# Jeepers Peepers - easy eyes for props / costumes



## Sytnathotep

Hello peeps! New how-to here. Thought I'd share how I go about making nice looking eyes for props and costumes.

First off, the eye textures. I've provided 10 eye textures you can print off. Print these off on your home printer to about the size you'll need. Use photo quality paper. Plain paper will bleed though and not look nearly as good. (More on that later)

Here is the link to the eyes.



Ok, other things you are ganna need.

Cheap Plastic paint palettes. You can get these at Wal-Mart, Hobby -Lobby, but likely, you already have some somewhere. They need to be clean, at free of scratches as we will use them as molds.










Next, you need a two part epoxy. For this, I've been using Smooth-On's Epoxy Cast 690 The stuff isn't very expensive, one trial size pack will do like a million eyes. lol . It hardens in 24hours, so you have lots of time to work. When hard, it is as clear as it was when liquid. You can likely use other epoxies, I think Hobby - Lobby carries a brand, but I've never used it.

Take the eye texture prints and cut them out to the round size of the palette wells. I recommend at first casting a blank well with epoxy only, and you can use this to cut out the eye textures, just lay it on the paper and cut around it with an exact-o knife.

The process is pretty simple. Set your palettes on a level surface. Mix the epoxy per instructions, and fill each well that you plan to make an eye in. Fill the well, don't overfill. Now carefully glide the print face down from the edge of the edge of the palette over the puddle of epoxy in the well, until you have it completely over the epoxy, centered on the well. Placing the paper this way as opposed to just dropping it on the puddle helps make sure you don't get an air bubble caught between the epoxy and the paper.

Once you position the paper so that its floating on top of the epoxy, I cover the back with a few drops. This way the paper is fully embedded, and this thing is now completely waterproof. Set this a side for a day or so to harden.

Once hard, WHACK the palette to demold them. You may or may not destroy the palette, guess that depends on your palette, and your whacking. Your eyes are ready! You can polish them up if you wish, but I find that they are glossy enough coming out of the clean palette.

Here is a photo of some finished.










Cool thing with this method, you get nice refraction on them at an angle. You can see this in this next pic. I think it makes them look more real.










Thanks for looking, I hope you enjoy!

EDIT 6-16-2012

New Eye Sheet!

I was messing around tonite and created some more eye prints, aimed at reptile-dragon-alien kinda stuff. Enjoy!









Download herehttp://www.hauntforum.com//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/


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## Sytnathotep

Here is also a couple of photos of some of these eyes being used for jewelry. Good looking fashion wear that looks back at you!


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## walterb

That is impressively easy


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## Vlad

Fantastic! Thanks for sharing


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## RoxyBlue

Thanks for the good eyes and how to

I wonder how these would look if you used hot glue. I suspect that would give a nice milky eye suitable for an old hag prop.


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## Sytnathotep

RoxyBlue said:


> Thanks for the good eyes and how to
> 
> I wonder how these would look if you used hot glue. I suspect that would give a nice milky eye suitable for an old hag prop.


That's quite possible, you'd just have to try it. I know that the epoxy can accept paints. Just the slightest (and I mean slight) white paint will cloud it up as well. Too much and you won't see the eye print in back any longer.


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## Lunatic

Beautiful faux eye technique. I love it. Thanks for the tutorial and link!


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## SPOOKY J

Awesome! Thanks for sharing.


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## psyko99

Wow, this is something I'm definitely going to give a try. Thanks for sharing.


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## Sawtooth Jack

I will be trying this one, thanks and nice work!


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## beelce

Love um....thanks


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## Joiseygal

Awesome job! The eyes are so realistic!


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## Bascombe

What about a mold release agent? That could help not destroy the pallettes

Eyes look fantastic by the way


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## scareme

These eyes look great and I love the jewelry.


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## tcass01

Hey guys, I bought the clear molding resin kit from Michaels. $13.99 and a 40% coupon fom my phone app= $8.39,
that and the 6 slot tray from JoAnn fabric and Craft for .99cents. I made 12 eyes and have only used 1/3 of the bottles. Cures in 24 hours. A note: I used Pledge furniture polish and wiped the form to remove excess, as a release agent. When cured, flex the edges of the tray around each eye to break the edge seal and whack it into your hand and they pop out nice. Another tip. This stuff is designed to let the bubbles relase by itself, but, if you mix gently, minimizing the bubbles, and pour from the edge of the mold instead of the center of the depression, the bubbling is minimal. Wait about 15 minutes, and use a popsicle stick to drag any remaining bubbles to the edge. Then set your eye cutout on at a slight angle as to alow air to escape. Pour enough resin onto the back of the cutout to cover and seal the edges. In 24 hours they are done. Don't get excited and try to take them out early. They will be too soft and you can mess them up. This was fun. I gotta make some more.
http://www.hauntforum.com/picture.php?albumid=1035&pictureid=13705


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## RoxyBlue

LMAO at that picture, tcass

I hope to try this soon myself, although I may not post a picture of myself wearing them


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## tcass01

two of the eyes I made last night. Nothing like a project staring back at you!


