A Whole New Tail to Tell

Very excited to tell you about how I came to build a whole new mermaid tail for the Kyra puppet this week. My new puppet skin tests helped me arrive at her darker skin tone and I'm loving how the new colors harmonize with the brand-new hand-painted animatable beautiful texural fishtail!

In the summer of 2021, I experimented with better fish scale effects on a sheer metallic organza fabric. I took a recycled produce net bag and loosely stretched it over a dry, painted base of light blue iridescent acrylic. I then mixed a heavy body matte gel with an interference blue pearlized paint from Nova Color and spread a thick layer of it onto the fabric through the net mesh. I pulled the net off the board while the paste of paint was still wet, leaving behind the most incredible easy fish scale texture yet! 

Because the netting is flexible, rather than fixed, the scale's scales impressed are naturally left in various changing sizes as the netting is stretched out further in some areas than in others. It gives a fantastic sense of movement across the piece just as a real fish would contract and extend its skin. A fluffy feather was painted to create the fringed edges of the finished fins. I couldn't be happier with how gorgeous the results were and got to cut up the fabric in the last few days to tailor it into my favorite work yet.

Tracings of the inspo photo of a fishtail from a magazine. Pieces of the second-hand fabric were painted with more paint mixture textured by dragging a stiff bundle of fibers through in curved lines. Front and back panels were lined with metal mesh and five lengths of aluminum wire to keep it positionable and then glued together around thin lightweight packing foam. The completed tail was further painted and shaded with black India ink on the edges.

I had a previous Kyra puppet made for years. While it was the best I could make at the time, it never made me happy. It was too stiff to animate and even though I spent a lot on expensive sequined material to cover the tail in order to avoid hand-placing scales (what a laugh! as trying to cut that corner gave me zero advantage in the end.) it just wasn't what I was going for. I wanted something more poetic and lovely. 

Kyra should appear to be graceful and sexy in a feminine fairy sort of way. This new version hits the mark I was after exactly. 

Next stop: for me is to build a true armature with my Morezmore parts for the small Kyra and then begin to cast her in the new skin formula! She has to be very posable, even in her face in a limited way, be able to hold her poses, and still look epically mythical. Thanks, everyone!