I hate Halloween store fangs. My inner Goth girl goes nuts for them and I try not to fondle them in the store too much. My outer perfectionist can't stand that they never fit right. Most are way too long for my small mouth. If I get them positioned where the top of the tooth meets the gum line, I can't close my mouth. If I can close my mouth, the fangs go way too far over my gumline and look clearly fake. The color doesn't match my teeth either and I always end up with high hopes and sad, sad realities.
I've always had dreams of having a set of custom fangs. As much as I'd like to, I can't afford to have them made for me, but I do know my way around a sculpting project. After some clever YouTube- and Google-fu, I found some instructions that seemed simple enough... make mold of teeth, sculpt teeth on positive mold and go! I've got experience sculpting, so this should be easy-peasy, right?
Nope.
The steps themselves are simple enough. It's the making realistic-looking teeth that are a good size for me that took some trial and error. I also had trouble with my materials interacting in undesirable ways. Turns out plastic loves to stick to plastic. (I knew this.) This project, which I thought I could bang out in an afternoon, ended up taking me 2 days. I ended up with 2 pairs of fangs that I was pretty happy with in the end and about 3 additional pairs that I broke. Easy.
Yeeeah.
I spent around $30.00 (US) for the entire project, but already some of the materials lying around. Mine fit decently well without some sort of adhesive, but they're a little loose. This could be because of the petroleum jelly I was using to keep the acrylic from destroying my mold again. I've got enough of the stuff to make several molds and teeth, so my cost-per-product is much cheaper.
Skill level: Intermediate- advanced. Experience with sculpting will be very useful.
If you're not experienced, don't worry. I'm happy to answer any questions you have.
