Sans Souci Studios
Follow us on Facebook!
  • Home
  • Gallery
    • Fursuit Heads and Partials
    • Paper Mache Masks 2000- 2014
  • Blog
  • About
    • About
    • Embarking on the Road to Furry Fandom
  • Contact
  • Thanks to Our Supporters!

Making a Quick and Simple Spray Booth for Airbrushing

11/8/2019

0 Comments

 
Geez, I had no idea it's been so long since I've updated my blog! But I have been working steadily and hope to have a new mask to auction soon. Part of the holdup was having a place to paint. 
Spray booth for airbrushing made out of rigid insulation
Diagram showing spray booth and air circulation in room
​I followed the instructions for building a simple spray booth I found in this article in Fine Woodworking magazine. (Link to the article can be found here.) The two illustrations to the left sum up the most relevant info nicely. In summary, the booth is made out of rigid foam insulation and the sides and back are fastened together with duct tape, so it is lightweight, foldable, and easy to transport. The back panel has a hole cut in the center into which a furnace filter is placed. A box fan is set behind the hole for drawing air through the filter. 








The booth is placed in a way to take the best advantage of the room's air circulation, with sources of fresh air in front of it and a means of venting painty air behind it. Since there is no actual ductwork to contain the fumes, the booth does not exhaust them completely, but I can attest that it does cut down considerably the painty mist that otherwise hangs over my work area.  

It's important to note that this booth is only for water based paints such as acrylics. It is definitely not suitable for solvent based paints, that's a whole nuther animal entirely!  

 .





​And now, time for my own booth. ​​Before I did anything else, I made a mockup out of scrap cardboard, to be sure that I would like the dimensions and find it comfortable to work in. I actually wound up doing a fair bit of painting in this mock-up. 
Cardboard mock up of spray  booth for airbrushing a fursuit head



Right, my own booth in progress. ​I used one 4' x 8' sheet of 1/2" thick insulation that I purchased at the local lumberyard. I chose a white color so that as much light as possible would be reflected back onto my work. Since the fiberglass inside the panel was very irritating to my hands, I also put duct tape over all the cut edges to contain it. It's white, so it's hard to see here.  






Spraybooth made of rigid insulation for airbrushing a fursuit head
furnace filter in a DIY spray booth for airbrushing
furnace filter in a DIY spraybooth for airbrushing
​Left, making sure the furnace filter is installed correctly! The arrow has to match the direction of the airflow when the filter is installed.

The filter is a basic, inexpensive one. According to the Fine Woodworking article, a higher grade of filter, one that could screen out microbes, dander, and such, would get filled with paint and plug up too quickly. Here you can also see the duct tape I applied around all the cut edges to contain irritating fiberglass.




​ I also added bulb weatherstripping around the outside of the filter, under the theory it would make the booth more airtight. I'm not sure it was worth the effort. In trying to get the weatherstripping into the gaps I sometimes had to make the gaps larger, so I may have been working counter to my purpose.
​ 
 
plexiglass top for DIY spray booth for airbrushing
diy spray booth made of rigid insulation for airbrushing
 Above, the top for the booth. (Check out how dirty the filter got after only a few uses!) I made the top out of 1/4" plexiglass, not the insulation as in the Fine Woodworking article, as I wanted to be able to get as much light as possible in the booth. Portland Glass cut a piece to my specifications for around $30.  I made a "lip" out of the insulation and hot glued it to the plexi to help keep it in place.
 
diy spray booth for airbrushing a fursuit head
And, ready to rock and roll! Let's get this party started!
0 Comments

Airbrushing fails

12/28/2018

0 Comments

 
Canine resin jawset masked for airbrushing
Canine Resin jawset being airbrushed








Ah, trying to airbrush jawsets with white teeth and pink gums. Much easier said than done. First, the paint has to stick. Second, it has to go where you want it and not where you don't.


