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| Right shoe, with vertical tape strips and lace holes |
So far, nearly all of my work has been on the right shoe, which is nearly finished aside from the tongue, sole padding, side textures, mesh, and laces. First step involves creating a multi-layer sole with a ring of tabs, which can be folded up and taped to the inner sole in such a way that it forms a short wall. Then a roll of tape is applied to the outside of that wall to make it solid (as opposed to the separate tabs which I started with), and further pieces of middle width tape, about two or three inches long, are applied horizontally to the outside, then inside, then outside again in a staggered pattern. The additional pieces of tape stick up about an inch above the wall of tabs. When one new wall is completed, it is sliced and adjusted to reflect the actual shape of the shoe, and a new wall is applied and adjusted in the same fashion, and so on and so forth. Once the form of the shoe is completed, additional, larger pieces of tape are applied to thicken and create a more solid layer. Thin strips of tape, about a centimeter wide, are placed vertically and parallel on the sides of the shoe. Lace holes are made by 'drilling' with an X-ACTO knife, then using a pencil tip from the inside and the outside to widen the incision consistently. A thin cylindrical rod may also help to shape the lace hole. The mesh texture may very well just be embossed rather than hole-punched or something to that effect.
I honestly have no idea how I'm going to make the tongue, let alone apply it, but the process will likely be similar to that which I did for the main body of the shoe. The side textures are made by creating a multi-layer tape base and then cutting out the shape. Additional layers of tape may be needed to solidify the object, as the cutting might have made it flimsy.
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| Side texture in progress for right shoe |
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| Right shoe, before vertical tape strips |
