.)
I mixed about .5 ounces of Yellow Silc-pigment and .5 ounces of Red silc-pigment into a cup, then added 7/8 of that to a container with a half quart of the PART-A of the silicone liquid (you'll need to save a little of the pigment for later on). I mixed the pigment up really homogeneous like, then poured that into a container with the correct amount of PART-B silicone. Mix-mix-mix... then slowly and steadily poured that into my rudimentary form.
Allow the silicone to cure out the appropriate time, then carefully pull it out of the form. Where I needed to join two ends together (usually at the shoulders , sides and under-groin) I mixed up a little batch of silicone, added the saved pigment and used that as a glue to bond the open ends together.
Hope this directions are easily understood enough. Ask questions here in this thread if they are not.