If there is even a trace of release on the cast forget it, the paint will not stick. The good news is, resin cast into silicone rubber doesn't really need release! Yay! Unfortunately the paint doesn't like to stick to bare resin either, and according to the saints at Smooth On Technical Support there are very few primers that will help. One is the Bulldog Adhesion Promoter shown here. The other is Plasticote Sandable Primer Enamel.


The areas where paint is not wanted need to be masked. What to use? Liquid frisket came first to mind, here applied with silicone shaper tools. (The frisket would quickly ruin a regular paintbrush.) For me, this was very tricky and took several hours to apply. I only attempted masking the teeth with the frisket, as I was completely daunted by the much larger surface area of the gums.

.




Below, the gums airbrushed and the frisket removed.
Airbrushed canine resin jawset
Not too bad, except that the paint was still fairly fragile and the frisket would pull bits of it off around the gumline. I was not convinced this would be the go to method.
Canine resin jawset masked for airbrushing
Canine resin jawset being airbrushed
Airbrushed canine resin jawset






I hit the airbrush forums looking for a mask less fiddly than frisket, and found.... Poster Putty.



















Not bad, but not great either. The putty more or less worked, but the gumline was messy, and I'd like to avoid this much touching up with a paintbrush if at all possible.




And back to the message boards. Another recommended masking material- SIlly Putty!!
Canine resin jawset masked for airbrushing with silly putty





It kinda worked, but....
Airbrushed canine resin jawset
The paint built up around the edges of the putty and left these unattractive ridges along the gumline, which no amount of touching up with a paintbrush is going to fix! The message boards warned of this.
Paint ridges on an airbrushed canine jawset

 Below, various airbrushing attempts, in various states of completion.A big fat pile of frustration.
Airbrushed canine resin jawsets
Some of these are solid pink plastic, with the teeth airbrushed white; some of these are white plastic with the gums airbrushed pink. Ultimately, though, I was not happy with the durability of the airbrushed paint- even with the primer, and even sealed with a topcoat afterwards, it was too easy to scratch and damage. Maybe there is a method I hadn't discovered yet to make the paint more durable, but for the moment anyway I am SO DONE  airbrushing these things for sure. On to plan B, attempting to cast in two colors of plastic!

0 Comments

Airbrushing!

6/25/2017

0 Comments

 
I'm starting to get over my terror of airbrushing and look forward to it instead. It helps to keep in mind that if I find a new way to plug the airbrush up, and subsequently find a new way unplug it, I've learned something new and made progress. This particular go round I found that what I thought was one piece of the airbrush was actually two pieces. Paint can dry in there and plug things up. The two pieces unscrew from each other, and I can get in there with a dental pick. All is good.
​
Fursuit wolf head by sans souci studios visiting with dogs
fursuit wolf head by sans souci studios visiting with dogs
Above, Maxine before any airbrushing, modelled by Uncle Nathan and visiting with his two dogs. The dogs don't know what to think.

I was very happy I kept detailed notes on which paints I mixed to get the colors for Max, as it made coming up with those same colors for Maxine that much easier. Yay for notes!
​
fursuit wolf head by sans souci studios with black paint airbrushed on




​First step in adding color- black paint airbrushed around the eyes, inside the ears ,around the nose and the front of the lower jaw. Last time I hand brushed the paint around the eyes and had a hard time controlling the texture. In other words, the paint wanted to glop up in the worst way. As long as I was meticulous about masking out the eyes and teeth, the spraying went well enough, except that it was too easy to get carried away and next thing I knew, there was more paint around the eyes than I really wanted. I was not entirely happy with Maxine's Goth look at this point.
fursuit wolf head by sans souci studios brown paint airbrushed on



​Second step- adding dark brown to the edges of the ears, between the brows and along the top of the nose. Some of the brown on this mask is the color of the fur and some of it is paint, I felt pretty pleased with my color matching abilities here.  I've also added more black to the insides of the ears.
fursuit wolf head by sans souci studios grey and tan paint airbrushed on
fursuit wolf head by sans souci studios side view of grey and tan airbrushing
fursuit wolf head by sans souci studios last airbrushing touches
fursuit wolf head by sans souci studios airbrushing finished




Third and fourth step- adding grey paint around the underside of the muzzle and the lower jaw, and adding a little bit of cream colored paint under the eyes and on top of the cheekbones. I've also added yet more black to the inside of the ears, and more dark brown around the eyebrows, the edges of the ears, and along the bridge of the nose.





















