Silicone or caulk over spandex bodysuit to add details?

[Arktic]

Has anyone had any experience adding details onto a lycra or spandex bodysuit using silicone sealant or caulk? I'm working on a xenomorph costume for Halloween, and it occurred to me that I could add a lot of the details for the suit with some careful hand-drawn caulk using a calking gun. All those little ridges and veins that give the body some texture. But would it work? Will the caulk be stretchy enough? Will it stick to the bodysuit? Will I be able to paint over it (I'm presuming not, and that the caulk or silicone would need to be tinted first)?

Really appreciate anyone's help here! Thanks

 

[DalekNim]

The best advice when trying a new technique is to just go ahead and try it. It's really the only way to learn and see what works. Personally I don't think that the silicon out of a caulking gun will stick to a lycra suit permenantly. What should stick to Lycra is hot glue from a hot glue gun. you can buy one at Michael's for about $15. I built an entire Cousin Itt outfit by taking strands of yarn and hot gluing them to a derby hat plus using and old fly fishing vest and hot gluing more yarn to fill it out. You could buy some surgical rubber tubing in various diameters which is very flexible and then just hot glue the tubing to the Lycra suit in whatever design you wanted ...

 

[Astyanax]

Yeah, good call, and you can buy hot glue sticks in black as well!

 

[DalekNim]

Hot glue is really a good go-to adhesive because not only does it stick to almost anything, you can still remove it from non porous surfaces if necessary. I used it everywhere for running the wires in the electrical systems for my Dalek. Sticks to wood and fiberglass with ease but is removable if I need to redo wiring

 

[JPH]

Has anyone had any experience adding details onto a lycra or spandex bodysuit using silicone sealant or caulk? I'm working on a xenomorph costume for Halloween, and it occurred to me that I could add a lot of the details for the suit with some careful hand-drawn caulk using a calking gun. All those little ridges and veins that give the body some texture. But would it work? Will the caulk be stretchy enough? Will it stick to the bodysuit? Will I be able to paint over it (I'm presuming not, and that the caulk or silicone would need to be tinted first)?

Really appreciate anyone's help here! Thanks

For spiderman suits I think folks used puffy fabric paint.

A spandex suit usually stretches AAAAALLLLOOOOTTT.

Caulk or hot glue isnt going to stretch and bend like that.

I think there are other threads here on RPF of people adding web details to Spiderman suits with puffy fabric paint.

 

[Korvus]

In my research to make a Borg costume I found they used a silicone caulking to help with the suit mold:

Did you end up using some, how'd you go?