Fish skin! Had to match the small Kyra puppet tail exactly for this to work. I used an Italian four-way stretch wool jersey fabric I bought to make something to wear out of but Halfland comes first. I clipped it to a piece of board, laid plastic fruit bags out against it and smeared them over with heavy body matte medium and blue pearl paint applied with a card. When the mesh is pulled off, the net leaves a nice cycloid scale texture on the fabric. Third from left above, shows me sewing together two mesh bags to create a larger piece of fish scale fabric. I was going to try to hide the flaws that seam left in the scale pattern but instead I featured it right down the center of the fishtail, as if coloration. (See my inspirational fish skin third from left bottom row above before I cooked it for lunch.)
Once dry, the fabric was stretched tightly over the tail form, fins were added, seams finessed. Much like mosaic tiles, the gaps the mesh bag left on the fabric were filled with water putty. This was wiped down on the faces of scales and sealed.
Following the way real fish skin mottles, I added rivulets of color and color variegation. Shading added dimension.
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