But first an intro:
Wonderflex is a plastic that has a cheese cloth like fabric embedded in the materiel. It comes in sheets 43x55. I get mine from The Engineer Guy http://www.theengineerguy.com for $39.99+shipping. When you heat WF with a heat gun it emits a sticky like substance and will stick to its self. (it will also stick to nail polish and some clothing but not ALL) This is really a great quality since there is no other glues, ect that are needed. One sheet of WF is flexible, two sheets is pretty rigid and three sheets will withstand quite a bit of pressure. For example my Magdalena chest piece is one sheet of WF with re-enforcement around the neck and arm holes. The sides are flexible and will bend around my ribcage. The red in the photo is leather.
WF will bend around curves and you can gently pull the heated substance around shapes- like bewbs. Or a halo. This is wf over a Styrofoam floral wreath. This is the first heating shaping. If you keep heating WF it will smoosh into its self.
This is the 2nd heating where I smoothed it out more. I use both wood and metal clay shaping tools to smoosh and shape the wf.
After several coats of gesso and some paint you have a Dawn halo:
I first started learning about WF from Amethyst Angel's tutorial: http://www.amethyst-angel...wonderflex_tutorial.html However like all tutorials your results may vary. And mine did. Friendly Plastic pellets are NOT the way to get a smooth finish....or at least I couldn't. Maybe a professional has a better way to use it, but for now I classify Friendly Plastic as UNfriendly.
AA used a paper mache balloon to get her shape. I have made shapes two ways. The first way is to cut out a flat shape and then make notches or wedges like sewing a dart in a woman's top. The other way to get a shape is to lay the WF over the shape and heat it up. I use a combination of both. I make a pattern from paper on 1 inch square 3M flip chart paper. It sticks to the wall like a huge post it so I can hang it anywhere I have room. From there I cut out the pattern and try to shape it. If that works I then cut out the shape from Foamies. Between tape and heating the foamies I can get a better idea of how my wf piece is going to shape up. I get many of my armor patterns from SCA reenactment armor- http://www.armourarchive.org/patterns/
After you have shaped your item you need to get rid of the grids. The new and improved wf has one 'smooth' side, however the surface has a reptile like texture to it. Not so smooth in my mind but better than the grids.
There are several methods out there that people use on to smooth out wf.
Friendly (NOT) Plastic - When you heat the pelletts you end up heating the wf. Only works if you are using 3 layers due to heat. One layer for my Magdalena shin armor did NOT work it was a god awful mess. It also really mucked up my chest armor. It's very very very hard to get smooth.
Gesso- the kids on cosplay.com use this. I think it's because they are emo artist types and this is the only substance anyone is familiar with, ergo it becomes cannon. It's hard, very hard but a PITA to sand, it streaks easy and it's expensive for how many layers 5+ you have to use.
Wall Spackle - been there, done that, made a mess. BUT it was quick. I put a layer of this over 2 layers of Gesso. But it's on a tiny piece of my armor on my upper arm that just sorta hangs there. I wouldn't use this on something that will get knocked about/rubbed against.
Bondo or a Bondo product- I picked this up at Auto Zone and will try it on an upcoming project. BUT I don't want to fuss with mixing.
Auto Filler Primer- I picked this up at Auto Zone on a whim. It is made to fill cracks on bumpers. Plastic bumpers. Fill cracks......DUH! I haven't really looked back since. It takes two coats, dry, one more coat, dry, sand & DONE.
I use nail sponges to sand- they are small and can get into cracks. The grit is 270. You can get a huge pack of them at Sally's Beauty Supply for around $8 bucks.
Here are several test strips to show the different smoothing methods. The left is Auto Primer and it's as smooth as a baby's bum.
The middle is gesso and the right is wall patch. It is one coat of gesso and one of wall patch. After sanding you will have to apply a 2nd coat of either. To be honest I'm a busy lady and I like the no sanding between coats thus the auto primer.
