I'm doing a snakey puppet and I'm planning on airbrushing a scale pattern on it. I'd like to be able to draw the entire pattern out before I start painting and I was wondering if anyone had any experience using permanent marker on fleece? Are there any issues with it that I should be forewarned about?
Thanks for any help!

Well sometimes marker can bleed a bit on fabric so do a test first.  Also you are going to have more luck drawing on the back side of the fabric as rather then the front fuzzy side.  You can draw on the front but you need to make sure you are not just marking the top layer of nape in the fabric.

i can tell you that a marker on fleece will mostly get on the back of your drawing hand, and not so much on the fleece. it rubs off the fleece extremely easily.
i've read that it is easy to "write" on fleece with a sliver of soap. you might want to give that a shot. never tried it.
another thought- with scales you are going to keep repeating the pattern over and over. would it make sense to make some sort of a stencil that you could use that would go the width of your snake, then you can just move it up and keep going?
just thoughts! best wishes with your snake. sounds fun.

-Kimberly

Thank you both! I think you just prevented me from making a mistake. I suspect I'll just draw the pattern on paper first and use it as a general guide. I do plan on making an edge pattern for the repeating belly scales, both as a guide and as a paint stencil, but I suspect I will be varying the overall pattern too much for a stencil. I think I need to do some paint tests next!

You could use a disappearing ink pen.

Julie

Actually, the idea was to delineate the lines with marker and then "form" them a bit more with airbrushing. But it sounds like marker is just not permanent enough to do the job. I just hope that I can find a paint that will hold on fleece well enough?
Chris

Then I think you can achieve that with just the airbrush. I've only used an airbrush a small amount of time,but it can definitely make the yep of lines you are looking for.  I misunderstood.  I thought you were wanting to have a pattern to follow with the airbrush.

Createx makes airbrush fabric paints that will hold up to washing so you should be fine.

Julie

If you use a calligraphy/scrapbook marker with a fairly fine tip it works better than a permanent marker (like a sharpie).

I'm not sure how this will work on fleece, but I've seen it on one of the Chopper shows, they used fishnet stockings as the stencil to airbrush with on the fuel tank. Here's a video showing how to do it: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-spray-paint-snake-skin-scales-on-anything/ , hope it helps.

Ron

Wow Ron that's pretty cool! Thanks for sharing it!

I did the lining and airbrushing today. Started out with a felt pen, but quickly abandoned it and just freehanded most of it.

There's more on this in my thread "a new endeavor"
http://puppetsandstuff.com/community/index.php/topic,7172.msg64024.html#new
Thanks for all the help and ideas on this one.
Chris

I did the lining and airbrushing today. Started out with a felt pen, but quickly abandoned it and just freehanded most of it.

There's more on this in my thread "a new endeavor"
http://puppetsandstuff.com/community/index.php/topic,7172.msg64024.html#new
Thanks for all the help and ideas on this one.
Chris

You did a good job on this.......... I love the detail.

That is AWESOME!!!! Love, love, love the snake.  Great Job.

Julie

Great! Or, me being a Fantasy fan: Epic!