I was wondering if anyone had ideas for making or acquiring tails for customs.

I like the Hellboy tail, but was hoping to do one that was flexible or such.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

Crown

Get some small diameter plastic tubing similar to the accessory hose. Cut to length. Insert a flexible wire (twist-tie or the like). Sculpt or attach whatever end you want on the end of the tail and attach it to the figure. Paint, dye whatever and BLAM-O! instant tail!

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Something that also may work is using that plastic dip stuff used for dipping tool handles in, and dip a piece of wire in it.

Thank you! I was mentioning this to a co-worker and she said the same thing. But we got dirty looks fromt he 'church lady' for talking about dippable latex.

I will have to see if i can find this stuff.

Thanks to both of you for the help.

Here's a good tutorial for making symbiote tendrils with grip-dip. Same idea.

http://www.figurerealm.com/customtutorial.php?ID=15

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I discovered the heat-shrinking tubing at Radio Shack works well here as well, with my wingpack accessory to my Nemmortal tweak. Insert the bendie wire into the tube, then wave over a flame a few seconds and it shrinks to fit. The good thing here is that the tubing comes in different diameters so one could build up to whatever thickness is wished, and a tapered-thickness tail could be achieved by starting with a short tube at the base of the tail then adding successively longer tubes until the whole thing is covered.

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There was a poster once who was working on a character from Final Fantasy, which had a tail. I wanted to attempt their custom (it intrigued me) so I set out with the various parts. When it came to the tail, I found a great affordable solution, which was to find/buy the keychain Pink Panther from the auto section in Walmart. $3.00 investment, and you have to deal with his "What the Hell did I do to you look??" on his face when you snip off the tail, but it is an admirable length and is fully poseable.

You might try that, or find any inexpensive childs toy with the bendable wires in the limbs. Might be a dog, spider, anything with a poseable tail. Try the inexpensive children's toys first, then perhaps the next level. Beauty also is that most are rubber, which take paint excellently.

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...sunuvavabetch.

Here I was happy with my non poseable tendrils for a figure I was working on... now I see an intriguing way to make the figure really pop.

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I left the camera at work yesterday, and at home today... thank goodness for working in the banking industry, but i did use the plastidip last night.

thoughts on it.

I used various bendable/flexible pieces.

Twisty ties are great. I removed the paper from one and after a few dips, had a decent tail that could be used on various figures. On another I did NOT remove the paper and it gave the tail edges on both sides.... this was fixed with reaplying the dip and running a wet tool along the edges to allow it to fill the other side and not build up on the edges any longer.

I also used the wire used in plastic plants. Really good for sturdy yet bendable tails. Really good if your planning to have the tail be a 'pedastal' for the custom to sit on... say a coiled up tail under the character. Its not real easu to shape, but that is the metal, not the dip. If your going for a set shape and it will be supporting the weight of the character as a seat or holding them up, this is one that i suggest trying.

I also used twisties coiled twisted together for bulk. The first dip on this left the image of the twisted pieces, but would be great for Abyss, Omega Red or some other character that has segmented coils.

Over all... $6 for the dip. Twisties = free (wife's work) Total - well worth the time and effort. Remember like sculpting that this is a patience game. I will post pics tomorrow, and try a few more to see what else I can try with this.

Thinking about trying this added to the comment from AV to see about a 'skin' for a character. Thoughts on that would be appreciated also.