Playing with Fosshape

[dani_cosplay]

Yesterday I tried a few things with Fosshape

Comments

[viewpoints]

Looking good! I should try this in my oven. What temp did you have it set to? and any luck finding a hot enough steamer? We've tried three with no luck.

[dani_cosplay]

The temp was about MAX. I never pay much attention to those things. That's why It's a disaster every time I'm in charge of dinner. And I definitely left it for too long: almost 10 minutes. I think it should be around 5 mins only, but it depends on how hard you want it to get.
Regarding steamers, I think the secret is patience. It takes a lot more time to activate (compared to heat gun on wonderflex), unless you are torching the poor thing, which would change its color to brown. One of these days I'll try again with my wallpaper remover and see how long it needs to be held in place to harden the surface.
In the video they use a Fabric Steamer (like this http://www.conaircanada.ca/en/en_index.html?/en/garmentcare_gs5rc.html). I'll check a few places to see how much they go for.

[viewpoints]

Hrm. We tried Daniel's Upulstry steamer with pretty much no result, which is why we figured we'd need something even more industrial. If you have luck with a fabric one, let me know. :D

[eleryth]

It looks kinda fuzzy, like cotton batton or something. Or interfacing.

How thin are the pieces? And man, this will be so handy when I finally get to work on armor!

[dani_cosplay]

Let's say thin as medium/thick interfacing. IT can get smooth if you iron the surface against the mold

A question about wonderflex/fossshape

[eleryth]

I have this strange support system in my head for an outfit's skirt type thing (several pieces - 7 of them, not very wide), but I want to run strips of something flexible yet strong down the middle (similar to nine-tails, but not quite). I had thought of boning, but I don't know if it would be strong enough. What's the flexibility and strength like after it's been set, especially as thin long pieces (that would look like boning)? Ideally, I'd like to be able to actually sit on the skirt thing (at least somewhat) without having the support structure break or bend permanently. I also don't want them to be really stiff, as when she walks, the petal flap sorta bounces with her movements.

It's for this costume.

Re: A question about wonderflex/fossshape

[dani_cosplay]

I've sat on my nine tails too many times to count. Even sat in my car once and forgot to remove them. They won't bend or change shape just by that. You can use it to "whalebone" the hems of your skirt and play with both the width of the strip, and the ticknesses by making multi-layer pieces. You may need to experiment a bit till you find the right width/thickness so the whole structure doesn't bend down by its own weight.
There is also metal boning available, but I wouldn't try it as my first option for this project.

[archangeli]

maybe try spraying your molding surface with non-stick cooking spray?

i remember seeing that in one of the Wonderflex demo-display-book-things at the Dazian booth at USITT.

[dani_cosplay]

I used it on the 2nd cup. Didn't do a thing besides making everything yuckily oily.

[earendilgrey]

Hmm. I would say use Vaseline, but that would probably soak into the fabic and not work. You could email the Dazian company and see if they recommend anything.

[earendilgrey]

Or maybe try a silicon spray?

[dani_cosplay]

I speak with Dazian regularly. I retail some of their products (Wonderflex and Fosshape). Unfortunately there isn't much available on tips for using theproducts, thats why I the FAQ on my shop page (http://www.cosplaysupplies.com/wonderflex/wonderflex.html) was made based on our own experiments.