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## tcass01

I love my new Eyes!
Welcome to the Looney Bin...we Like it here!!!!


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## Sytnathotep

tcass01 Excellent work! They look great on you. lol


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## remylass

I think I will absolutely try this out.


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## hpropman

Wow I have to try this! - this would be a great make and take project!


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## Nick Nefarious

That's amazing. I love your techniques.


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## scarypapa

Just saw your technique for making these eyes. It is really cool, and it appears easy as well. So I might be able to do it. Thanks.


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## JustJimAZ

Great technique, and the results look fantastic!


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## kenkozpgh

Your eyes look great. I've been looking for a quick easy technique for eyes and this is it.

Thanks for sharing.


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## funkyfried

I have seen people do this for fursuits, but I love the creepy necklaces. and thanks for all the different eyes type pictures


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## Sytnathotep

Just a little update, I've added new eye printouts! Find them in the first post. Enjoy! XD


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## Hairazor

Great tutorial, Thanks, will need to make me some of these.

TCass, sooo funny!


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## Boogie

Super neat/cool/easy/handy idea! I love it


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## Cat_Bones

So cool!! Darn it back to the craft store I go!


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## TheOneAndOnlyKelly

I noticed some of your eyes had air bubbles in them... One idea might be to put your tray with your still liquid resin in a bucket of some sort and cover. Then attach your shop vac for a short amount of time to lower the airpressure inside the bucket to cause the bubbles to move to the surface so they don't get trapped inside the resin.

Haven't tried this, but it sounds like it might work...


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## Sytnathotep

MacabreRob said:


> I noticed some of your eyes had air bubbles in them... One idea might be to put your tray with your still liquid resin in a bucket of some sort and cover. Then attach your shop vac for a short amount of time to lower the airpressure inside the bucket to cause the bubbles to move to the surface so they don't get trapped inside the resin.
> 
> Haven't tried this, but it sounds like it might work...


Yeah, some had micro bubbles, they formed and are kinda stuck to the paper's fiber. I think brushing the eye paper with epoxy before placing it in the epoxy in the mold would solve this, but haven't tested that out yet.


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## Nightwing

what a wonderful idea, I can't wait to try it!


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## steampunksteve

those eyes are great , thanks


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## Palmdale Haunter

Great idea!


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## niblique71

I love this Idea when it first was posted, I'm SO glad it was revived!!! Could be a NJH MnT Project.


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## spinwitch

Great idea! thanks for sharing (will defintely do this one)


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## diggerc

Nice.


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## Turbophanx

Do you suppose there is a way to do this with water to make creepy Ice Cubes?


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## Ghosttwin

Very nice! Have you tried spraying the palette with some something to help them release easier? Thanx for the how to.


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## spookymulder76

Those are cool!! Love it!!


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## Blackrose1978

Wow really Cool


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## Wispurs

RoxyBlue said:


> Thanks for the good eyes and how to
> 
> I wonder how these would look if you used hot glue. I suspect that would give a nice milky eye suitable for an old hag prop.


As they say curiosity killed the cat. I had the stuff on hand to try the hot glue. End result was you couldn't see the eye through it. 
Save your glue and go for the epoxy.

Those are some awesome looking epoxy eyes!


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## MummyOf5

Do you have any tips for resizing the eyes before printing? I can't seem to get them quite the right size. I've seen tips for using resin that say to use a hair dryer to remove the bubbles after you pour it. The jewelry is cool (I make jewelry too  ) You should check out Catherinette Rings and Matthew Nix on facebook for more jewelry, they both use eyes in their stuff too.


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## Sytnathotep

MummyOf5 said:


> Do you have any tips for resizing the eyes before printing? I can't seem to get them quite the right size. I've seen tips for using resin that say to use a hair dryer to remove the bubbles after you pour it. The jewelry is cool (I make jewelry too  ) You should check out Catherinette Rings and Matthew Nix on facebook for more jewelry, they both use eyes in their stuff too.


For tweaking the print size, I'm not sure. You could try to take it into something like Wordpad and try to resize it to fit? Most image editors also have a mode that can let you set what size in inches you can print to.

I've never tried the hair dryer. I've just been really careful to pour slowly in one spot at the edge of the mold.

Thanks for liking the jewelry! I watch Catherinette Rings over on deviantart. I like his steampunk stuff too. LadyPirotessa does cool stuff like him too over there. I'll have to check out Matthew Nix.

I haven't made any resin stuff like this for quite a while, I mostly make myy jewelry out of glass and metal now. You can seem some more here. http://www.coquettecreations.com/


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## Chops6965

Very cool, thanks for posting the eye patterns. Cool looking and easy to make, good stuff!!


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## LilMissSunshine

Oh I've gotta try this! LOVE IT! My favorite thing I've seen on here so far!


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## DreadfulNoise

Well, now I've got something to do this weekend. I've got a few props who could use some creepy eyes.


