HOW TO PAINT, PRINT, AND INSTALL FURSUIT EYE MESH
Here's a handy guide for painting, printing, and installing our cosplay and fursuit eye mesh! You can purchase it in our shop. It's durable, sturdy, and waterproof, with great vision.
How to Paint our Vinyl Cosplay & Fursuit Eye Mesh
Our mesh is made of black woven vinyl and does not require any sort of sanding or priming prior to being painted. I recommend a high quality acrylic paint applied in thin layers either by dabbing with a sponge (or piece of foam) or brushing on with a paint brush. Use several thin layers to avoid clogging the holes of the mesh. If you do clog some holes, you can blow them out with compressed air before the paint dries, or poke them with a needle.
Posca and other paint pens also work well. Folks have had good luck with spray paint, too!
After you've finished painting your mesh and the paint has dried, make sure to seal your work with a few layers of clear coat. I usually use Rustoleum 2X Painter's Touch Ultra Cover Gloss in Clear, but any clear glossy spray coat that works with plastic should work.
The hot glue used to adhere the mesh to your eye material may peel off of the paint, if that is the case use some sandpaper to carefully remove the paint from the portion of the eye mesh that you'll be gluing down, or avoid painting that portion of the eye all together.
How to Print Fursuit Eyes with an Inkjet Printer
This is a little bit of an experimental way of doing things, but if you’re brave you can print on our fursuit eye mesh with your inkjet printer!
Paint the mesh white first with acrylic paint, tape down the edges of your painted and fully dried mesh to a piece of printer paper, and then run through your printer just like any normal print. Settings for "photo" paper work best. If your print doesn't turn out as vibrant as desired, run it through the printer again!
Afterwards, apply a clear coat to protect the ink.
If your prints are dull, you can try a few things:
1. Make sure your printer is an Inkjet printer. Laser printers won’t work.
2. Run the mesh through the printer a few times.
3. Use “Photo” settings.
4. Print your eye design on regular paper to check to see that it prints normally without mesh.
If you still can’t get it, your printer may just not be quite right for printing on mesh.
How to Install our Curlworks Fursuit Eye Mesh
Here are some tips on installing our eye mesh into your plastic fursuit eye blank! For the 'whites' of the eye, we prefer styrene plastic as it's durable, sturdy, and easy to cut with a scissors and shape with a rotary tool.
It's important to pull the mesh tight across the eye as you glue it, as the mesh does have a little stretch to it and will warp slightly if you don't.
