02/11/2025
One of the most amazing things about Bite Club is how it brings out the creativity in so many of us. If anyone noticed the beautiful, tall faun in the amazing heelless shoes who arrived rather late, then you may be interested in the tale of how she MADE THE SHOES HERSELF!! Her name is Hayley, she's Canadian and here's her account:-
I first sculpted the hooves from clay, then made my own silicone mold for each hoof and cast them out of resin. This part went so well. It was the first time I worked with these materials, and I was nervous but excited.
The hoof shoe itself nearly didn't happen. The success I had so far lulled me into a false sense of security. "Surely," I thought to myself, "the hooves will attach to the shoes perfectly." Absolutely not.
First, I tried contact adhesive. I already have a rocky relationship with it and am not fond of it, but people use it for costumes all the time. The flexible, slightly upturned shoe sole would not adhere to the solid flat black of the resin.
Then I took some 5mm craft foam and sandwiched it between the two. I figured the moldability of the foam would allow the sole to sink into it a little and at the same time glue flat to the resin.
I already knew in my heart it wasn't going to work, the glue smelled my fear and refused to work with me.
Everything was peeling away from each other. What a sorry sight at about 10 pm on a work night.
Luckily, Martin was by my side. He put on some tunes to boost morale and we took to the shed to find supplies.
We tried screwing the shoes onto the resin hooves. Turns out this resin is REALLY strong. Wow. Mind you, we only had wood screws. The screws go stuck partway and had to be sawed through and then filed down.
Now my shoes had drill holes in them, my hooves had pieces of screws in them, were covered in partly set contact adhesive, worn down craft foam and broken dreams.
It is now nearly midnight. Almost Halloween. My last effort would be building a rough mould box from Monster Clay around the shoe and fill it with the last bit of resin I had left. I truly wish I did this first, as it worked well.
I had never worked with resin prior to this. I saw videos of people sinking the shoe into the resin as it set, but I didn't know what resin they were using, how long the resin took to set or if it would react with the rubber sole and not cure properly and other things.
Now I know! I could've avoided 4 hours+ of troubleshooting but that is what learning is about isn't it?