A side view, which shows the grey on the muzzle and the lower jaw a little better. I've also airbrushed a little of the cream color between the tan area on the bridge of the nose and the white area of the muzzle to soften the transition between these areas a little.
























Fiddling and foodling. Here I've added more black to the area around the nose, and more brown to the bridge of the nose and between the eyebrows. I've also added some brown around the black shading around the eyes, with the hopes they'd tie in better visually to the rest of the mask. One thing I like about the added black above the nose is that it helps pull the viewer's eye away from the black around the eye, at least that's the hope anyway.



















And TA DAAAA!!! All done!!! I'm pretty happy with how she came out.
0 Comments

Adventures in Fursuit Head Building

7/5/2016

2 Comments

 
Looks like I've neglected my blog for.... two years??  I've been busy though, mostly with my first attempt to build my first fursuit-style mask. Especially since I knew neither how to sew nor airbrush before I started out, it was quite the undertaking. Here are the chronicles of my adventures.
dreamvision creations resin wolf mask parts
watching dreamvision creations tutorials with cat
Above left, my freshly ordered mask parts from Dreamvision Creations on Etsy. I didn't want to make any of my own parts this time around, to try to limit the number of variables should something go wrong. Above right, Ezzy and I watching the Dreamvision Creation tutorials online. Ezzy wanted to make sure I didn't miss any important details, he is a very helpful cat.
handpainted resin wolf eyes with reference picture
Left, a reference photo and freshly painted resin eye blanks. This was probably my favorite part of making this mask.
assembled dreamvision creations resin base
handpainted resin eyes showing follow me effect
Above left, a dude who seriously needs to lay off the coffee. Hinges have been added and all the various parts glued into the mask base. Above right, eyelids added. It's so cool how the eyes seem to follow afterwards!
assembled dreamvision creations resin base with ears
Left, straps, springs and chiffon over the tear ducts have been added, as well as Foamies ears. I also figured out how to fill in the space between the upper and lower jaw of the base with  Foamies, something the Dreamvision Creations tutorials didn't cover! The cat hair beard and mustache are my daughter Isabelle's work.
color sketch for fursuit wolf head
patternwork on assembled dreamvision creations resin base
Above left, a sketch of my idea for the color and pattern of the mask; above right, the actual duck tape patternwork for the fur. My daughter called the mask at this stage "Green Anubis".  I thought I was so smart to use wet erase markers to draw the patternwork, and maybe it made fiddling with the pattern a little easier, but predictably some important reference marks got wiped off. Six of one, half dozen of the other...
cat sleeping on laid out pattern for fursuit wolf head
 

