#cosplayfangs

For Halloween, I decided to do a Dipper Pines cosplay with a Halloween Town twist onto it. Think of it as Dipper Pines with a Halloween Town Sora inspired outfit. As a part of that, I needed to make fangs.

At first, I was thinking of using Thermoplastic Polymer (the meltable plastic beads). The label said to not put the melted substance in your mouth. Initially, that didn't happen.

Attention: Thermoplastic Polymer is not the same as the beads you'll find in stuffed animals. Another name for it is Instamorph. I've heard you can find it on Amazon, E-bay, Michaels, or Wal-Mart.

Next, I decided to use a mouth guard, and then stick the thermoplastic polymer onto the mouth guard. Word of advice, don't use a mouth guard. Those things are meant to protect your teeth, so they're going to be bulky and thick. The ones that I used didn't even mold to my teeth when I put it in hot water. After trying to melt it, and mold it to my teeth about ten to fifteen times, I quit. The fact that it was hurting my upper lip was another factor that caused me to quit. That plan failed.

If you were thinking to go that way (or you don't want to go and get yourself some thermoplastic polymer), I would suggest following JessIsAMess's instructions, and not using a mouth guard. She went to a Halloween store and got a set of teeth intended for costumes. I'm assuming the plastic is thinner, so you can actually talk, somewhat. I myself haven't done it, but it worked for her.

I decided to follow Krispuuh Pew's tutorial and use Thermo(plastic) polymer beads. I put it in hot water (140-150 degrees fahrenheit) and waited until it turned clear. I then took the plastic and molded it to my teeth. My first three attempts had way too much plastic. Less is more.

I had hoped to mold the plastic around my teeth first, and then stick on additional pieces of plastic as fangs. Unfortunately, it did not stick. Looking back on it, there may have been cold water on the teeth part so that probably contributed to the problem. I managed to get it to stick by frantically molding the plastic to my teeth and then adding the fangs while both were still semi-soft. It stuck, but when I tried to take it off, I used the wrong part and tore off one of the fangs. In short, I had to make the fangs and mouth part in one go.

So that's what I did. I took the plastic, put it along my front teeth to about my canines and then pulled the ends down and pointed them for the fangs. I also pointed my fangs slightly forward because I wanted the cute effect of tiny fangs protruding out of the mouth. (Is that weird?) Any excess in the back I pushed to the roof of my mouth, I tried to keep things as close to my teeth as possible.

I also made sure that the plastic didn't protrude too much from my actual teeth because it looks weird. You'll want the plastic to be as close to your teeth as possible. So definitely make that bottom edge smooth.

Don't forget to rinse with cold water before and after you take the plastic out of your mouth to make sure it won't melt and loose it's shape on you.

Words of advice in a nutshell - do not put it along your gum. Put the plastic on your teeth, but do not put it along your gum. You're going to pull it off along the edge and you do not want to dig your nails into your gum. Along with that, it kind of hurts and is uncomfortable.

I tried again the next day because I wasn't all too pleased with the result. Press along the bottom edge of your tooth, smooth out the front, watch out for gums, pull down and point the sides for fangs, smooth out the plastic on the back of your teeth.

If you have the material, make more than one set so you can play around with the technique to get it to fit comfortably. The best part is, any extra material can be saved and then melted into a new thing.

I take them off by hooking my nails on the top part and gently pulling off. To get them on, you need to align them just right and then snap it into place. I find that you put it on partially, and then it takes a bit more effort to snap them into place. They're pretty tight once you put them on. I guess here's a good place to point out that they are reusable.

Depending on how you mold it, it'll affect how much of a lisp you'll have. I found that a looser/smaller pair will give you a stronger lisp (partly because it continually moves around when you talk), while a larger pair will also give you a lisp. It's a goldilocks size. I've heard that you can eat with them in, but I personally haven't tried it, but it's easy enough to pop out and in.

Another thing is that less is better. You'll use less than you think you'll need, along with that, smaller fangs look better than bigger ones. I did a cosplay thing with the large fangs and they were just big, bulky, and ugly.

Other methods that I've seen include taking fake nails, filing them down to the shape you want and using denture glue to stick them on your teeth. The only downside to that is that they aren't reusable.