Make: Props and Costume Armor

11 Basecoats and Masking

Building a Believable Finish Starts with a Solid Foundation

Let’s say you’ve been toiling away for a couple of weeks’ worth of late nights. Your workspace is covered with bits of paper, dust, and scraps of plastic; your fingers are worn; and sweat drips off your furrowed brow. But somehow at the end of all this you’ve emerged victorious. You have made a thing (Figure 11-1).

Figure 11-1: Things!

The problem is, at this point, the thing probably looks a lot like the paper, dust, scraps of plastic, and floor mats that are scattered all over the rest of your workspace. As luck would have it, the wise and ancient peoples ...