Plastic Spray Stencil

Intro: Plastic Spray Stencil

This is a tutorial on how to make a clean stencil on your
Halloween costume.

This was from a lot of trial and error. We tried stencils with straight paper, foam board and cardboard. All of them had their problems. I strongly suggest practicing first. I didn’t take photographs as I did it. I took pictures of materials afterwards. So bare that in mind if something doesn’t make sense.

You will need:

1. Any spray paint really

2. Duct Tape

3. Plastic of Metal surface that duct tape will come off of somewhat easy

4. PlastiDip

5. Painter’s tape

6. Exactoblade

7. Printer (and paper)

STEP 1: Step 1: Print and Cut Stencil

You start by printing out a stencil off the internet and cutting it out.

*This is clearly just an example. It's not what I used.*

STEP 2: Step 2: Put Duct Tape on Metal or Plastic

Take some duct tape and tape it to a piece of plastic or
metal. I used the side of an old computer case. Feel free to overlap them to make a larger area. Just make the overlap large so when you pull it off it stays together.

STEP 3: Step 3: Spraypaint Stencil on Duct Tape

Use the regular spray paint and spray the stencil on top of
the duct tape. This does NOT have to be perfect. It does NOT have to be full either. Better to under spray than over spray. (The photo shows a cutout laying on top but think of it as your sprayed image).

**When I did this I did the entire thing at once. You only see one piece of tape under the “C” here because this was after the fact. But imagine tape under the whole thing, overlapping each other.

STEP 4: Step 4: Cut Duct Tape Based on Stencil

Cut the stencil image out of the tape. Peel off tape. And
when you cut this, you don’t have to leave the stencil marks. You may have center pieces that you can take off separately (like the middle of the “O”).

STEP 5: Step 5: Prep Item & Spray Plasti Dip

Fold up your cloth or target item so it’s as small as
possible. The idea is you have less to cover up. Take your painters tape and tape up the edges of the duct tape, lay some paper or anything else to cover the rest of the costume/cloth/target up. Just imagine this photo of the jumpsuit covered in white paper and blue tape all over the edges of the stencil.

Spray the target piece with the Plasti Dip. You have to wait long enough for the plastic to dry just a little but not too much because then it solidifies to the duct tape and dries as one piece. The image below shows much of it pulled off already.

**Careful**

The sooner you pull it off the more careful you have to be to not let it touch other parts of the fabric. But like I said, you can't wait too long either. I waited maybe 2 minutes and got a few smudges which I used the blood later as a kind of distraction from my mistakes.

You can use a heat gun or hair drier for a brief minute to just lessen the dry time a bit. I did this but only for a few seconds. You do it too long and it can have the opposite effect in melting it.

STEP 6: Step 6: Enjoy!

This is the finished stencil with some blood that I hope adds to the costume and distracts some from noticing the mistakes.

I'm blocking myself out. Am I camera shy or don't want to distract you?

Comments

[connie46]

I love it what took you so long in doing this inscrutable ? I your work is really good thank you

[MsSweetSatisfaction]

Awesome stencil technique! I love how clean the lettering turned out!

[spawninggrounds]

Thanks! Yea, it was a lot of trial and error and we were trying to do it fast. We first bought letters and were going to use spray adhesive but I didn't want to chance peeling or anything.

We then tried the stencil but just spraying the Plasti Dip with a paper stencil and there was a lot of overspray because the wind would lift the finer points.

I thought about taking small tacks or needles and running them through the stencil, through the outfit and into cardboard that would lay underneath but then I realized the paint would seep into the holes of the tacks and not to mention that would be a pain and if we missed any area, we only had one shot.

Getting duct tape to lay perfectly flat everywhere seemed like the best choice.

And for those thinking about it.. I would layoff painters tape. While it would be easier to pull up after cutting out, it would not stick well.

I don't want to give the impression the cutting out and pulling up was easy. It was kind of a pain.. but if something is worth doing it's worth doing right! :)

[MsSweetSatisfaction]

Also can we get an instructable on how you did that awesome make up? It's so cool!

[spawninggrounds]

Thanks so much! The makeup is mostly a mask. My girlfriend added some fake blood and makeup around her eyes but most of what you're seeing is an official Walking Dead mask we picked up. I want to say it was like $20? It's called the Jawless Walker Half Mask. The same blood she put on the mask is the same blood that's on her suit. We got it at Party City 2 Halloweens ago. The makeup was a standard mix of colors found at Wal-Mart in their seasonal section (specifically for costumes).

http://www.spirithalloween.com/product/pt-twd-jawless-walkr-half-mask/

http://www.partycity.com/product/pint+of+blood.do?extcmp=google_pcPLA&kwid=pint%20of%20fake%20blood&qcid=&ref=ci&srccode=cii_17588969&cpncode=34-257267817-2