Friday 24 August 2012

Making Galaxy Shoes (tutorial)

Hello people!

I purchased a pair of plain white shoes at the beginning of the summer. I didn't really have any plans for them. I was thinking of leaving them white and writing quotes all over them. I obviously changed my mind. After seeing some super cute wedges that had a galaxy scape that would make NASA proud, I knew what I wanted to do.  

Thus is my tutorial on how to make galaxy shoes! 

What you'll need:
-Shoes that you are willing to paint on (I recommend that they be black)
- Acrylic paint, the more the merrier.
-Brushes, something that you can dab with, and a small one for making stars
- Pictures of space (optional)
-Some spray varnish
-A cupcake for when you are done (optional but strongly recommended)


                                              Here are the white shoes, fresh from the box.


 
I started painting the edges of the shoe black with a smaller brush, in retrospect, starting with a black shoe is easier because you can skip this step. 



I changed to a bigger bush to fill in the rest of the shoe. I kept the trim white but you can do what you like with it.



 After I finished painting the shoes black I searched Googled galaxy and space photos.  I eventually went to NASA's website because I didn't like the results I was getting on Google. (That doesn't happen often does it?)




I found a picture that had a lot of blue and brown-red colors.  So that's what I used for the first shoe.

Here's the "finished" result for the right shoe.  I added stars in after it dried.



Here's palette with the colors I used.  I used a stubby, short bush and used a tapping motion to pain it. I found I could spread the color without mixing or smugging the colours together.



This is my work space before I started the left shoe.  Yeah. It's kinda messy and on the left of the picture you can see all the tubes of paint I used in this project.


If you turn your head sideways you'll see my left shoe.  I painted two nebula's on this one.



Here is a side view to show that I paint the design on to the side of the shoe.


Here are both shoes all painted.  


I let them dry for 24 hours before starting the next step.  


The next step is to splatter white "stars" on the shoe.  Make you sure you test your splatter before you do it on your shoes.  I know I have the tendency to make really big messy splatters and get most of it on myself.  This is not at all what I wanted for these shoes so I tested the splatter technique with a couple of brushes before I found one that makes super small white dots. Perfect!
  
I used a small brush to paint big stars.  I also dabbed in some stars in silver and some yellow stars that supposedly glow in the dark, but they don't glow, the dots are too small.   






Above are the shoes after splattering, and painting in the stars.  When I was looking at the NASA pictures I noticed that some of the stars are clouded over by gas and particles that may eventually create planets. I went over the nebulae with a thin layer of transparent colours. 

I waited about a day or two and sprayed them with varnish to seal the finish. Below are the final result,   



Side Views


The Back



I hope you enjoyed that. If you have any questions feel free to put them in the comment section.


6 comments:

  1. These are the coolest looking galaxy shoes/tutorial I have seen while searching for ideas. I like how you used NASA images to create a shoe that really mirrors outer space. Thanks for the ideas and tutorial!

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    1. Thank you for liking them. I hope that its helped you to make your own.

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  2. The best galaxy shoes I've seen, but I was wondering how did you mimic the pictures so perfectly?

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    1. Thank you so much, that means a lot to me.

      I don't really know how I got the shoe to look like the pictures. I'm fortunate to have lots of different types of paint at my disposal. I would suggest some transparent paints in the same color as your solids, and do some layering with them.

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  3. Just made these! Many thanks for the tute!!!
    I used fabric paints and it seems to hold well...the result is not as good as yours (poor painting skills) But I love my new galaxy shoes!!! Thanks again from Italy!

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    1. Thank you so much from coming back to my tutorial and writing your comment, I'm so glad to hear that you like your new shoes.
      Thanks again for doing my tutorial. :D

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