What Happens When a Nerd Goes Camping

Intro: What Happens When a Nerd Goes Camping

So I'm going to a festival this weekend and I have got, genuinely the worst memory in the history of ever! It's like a goldfish with severe Alzheimer's!

I was laying in bed one night and I decided it would be a good idea to paint my tent, that way I wouldn't get confused with all the other generic tents surrounding me, aren't I clever.

It took me a while to decide on the design but once I'd picked Pokemon everything just happened and fitted, I mean, how cool is that at a festival?

The whole project took me about 6 hours in total, spread over two days and I'm still not sure if I want to paint on the other side.

I was thinking Butterfree and Psyduck? Opinions on that would be appreciated, I hope you guys like it anyway!

STEP 1:

I started by drawing my design onto an A4 sheet of paper, outlining it in permanent marker, and sticking it to the inside of the tent.

STEP 2:

I then traced the design onto the outside of the tent, again using permanent marker.

STEP 3:

I free-handed the vines and Yin Yang sign in a way that made it look like Bulbasaur was holding it up in the air.

STEP 4:

I then started painting. I began by just using acrylic paint, this meant I had to put on 3 layers of colour on, which was time consuming more than anything. I mixed blue, white and a hint of green to get this colour, it looks much more blue in the picture.

STEP 5:

I added more green to the paint I'd used to colour the body and filled in the spots.

STEP 6:

After painting the bulb a brighter green I added the detail on the face (eyes: red and white, same with the mouth and teeth)

STEP 7:

I then painted the vines a darker green colour.

STEP 8:

This is when I learned that mixing acrylic with fabric paint made the paint stick to the tent much easier and it went down to only needing one coat! I mixed a light brown for the shell and shaded it with a darker brown, same with the blue for the head. I then used white for the outer shell line and eyes.

STEP 9:

I mixed the colours for Charmander, which turned out to be difficult getting a nice orange shade when I'm painting an orange tent but y'know, it worked out well enough. I also turned the outside of the Yin Yang into a pokeball, as an afterthought on the original design.

STEP 10:

After the paint had dried I outlined everything again in permanent marker to add definition.

STEP 11:

I added more detail's into the Yin Yang using permanent marker.

Comments

[PaulS69]

Love this. Simple and unique. You could add a home made flagpole and flag to help you find your tent from further away too. Love your creativity

[HaraC4]

Psyduck and Butterfree would be completely adorable! This is so cute! I bet you got tons of compliments.

[TaniaH9]

I got a fair few alright :) thank you!

[EdwardK42]

this looks cool but pray it doesn't rain because this would compremise the waterproofing, take it from a seasoned camper and a scout leader, but as an alternative hang something from your guy ropes

[TaniaH9]

It rained all weekend and it held strong really well, I'll get a picture of it soon it's just a trek to put it up and down again just for photography reasons haha

[rwilliams8]

This is really cool. What mixture of Acrylic to Fabric paint did you use? Was it 50/50?

[TaniaH9]

Thank you! It was dependent on the shade I used, but it was more Fabric to Acrylic most of the time.

[Pumuggel]

Good idea! Could you post a photo of how it looks after the wear and tear outside at the festival, i.e. whether it faded out or was washed away?

[TaniaH9]

Thank you! I will indeed! :D I'm interested to know how it'll fare too, seeing as I've never done it before but trial and error is a fun game haha