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## diggerc

DreadfulNoise said:


> Well, now I've got something to do this weekend. I've got a few props who could use some creepy eyes.


More eyes here.
http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=20247


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## GloObule

Hi!

Thanks for this great pictures!

But I can't open the first one, Dry & dusty (.atm file, and the picture-not the download is in bad quality).

I make eye jewelry too, and I think this one will be very usefull! can you send it to me in .jpeg please?

I'd like to know design also pretty eye!!

Thank you very much!


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## RoxyBlue

Try this link, GloObule:

http://www.orestesgraphics.com/images/stories/how-to/eyes01.jpg

Right click on the picture and you can save it as a jpeg.


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## Sytnathotep

GloObule said:


> Hi!
> 
> Thanks for this great pictures!
> 
> But I can't open the first one, Dry & dusty (.atm file, and the picture-not the download is in bad quality).
> 
> I make eye jewelry too, and I think this one will be very usefull! can you send it to me in .jpeg please?
> 
> I'd like to know design also pretty eye!!
> 
> Thank you very much!


Ok, that is very odd, the links changed on my site to point to the wrong files....

I have edited the links now in the first post, all should be good now. I don't know what that was all about...:googly:


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## creeperguardian

RoxyBlue said:


> Thanks for the good eyes and how to
> 
> I wonder how these would look if you used hot glue. I suspect that would give a nice milky eye suitable for an old hag prop.


Oh if you try it id love to know.


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## RoxyBlue

Glad you reminded me, creeper. I'd forgotten about that idea


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## ManufacturedFear

Thank you for this thread


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## Eerie Ej

WOW! This is great! Thank you for sharing. I've been using dollar store eyeballs which we had to cut in half and scrap off the really bad eyes they had and doctor them up ourselves. These will work much better than trying to shove those bulking things I was working with into masks. Also thank you again for providing the textures.


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## divinedragon7

An amazing idea and wonderful results, thank you for sharing


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## screaminscott

MacabreRob said:


> I noticed some of your eyes had air bubbles in them... One idea might be to put your tray with your still liquid resin in a bucket of some sort and cover. Then attach your shop vac for a short amount of time to lower the airpressure inside the bucket to cause the bubbles to move to the surface so they don't get trapped inside the resin.
> 
> Haven't tried this, but it sounds like it might work...


Heating the epoxy with a heat gun (just a half-second at a time!) will help get rid of the air bubbles. The heat will warm both the resin and the air in the bubbles, lowering the viscosity of the resin and expanding the air bubbles so that they rise quickly and pop. But be careful with the heat gun...Don't melt your mold!


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## Ramonadona

Thanks to this post I made eyes for my dragon using the print outs. However, I have a tendency to be impatient...so instead of using epoxy I used clear stones bought at the Dollar Tree and Mod Podged the eye print to the back of it (the flat side) and voila!


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## Georgeb68

That is cool......and since I work prt time at he Dollar Tree , I'll be picking up some stones.


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## gjbailey

*my try*

Loved this idea. Used stones from dollar tree and modpodge. Then used cornstarch clay recipient. Thanks for the great tips on here


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## Gorylovescene

Oh my goodness... I had no idea that could be so easy. I have so many ideas now! Thanks for the helpful how-to


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## Lightman

I cast some eyes per Sytnathotep's instructions and they came out great!










Still need to polish them a bit as I had issues de-molding them. Trying a second batch with Vaseline as the release agent. Fun learning about casting expoxies. I am using Epoxacast 690.

Thanks for the terrific tutorial.


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## Lightman

Status on my next set of eyes, using Vaseline as a release agent. This second batch of eyeballs have cured (24 hours) and I de molded them today. De molding was again not easy and mold was destroyed in process. But eyeballs came out OK.

I then washed them, scrubbed them with Bar Keeper (mild cleanser) and then tried some polish on them....they still looked foggy to me. So I tried a buffing wheel with dremel tool (low speed)... and there was some improvement, but not good enough.

Finally, I coated them with clear nail polish and Voila!... they are clear again. The nail polish fills in the light scratch marks and imperfections, smoothing out the surface to a shine. I got this tip from an plastic based Jewelery website. Alternate solutions would be to mix up a batch of EpoxAcast and paint it on.... but I didn't have time to wait.

Here you can see the difference from a de molded part to a cleaned up polished part. The Vaseline release agent was not as smooth as I thought.










There are some fine bubbles in the cast...I guess I didn't wait long enough after the 2 part stir. I may try putting a vacuum on the mix to pull out bubbles before the pour.

I will try other release agents such as Pledge next, as suggested by one of our forum members. I then may buy some mold release such as Smooth On 200.

I also read the Novus 1 and 2 polishes (with very fine grit) are good for polishing plastic. Will have to give them a try.


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## Lightman

And here are the finished Green eyes in my Walgreens Skull....A bit bulging... but you get the idea.


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## FireWitch86

very cool! Definitely going to try this for my dummies.


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