mirrored eyeball

cunningham

Well-Known Member
I am making a mask and would like it to have dome-like eyeballs that I can see through, but won't allow someone looking at me to see my eyes behind them. The closest thing I can think of to describe them would be something very like the aliens from "They Live". If anyone has a good idea I would very much appreciate something as I am stumped. Thanks.
 
mirrored sunglasses with transparent domes glued on top could work i guess.
You could shade the domes inside with transparent paint or a mist of alclad chrome to make them less obvious.
 
I've seen people make mirrored visors with Shrapnel from Imperial Surface Technologies with much success. It is a fantastic product. You'd have to see this stuff in person to believe it.

It can be very pricy though, not sure how it compares to alclad in performance or price but every other metal paint I've found has been blown clear out of the water by IST products.
 
The IST metal paints are indeed superior, but, as you said, much pricier. Alclad chrome starts at about 2 oz for $8 and is often at your local hobby shop. The Imperial stuff (Shrapnel and Alumaluster) is considerably more.
The durability is about the same, in my experience, and the application technique is also the same.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions, I think i will try the Alclad - expensive but my working area is small so it should go a long way. A metal paint just never occurred to me.
 
I wonder if you can still see through the metal paint once build up to a mirror shine.
My best suggestion would still be wearing mirror sunglasses behind the transparant domes to restrict the viewer from seeing your eyes.
If you can vacuumform,..i would try to shape a compact disc into domes.
You can see through a cd i've noticed while looking at a sun eclips a couple of years ago.
Maybe heating a cd on a flame could do the trick aswell.
Succes and keep us informed
 
I wonder if you can still see through the metal paint once build up to a mirror shine.


The IST paint needs very very little pigment on the piece to give a mirror finish. It doesn't take a "build up" at all to achieve it. I'm sure Alclad will be very similar, if not exactly the same. The visibility of pieces I've seen done with both Alumaluster and Shrapnel have been out of this world. (Pardon the pun.. they we're used as test visors on a space helmet. :lol )




Great to know ChickenHaunt. I'll definitely pick some Alclad up and run a few tests. If it is comparable at that lower price point I may use it for my home projects.
 
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Yep, in fact, the trick with these paints is to use a pretty small amount. If you put too much on, the mirror effect goes away, and it looks like silver spray paint. You usually want to do it over gloss black, so, to make sure you're seeing what the effect will actually be like, I'd try putting your eye forms on a black surface before painting.
 
well, acrylic hemispheres are easy, you can find them on the web or at Hobby Lobby.

For a true mirrored look, they need to be vacuum metalized, which is expensive. Although, I might try spraying a light dusting of chrome paint on the inside and see if that works for you. If it doesn't, you wasted less than $5.
 
I've heard of using auto-glass tint, but it'd be a b*tch if not impossible to apply to a dome, I'd imagine!
There's also auto-tint paints as well I think.

I have a bunch of security camera domes that are tinted dark-- if you paint your face black under the mask, you'd see very little through them, really, which was my plan until they were definitely too large for my project when they arrived. I've slush-cast some domes with black tinted SmoothCast 325 and I can see surprisingly well out of them, too.
 
In a pinch, you could try what some of the Halo 405th guys would do for their Master Chief Helmet visors (Testors buffing aluminum metallizer and the desired color of your choice). Did this for some eye pieces/blocks for some Transformers helmets. Visibility is entirely dependent on how consistent you can be on a paint job, but you can do multicolor/graphical one way mirrored "domes" this way.
 
I actually just got done using the Alclad II Chrome on a visor I did on my build. Turned out pretty fantastic, I thought! I've never seen a paint look so chrome-like, especially with it still being see-thru. I'd highly recommend it if you've got a custom shape that can't use sunglass lenses.

20150907_113312.jpg
 
I actually just got done using the Alclad II Chrome on a visor I did on my build. Turned out pretty fantastic, I thought! I've never seen a paint look so chrome-like, especially with it still being see-thru. I'd highly recommend it if you've got a custom shape that can't use sunglass lenses.

Whoa, that did work out really well. So no base coat under that at all eh, just straight Alclad II Chrome on top?
 
You got it - on the inside tho. Outside works too and makes it much easier to clear coat and polish. I used the outside for the color layer. The chrome paint is extremely fragile so a top coat is a must and the more you can polish it the easier it is to see out of. You can check out my short tutorial on my method here. Hope this helps!
 
excellent result!
I am not sure if i fully understand your method though,..
Did you spray a gloss clear coat over the alclad chrome aswell?
What i get from your explanation is the following:

1)inside of dome:alclad chrome,.. then not sure!,..followed by a gloss clear coat?
2)outside of dome:tamiya clear color followed by a gloss clear coat

So,..if you did put a gloss clear coat on top of the alclad aswell ,did it take away some of the shinyness of the alclad that is visible from the outside of the dome
All the clears i use definitely take away some of the alclad chrome's shine even the alclad aqua gloss.
 
Voodoocaster - Yes sorry if I didn't make that clear; I did spray the clear over the top of the chrome as well, but two thinish layers just to protect the surface, nothing thick like the outside. I didn't notice any difference in shinyness from the outside before vs. after, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen at least a little. The pic I posted before is the before clear picture and the only afters I have are also after the color went on so it's hard to tell.
So just to clarify:
1.) inside, chrome (ultra-light coat)
2.) outside, color (several light coats)
3.) outside, clear (one light coat, two heavy coats)
4.) inside, clear (two medium coats)
5.) outside, sand, polish, wax
 
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