And the patternwork laid out on the fur. Ezzy approves.
regretsy sewing machine
But... (OMG!!) SEWING!!!!! This was pretty much my view of a sewing machine at this point.
sewing machines and more barre vermont
Note the part on this sign that says, CLASSES! The owner of this store hosts Open Sew classes twice a week, I'd take my sewing machine and fur there and sew under her supervision. If I got stuck (which was often) she'd be there to offer advice and help out.
sewing together fur for fursuit wolf head
front of hood for fursuit wolf head
sewing together fur for fursuit wolf head
fur partially sewn together for fursuit wolf head
back of partially assembled fursuit wolf head
Sewing sewing and more sewing. Top row left, I bravely start pinning pieces together while Isabelle works on a chibi Cthulhu. Top row right, hubby models the front half of the hood. Middle picture, I have finished sewing the face together while Isabelle makes faces too. Bottom row, one ear and the back of the hood sewn on. I later ripped the ear apart and re-glued it, as I didn't like the way the bottom edge was so much thicker than the top edge. Bottom row right, the back of the hood showing the Velcro cover over the zipper, and seams that need picking out.
fur sewn together but not glued down to resin base
And finally, the fur is all sewn together. Here, draped over the base....
fur glued down to resin base
And here, glued down. This was one of the more harrowing parts of the process. I wound up getting rid of my old Ad Tech glue gun and buying a Surebonder glue gun with interchangeable nozzles instead. I needed the glue to flow when I pressed the trigger, and I needed it to STOP when I released it! Ezzy provided moral support.
crazy lady shaving fur on fursuit wolf head
CRAZY LADY WITH CLIPPERS!!! Shaving down and adding some shape to the mask. This part was almost as harrowing as gluing down the fur. It's very easy to make bald spots with the clippers by accident!!
epoxy lips and dreamvision creations jawset and tongue on fursuit wolf head
Epoxy lip added. The tutorial recommended getting the lip more or less on and nicely detailed, and then testing to make sure the mouth opened and closed properly. I found out the hard way to MAKE SURE THE MOUTH WORKS PROPERLY ASAP.  As the epoxy was setting up and getting hard and crumbly, I  was tearing it off and reshaping it, trying to get it to fit right! Fortunately it all worked out okay in the end.
husband wearing unpainted fursuit wolf head hugging daughter
The mask, fully assembled and modelled by my ever patient husband Brian, loved up by daughter Isabelle. Time to get some paint on this puppy!
sean avram airbrush awesome shop flyer
sean avram awesome shop storefront
However, I could airbrush about as well as I could sew (which is to say, not at all) so I decided again some classes were in order. I took a one day, six hour 1:1 intensive with Sean Avram which helped enormously. He told me that airbrushing was largely troubleshooting, and for the next six hours we would see how many ways the airbrush could be clogged and unclogged again.
fursuit wolf head before airbrushing
Here is the mask with black hand painted around its eyes. Its buddy "Leo" is a sacrifical....lion... to warm up on before I actually airbrush the mask.
fursuit wolf head partially airbrushed
Black airbrushed inside the ears and around the nose and lips. Next, airbrushing some brown around the edges of the ears and back on to the forehead where it had gotten shaved off previously. Leo looks like he needs a shave too.
fursuit wolf head partially airbrushed
 Brown airbrushed along edges of ears, around the nose and on the forehead. I'm feeling rather pleased with myself for matching the paint as closely as I did to the brown fur on the neck and shoulders. I've also added a little grey shading around the lips.
fursuit wolf head after airbrushing
Lastly, areas of cream/light tan airbrushed under the eyes. Many of the wolves in my reference photos had these kinds of markings. I'm happy with how I've matched the paint on the cheeks with the color of the fur on the bridge of the nose.
fursuit wolf head finished
And finally... TA DAAAAAA!!!! All done. Looking forward to making the next one!!


2 Comments

    Author

    I make masks. Because art is more fun when you put it on your head.

    Categories

    All
    A Day In The Life
    Airbrushing
    Artemis
    Casting
    Cat Masks
    Color Design
    Deer Mask
    Ears
    Eyes
    Foam
    Fur
    Garm
    Handpaws
    Head Base
    Horse/unicorn Masks
    Jawsets
    Lips
    Maxine
    Methods And Materials
    Moldmaking
    Moving Jaw
    Noses
    Painting
    Paper Mache
    Patterning
    Photography
    Rabbit Masks
    Resin
    Rip
    Sculpting
    Sewing
    Shaving And Trimming
    Silas
    Silicone
    Strapping
    Studio Announcements
    Tails
    Tongues
    Videos
    Wolf Masks

    Archives

    September 2024
    August 2024
    April 2024
    December 2023
    September 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    July 2020
    November 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    December 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    July 2016
    August 2014
    June 2014
    February 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    March 2012
    October 2011
    September 2011
    March 2011
    November 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    June 2010
    October 2009
    September 2009
    March 2009
    February 2009
    February 2008
    June 2007
    April 2007

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly