Skin question about airbrushing...

[FirstHuntress]

Hi all. My previous Predator costumes were worn over my skin which I painted up with creme application costume make up. My husband convinced me to use a body suit because he could paint it up and get more color and detail. I was not happy with the body suit because while it might have offered a more prominent skin color pattern, it definetly lost a lot of my natural cleavage..... er.... features. Which I think is an important part of the costume.

My suit is currently under construction once again for the zillionth time and I am reverting back to my natural cleavage... err... skin... for the next costuming events...I even have all new chest armor, and am working on .... umm... losing weight.

At any rate, I have loaded up with my creme make up for full body painting, but I was wondering... is it hard to learn to air brush?? I know absolutely nothing about air brusing at all. I know we do have an air brush, and that's about it. I don't think we have a small compressor, which I am assuming you kind of need to air brush? What kind of paints would you use to paint your body (you know, that actually comes off without a wire brush and paint thinner!!!), and would it be difficult to air brush my body? I think it might prove physically challenging to air brush my own back or back of my thighs, but I mean in theory, is it hard for a complete novice to learn to air brush? Would that be a good idea to do that? It takes me close to an hour to do the creme make up as it is, and if I go detail crazy with the creme and make up pencils, drawing on spots and stuff, it takes a good 2 hours just to do the skin, so I don't mind spending the time. But I am not sure I am capable of learning to do something like airbrushing out of the blue with no prior exposure to it.

Suggestions? Thanks!


Please check out my website with pictures & fan fiction by me! www.predatorfanfiction.webs.com

 

[fritzagelmann]

I have only limited experience painting flesh with an airbrush, but have had decent results. Another thing you might want to consider is liquid latex, you can get absolutely amazing results with it, for example:

 

[esdain]

BOOBIES!!!!
nice paint up, and airbrushing isn;t hard to learn the basics of, just takes a fair bit of practice, like many things, the more you do the better you get. as for painting yourself, good luck with that, i am left handed and painted my right forearm for a giggle, looked ok, painting my left arm tho, hmm, yeah right, looked like a big slodgey mess of sick,. my advice, learn to airbrush, and then get someone to paint your body, sure there'll be plenty of volunteers might be best to get hubby to do it tho

 

[Air Elmo66]

Well you can airbrush an skin suit lycra suit but I do not know about airbrushing skin. I know you can use Pro's Aide on skin but I know that they sell paint for skin as you can see that picture on your page. I seen your website. Is that a lycra suit. ? You can airbrush that suit with detail. You dont even have to ruin your skin. That I know really takes time to wash off. This is my lycra suit I did for myself this past Halloween. My first time using airbrush. Look around before committing to skin paint.

 

[Ei luj]

FirstHuntress

I don't know about whether you can put bodypaint into the airbrush bottle, it may need to be thinned and then I'm not sure how that would work on the body... hmmm, I have an old Badger airbrush that I may try that out with....
But thinning the creme makeup might make it come off

Harbor Freight sells air compressors, and you may need an adaptor depending on what brand of airbrush & hose you have.
(what brand is it, I have a Paasche single action, and also an Iwata triple tip)

@ fritzagelmann
does that latex bodypaint rub off easily or not?

---
Ei'luj

 

[BedlamX]

I've used latex body paint before for a couple of costumes. It is probably your best bet for this idea as it does not run with perspiration, does not smear, and comes off by simply peeling it. I've never air brushed it before, but it is pretty easy to work with using brushes.

Just make sure you don't get it in your hair (on the head or body). It is a pain in the butt to get out of hair. As a guy, I have to shave before applying it to my face since it sticks to any little hairs and pulls when you peel it off. If you wind up using it on the face, use eyebrow wax (theatrical make-up stuff...not the stuff to rip hair out with ) to cover your eyebrows before painting and you should have no problem (probably won't affect you with a pred, but figured I'd throw that in for general purpose advice ).

 

[fritzagelmann]

The latex body paint is pretty resilient. As mentioned it dosnt run or anything with body sweat. in addition it is very flexible, so moves well with ones body. lastly if a rip does occur, just carry a lil pot around with you and apply to fix it up. Great for concerts, cons, and bad clubs alike!

 

[FirstHuntress]

Now, I seriously doubt I can paint up my body to look quite like that woman, but that is amazing. So what is latex body paint exactly? Do you put it on with a brush? Where do you get it ? I would be going for a much simpler scheme, which is good for me because as seen by all my previous painting examples (on my website images) I am no painter! TALENT is something I am lacking in large quantities (is that an oxymoron?).....

At least the good thing is with my predator suit is that there is not a lot of sweating involved, since it is not an "enclosed" suit. as long as I don't have to pee I can wear it all day strong and not break a sweat.

That was a lycra suit in the images on my web in the more recent costume pictures. It's good for a quick dress up but it really loses so much of the detail and I never liked the paint job that got applied to it either... too dark. I prefer slightly lighter colors (P2 esque...).

 

[Xalener]

Don't forget to shave .

With all of the latex peeling and what-not.

 

[Dark Huntress]

When I was making my suit I didnt want to look bulky at all . I thought about applying paints to my skin, but honestly that would take WAY too long and not be worth suiting up lol.. it takes long enough to get my gear on as it is.

