Painting your hide by hand gives you WAY more opportunity to be creative. If you are gifted in the painting department, this is a good way to go. I painted my DIY snake hides in two different ways: Once your hide’s clay has hardened, you may paint it! DIY Snake Hide: Clay This takes about 12-24 hours or 30-40 mins in the oven set at 170☏ (keep an eye on it if you do this!) STEP FIVE: PAINT! Once you have fully applied a layer of clay, allow it to dry and harden. Paper clay air dries very slowly so this is your opportunity to etch in any additional details you may want to add, crevasses and cracks for example. Tear off chunks of the paper clay from the brick and begin spreading it across the top surface of the hide (no need to do the inside surface). I do not recommend making your own paper clay, store-bought paper clay is non-toxic when dry (be sure to read the package)… I can’t say the same about DIY paper clay. Last step before we paint! Go to your local craft store, or Amazon and pick up some Paper Clay. This usually takes anywhere between 6-12 hours. Let the paper mache completely dry before proceeding to the next step. Using the foam brush and glue, paint on the tissue paper in small strips over the entire surface of the snake hide (outside and inside). White Liquid Glue (thin it out with a 1:1 glue to water ratio).Next up, paper mache! The entire snake hide needs to have at least one layer of paper mache. DIY Snake hide: Masking tape with indents STEP THREE: PAPER MACHE I found giving the hide a good “whack” with an object worked well to create realistic looking indents. By that I mean you can make the surface of the hide look more like a rock by adding indents and angles to the surface. Once the entire snake hide is covered in masking tapeyou can use this opportunity to add shape detail to the hide. Both the outside and the inside of the hide! Masking Tape over snake hide Now that we have a rough hide made from tinfoil, the next step is covering the entire hide with a layer of masking tape. You may also cut out a door hole at this phase. Pop the foil out of the bowl and you’ll see you hide starting to take shape. Stuff the tinfoil into the bowl! Shaping the tinfoil Then, find a bowl or something of similar shape to use as a mold for your snake hide. Tinfoil Strips: DIY Snake hide Tinfoil folded: DIY Snake Hide The first step is rolling out and folding up some tinfoil.I used 3 lengths of about 8′ long side by side and then folded it up to about a 2′ x 2′ square (roughly, probably slightly smaller). If you are someone who doesn’t want to spend the time building your own hides (I don’t blame you… it takes a long time!), then I definitely recommend using something like Reptile Basic Hide instead. This is not cheaper or easier than buying a store-bought hide! You should only attempt this if you enjoy the crafting process.This idea originally came from this video:.In this article, I show step by step how I created my own DIY snake hide! If you’d rather watch the video, then here ya go!
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