Cowl face paint

[rickrickrick]

Sorry if this seems like an old topic, folks, but I searched through the old archived forum, as well as this one, with no concrete success. MANY old posts on the archived site were deleted, so there are gaps in the information contained in the famous "NEED BATCOWL INFO PLEASE" thread.

Any cowl makers out there care to share what kind of paint they use for painting the black face part? I found references to acrylic, and it's obviously flat, but that's about all. I have Will Reeb's excellent cowl, and one of Chuck's cosplay cowls, and they clearly use something slightly different from one another.

Many thanks in advance for your guidance!

RRR

[rickrickrick]

Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do I!

No responses?

Well, I took a blind stab at using Jacquard Neopaque textile paint on some spare jumbo spandex stretched over a ball. It requires multiple coats to cover up the texture of the fabric, and has a slight sheen to it. But it blends well, didn't leave really obvious brush strokes, and it is very nice deep black. Tomorrow, I'm going to try the old art school trick of adding baby powder to it to matte it down. I will also try painting over it to see how painting eyebrows on it would work.

RRR

[Drew Knight]

RRR,
I redid a cowl I bought a few years ago. I believe I used Tulip fabric paint, black & light blue that you can get at Michaels crafts. I "think "that's what Will also uses, but he would have to verify this. For the eyebrows, I made a stencil and it help me a lot. Good luck and have fun!
Drew Knight

[rickrickrick]

Here are the results of my experiments so far.

The top black is three layers of Jacquard Neopaque black textile paint unaltered. The bottom black is one layer of the same paint with talc mixed in to matte it up, which was pretty successful.

The various blue lines are all paint markers. The very grey one is a Montana paint marker in the color Gravel - too grey. The very light blue, which looks nearly white, is the same kind of marker in color Light Shock Blue - too pale. The intense light blue lines are a DecoFabric paint marker in light blue (no color name on the pen!) - which looks good, but a bit over-saturated. The bigger problem I have with the DecoFabric marker is that the tip is not very fine - it's 3mm, and can't be used freehand. I'd have to use a template for it.

So, there you have it. As usual, mixed results. Nothing I would declare an absolute winner.

RRR

[Chuck Williams]

One from the archives... According to the date on the sample chip, almost 10 years ago....Oy!
I can't even guess how many dozens of paints I tried!
I tried markers back in the day too with the same result. Brushes are better.

At least you have more info than I did and you won't waste time and money on oils or enamels...Like I did.
I won't disclose how or what I use but the original cowls went from dead matte to a satin finish over the run of the show.
The cosplay cowls are painted slightly differently than the replicas by the way.

Chuck...

[rickrickrick]

Well, I have poor skills with a brush, so I like the pens better, but only the really fine ones. I think I'd be satisfied with the color of and use the DecoFabric marker if it weren't so thick. I like the Montana paint markers quite a lot - the coverage is good, and they come in extremely fine points - but the limited color palette doesn't include a good color for the brows. I'm thinking about mixing the Shock Blue Light and the Gravel colors. I'm not sold on the idea of using a template - I'm apprehensive that the edges would do that dreaded tape edge bleed thing if I masked it off with painting tape, as others have said they do.

So, the trial and error continues.

RRR