Tissue foil: wrinkles make me sad...
Posted: November 15th, 2005, 6:51 am
Hi everyone, this is my first post here. I must say I'm a bit humbled to be posting among such skilled folders.
I've just started experimenting with tissue foil, and it's pretty nice. But let me show you my problems with wrinkles, if I may. (Sorry the pictures are huge, but it will help you see what I mean...)
My first attempt is here. (Stegosaurus by Kawahata) I didn't have tissue paper, so I used plain old tracing paper and covered only one side of the foil with it, attached via spray adhesive. For foil I grabbed a roll of Reynolds Wrap out of the kitchen. This actually worked OK, except that the the tracing paper was so brittle it ripped in many places; you can see one scale on his back that tore almost in half. The final model is very sturdy and not particularly wrinkled, and has a nice texture to it.
My second attempt is here. (Samurai helmet beetle by Lang) At this point I did have real tissue paper. I made a big piece of foil and then covered both sides with one sheet of tissue each using spray adhesive. This worked well except that it turned out awfully wrinkled.
My last (and not best) attempt is here. (Allosaurus by Kawahata) For this I decided to try covering only one side of the foil with tissue paper. Oh the wrinkles! For a dinosaur it looks semi-OK, but... ugh. I can also barely touch it without putting huge dents in it, so it's almost impossible to position or sculpt into something nice. Lesson learned.
In general these were pretty fun / easy to fold, but the final product isn't the greatest-looking, to put it mildly. I'm saving up my colored paper for after I have better mastered the technique; I think some color will help a bit with presentation.
Is there any technique that helps you avoid turning tissue foil into a wrinkled ball of mush? I believe I've learned to put the old bone folder aside; very sharp creases seem to be the enemy of tissue foil. Beyond that, it sometimes seems like folding tissue foil is often hardly like "folding" at all. More like mushing the foil into place. Maybe I'm using the wrong kind of foil? Maybe I should put more than one layer of tissue on each side?
I've just started experimenting with tissue foil, and it's pretty nice. But let me show you my problems with wrinkles, if I may. (Sorry the pictures are huge, but it will help you see what I mean...)
My first attempt is here. (Stegosaurus by Kawahata) I didn't have tissue paper, so I used plain old tracing paper and covered only one side of the foil with it, attached via spray adhesive. For foil I grabbed a roll of Reynolds Wrap out of the kitchen. This actually worked OK, except that the the tracing paper was so brittle it ripped in many places; you can see one scale on his back that tore almost in half. The final model is very sturdy and not particularly wrinkled, and has a nice texture to it.
My second attempt is here. (Samurai helmet beetle by Lang) At this point I did have real tissue paper. I made a big piece of foil and then covered both sides with one sheet of tissue each using spray adhesive. This worked well except that it turned out awfully wrinkled.
My last (and not best) attempt is here. (Allosaurus by Kawahata) For this I decided to try covering only one side of the foil with tissue paper. Oh the wrinkles! For a dinosaur it looks semi-OK, but... ugh. I can also barely touch it without putting huge dents in it, so it's almost impossible to position or sculpt into something nice. Lesson learned.
In general these were pretty fun / easy to fold, but the final product isn't the greatest-looking, to put it mildly. I'm saving up my colored paper for after I have better mastered the technique; I think some color will help a bit with presentation.
Is there any technique that helps you avoid turning tissue foil into a wrinkled ball of mush? I believe I've learned to put the old bone folder aside; very sharp creases seem to be the enemy of tissue foil. Beyond that, it sometimes seems like folding tissue foil is often hardly like "folding" at all. More like mushing the foil into place. Maybe I'm using the wrong kind of foil? Maybe I should put more than one layer of tissue on each side?