You may think of puffy paint and remember arts n’ crafts from school days or decorating t shirts at camp. When I look at this painting medium though, I see something completely different. If you’re a fellow crafter of costumes, then you need to know the hacks for how to use puffy paint for cosplay. It can elevate your costumes and props to a whole new level since it has many applications it works for.
I recently did a massive cosplay build where puffy paint was the main component in bringing it to life. The build was my Invisible Man suit from the 2020 Invisible Man movie starring Elisabeth Moss. I fell in love with the movie really between the amazing story and the stellar cast. Once I saw the suit and understood the layout, I knew I had to find a way to bring it to life as a cosplay. Which I did, thanks to puffy paint.
Yaya Han has a lycra fabric that is black with hexagon pattern all over which I used as a base for the body suit. It was perfect since the suit is basically just hexagons with small cameras in each shape. That’s where the hard part came though. Figuring out what would represent each little camera lens. Thankfully I know how to use puffy paint for cosplay and was able to think outside of the box.
This is just one example of how to use puffy paint for cosplay and we will definitely cover more in this post. To create my camera lens, I used a dot of glossy black puffy paint in every single hexagon of the suit. It worked really well but took an incredibly long time. You can see how I did it and the full time lapse of applying the paint in the tutorial video from my YouTube channel below:
What Is Puffy Paint Good For?
Well besides that one cosplay, it works for a lot of other things in cosplay. You can use it to draw designs on cosplays in a variety of colors. It can also be used like foam clay for small elevated details that you will then paint over. I love to keep puffy paint on hand for adding details to armor and props easily. It can also work to add lettering and text to a cosplay too.
Essentially any elevated detail you need to add to a cosplay, puffy paint can work. It’s just about determining the need color, whether you want matte or gloss and how to paint over it.
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