A Duct Tape Muzzle Art Tutorial

I've seen some really lovely duct tape muzzle art at the Muzzle Up Project, and wanted to try it myself. There are a few pictures around, but I haven't been able to find any sort of a tutorial or documentation of the process. This is what held me back for months, I didn't feel confident about starting the project without seeing someone else do it first. So, in the spirit of "you go first!" and "I'll do it if you do it!", here is my process for making my first tape-wrapped muzzle.

Materials

One roll of decorative duct tape and one Baskerville muzzle.

For this project, you need duct tape and a muzzle, obviously. I also used a can of clear spray enamel and an x-acto knife. 

A note on duct tape choice: Most of the design is going to be wrapped around the small bars of the muzzle. The larger the design, the less recognizable it will be. Small prints work better, and abstract designs work best. I originally wanted Hello Kitty tape, but ended up going with rainbow unicorns. Shut up, unicorns are abstract now.

The first piece.

Time to get started! The first thing I did was tear off a small strip of tape and wrap it around a bar. Not bad, but I should have used a wider piece that covered the whole bar.

More pieces, kind of wrinkly.

I covered a few more bars and quickly discovered that covering a curved surface with a flat piece of tape resulted in wrinkles.

Cutting corners.

To fit the tape around the corners neatly, I tried cutting it with an x-acto knife.

First corners accomplished!

This made the tape lay flat around the corner, but also left gaps in the back. The alternative it to just mash it around the corner, which gives better coverage but doesn't look quite as clean.

Trimming to fit.

The duct tape is wider than the bars of the muzzle. I cut down on bulk and made the tape lay flatter by cutting off the excess before smoothing down the edges.

Big piece on longer bar.

Time to try taping a longer bar! This was the longest piece of tape so far. I checked the size before ripping off the tape. Longer pieces show the design better and look cleaner if you can get them down flat enough, but they're more prone to wrinkling too.

Halfway there!

This strip of tape went halfway around the muzzle. Most of it ended up looking pretty good, but it wrinkled more than I wanted.

A gap!

Here's a gap where the ends of the tape didn't quite meet. 

Small pieces to the rescue!

I used some of the bits I trimmed off before to cover the gaps. I was surprised how many little tiny piece I used. The pattern really helped cover them up.

The aftermath.

Here's what the table looked like when I was done. I learned that cutting the tape with the knife made for much flatter and cleaner lines, but also took way longer. Anywhere the very edge of the tape folded over on itself, I just cut off. 

The finished product.

Here's the finished muzzle. It turned out a bit more wrinkly and a bit less neat that I'd like, but was definitely a learning process.

Not perfect, but not terrible.

The toughest part was fitting the tape around the strap holes. I'm not totally pleased with how this turned out. 

Getting ready for the clear coat.

To hold everything together nicely, I decided to spray it with a couple coats of clear enamel. Gotta cover up anything I don't want painted.

Ready to spray.

With the straps covered in masking tape, I took the muzzle outside and sprayed it with the clear coat. As spray paint is inert once it is dry, "why didn't I just paint the whole damned thing?" crossed my mind, as I'm sure it did yours. Unicorns. Unicorns are the answer.

Hanging up to dry

The finished product! I don't have an in-action shot, partly because this thing needs a few days to cure and partly because I don't actually have a dog large enough to wear a size 5 Baskerville Ultra muzzle. I'm planning to do this with a smaller muzzle now that I've developed some skills. Anyone need an inexpertly-wrapped size 5 rainbow unicorn muzzle?