You can use that lycra suit you have and apply liquid latex, then airbrush whatever paint scheme you'd like onto it. I had never had any experience at all with airbrushing and it was extremely easy.. now as far as you wanting to keep your cleavage... I had originally intended to make my own chest piece.. I made a plaster cast of my chest, and planned on making a thick latex chest piece with armor sculpted onto it.. my fiance bought me the bob bagy chest piece so that was taken care of.. but that's always an idea..

another benefit of having the latex suit is it has more of a glossy look to it...makes the costume more believable..

here are a few pictures of my finished suit..

If you were ever interested in making a latex suit, pretty much anyone on the boards here has had experience with that and could help you, I also have a WIP thread from start to finish you could scan over

Femme Pred WIP

good luck!! hope this helps

 

[Ei luj]

DarkHuntress, FirstHuntress,

I've got the cotton/lycra bodysuit & wear a bra underneath to help things out
I hope to put enhancements into my next suit.....

hmmm, have y'all seen masterpoo's thread on the fem. armor he's making?
I wonder when he will get to the chest piece

anyway, I think it would take a long time to do bodypaint.

Check out Paintninja's costume he wore to Dragon con, its a bodysuit and it has some rather striking colors that stand out pretty good. (Atlanta at the end of August gets rather muggy )

---
Ei'luj

 

[FirstHuntress]

Dark Huntress, that suit looks sweet...... SO, that is a lycra suit with liquid latex over it? And then airbrushed... huh? So... does the latex make the suit shrink? I think I will have to sew a zipper into the back of mine if that is the case. And you just get regular latex and put it over? Doesn't it peel off ? I use latex for some other costumes and it peels right off my skin. How do you get it to stay on the Lycra, or is there all different types of latex ? Any one in particular you recommend? I suppose I can try doing that, I already have the suit and all.... and wintertime is now my predator project time... And as far as air brushing, do you use any particular type of paint?

 

[Ei luj]

DarkHuntress, FirstHuntress

I think the suit gets latex regular brushed onto it, it will shrink some, and you need the zipper.
They may mix prosaide with it to get it to stick, I know they mix prosaide in with the airbrush paint, 25% prosaide, 75% paint, then the paint will stick. Then you paint with acrylics, and put permawet over it to keep the paint from flaking off.

Here's MacGuyver's huntorial on it

http://www.thehunterslair.com/index.php?sh...amp;hl=latexing

also Obraxis has one

http://www.thehunterslair.com/index.php?sh...amp;hl=latexing

if there are any other huntorials, post em up, I get a lot of hits when I plug "latexing" into the search engine....

---
Ei'luj

 

[xdmray]

rubber mask grease(RMG) can be used in an airbrush. it just needs to be thinned with alchohol. this is great make up. it is oil based so it needs to be set. but once it is it wont rub off. Graftobian makes great RMG.

xdmray

 

[esdain]

just paint the laytex onto the suit, first layer soaks into the fibers of the lycra, you won;t be seperating that no matter how hard you try, the second layer sticks to the latex that dries sticky, and so on rinse and repeat till you are happy, what i did with mine is mix some paints with the third layers onwards so i didn;t need to paint a base colour.
as for the paints i used, first i used games workshops paints, massive range of colours and mixed with a tiny drop of latex and a little water to thin it down it worked very well, but i noticed that it hasn't peeled but has started to wear back to the base colour in places.
then i got some advice from usurper and now i do everything the same except use fw inks on a layer of prosaide, this seems to work better, sealed with permawet or more accurately over here liquitex medium and gloss.
oh, and yes, you will need a zip it, remember to latex it on a duct tape dummy of yourself so when it does shrink you can still get in it

 

[FirstHuntress]

Thank you.... I think I will be asking a ton more questions as I go through this, and posting progress pictures for help. This will be a project I will most likely start in a week or two. First thing first is to install a zipper. Then make a dummy. Shouldn't be too hard............................................... soo... where exactly do I buy the latex and the paints and the prosaide? Oh boy...

 

[esdain]

over here i get my latex form a local art store, an old man who owns it has taken a liking to my suit progress and will pretty much order me what i need, quite amusing really.
i ordered my prosaide off the interwebz, plenty of places do it but i got mine from mouldlife.com, not cheap but reliable.
as for the paints, if you go with the games workshop route, hmmmm, goodluck over the pond but they are available, as for fw inks, i would guess art supplies, they all over the place here.
now go go buy a few rolls or duct tape and get started

 

[strigoi]

you can find the Latex here as well as the perma wet.

 

[Dark Huntress]

I wish I had mixed prosaid in with my paints, I applied it to the latex BEFORE painting so it would stick, then permawet'd it... now I have some peeling issues where they touch and on the arms... so definately dont do what I did paint-wise lol

 

[FirstHuntress]

Thanks for the links... Now, I have a bottle of "professional grade mold latex" that I use for another costume of mine... Would this be suitable for doing the lycra suit skin? I do not know the brand or anything, it just says Professional grade mold latex. I need to buy more, but if I buy from the Monster Makers & use this will I get any problems like when you use 2 different types of spray paints and they start to peel ?

Also, is prosaide a combination of something? I am trying to recall from a long time ago when I had something for Pro-saide? Don't you need to mix two things together to make it? And the paint?


I think I will install the zipper this weekend and make a dummy. With it being winter, it's a little hard to get things done. Is this something I can do outside in the cold ???