Fabric Painting

[ladyofthethread]

Hmm… I’ve run into a little problem with my Gankutsuou stuff so I’m going to ask for opinions. I’ve been trying to paint fabric for Eugenie’s red and black dress. In the references, there are lines of little rectangles a bit lighter than the background red zigzagging down the dress with black patterns overlapping.



I bought red silk shantung (same kind of material that I used for my Cecelia dress) and wanted to paint the designs with metallic paint for a bit of shine. But I’ve had no luck trying to mix a good shade for the rectangles, even with several pink/red paints (Lumiere and Neopaque) and a couple of sparkly pink pigments (Pearl Ex). I’ve tried unmixed and lots of different combinations but almost everything I can think of comes out looking murky or off-color against the bright red. And I’m getting frustrated because I’ve already spent about $45 on little jars of paint and pigments just trying to mix the two colors I need for the dress. >_< (Had to mix the sparkly black myself too because Jacquard doesn’t make one.)

I was just trying to do a quick scaled down version of each combination so these are a little messy. ^_^;

Russet and black


Crimson and black (Yes, the crimson Lumiere came out looking purple on my fabric. -_-)


Black designs only



[Poll #1226766]

Personally, I’m leaning towards doing only the black designs at the moment. I really wanted to have all the zigzagging rectangles for a more accurate print. But I don’t think either the russet or crimson is a good enough match and the dress wouldn’t look red enough if I put them in. :-/ The color difference from the background is supposed to be more subtle and the dress should look red and black from a distance.

On the bright side, I went by the Manhattan Mall the other day and found $5 shoes to modify for this outfit! I would have liked them without the platform and with lower heels but the shape was a good match otherwise. These are so unlike any shoes I would wear normally… Red patent leather, platforms, and 4 ½ inch heels! XD I suspect they won’t take paint well though so I’ll probably make shoe covers with leftover dress fabric.

Comments

[spookloops.livejournal.com]

I like the russet and black. I think it's fairly close; I highly doubt anyone will be walking about with a photo of the dress handy and whip it out to compare against your dress when you happen to walk by; if they're that bothered by a shade's difference, they really need to lighten up.

[ladyofthethread.livejournal.com]

True. The thing is more that I tend to be really critical of my own work and small flaws in my costumes can bug me. ^_^;; I was hoping I could match the first two pics better because I feel that bright red is what the color really should be; the third shows the designs in detail but the colors are hazy and washed out.

[skdarkdragon.livejournal.com]

I really think that the Russet and Black look good. They match the reference picture the closest, in my opinion. :)