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How we test: We own and travel with most of the gear we recommend and put it through real con weekends; the rest we vet with suiters we trust or draw from their first-hand reviews. Where you see photos of a unit in a review, those are our own or friend's and blog supporters.
The tape is the famous part of a duct tape dummy, but the marker is the part that decides whether the dummy is useful. An unmarked shell tells a maker your volume; the lines tell them your structure: where the centerline runs, where the shell was cut off, which side is which, where your waist actually sits. Makers' commission instructions commonly specify marking, and typically permanent marker; follow yours, because everything else wipes off the tape before the box arrives.
Twelve black permanent markers with a fine tip on one end and an ultra-fine on the other. The fine end draws the long structural lines a maker needs on the shell, the ultra-fine end writes labels and detail marks, and permanent ink is the entire point: it must survive the cut-off, the shipping box, and the maker's handling.
Two tips on one barrel is genuinely the right tool here rather than a gimmick. Seam lines and cut paths want the fine tip, bold enough to follow with shears and still visible after the shell is opened flat. Labels, "FRONT," "LEFT ARM," arrows marking which edges rejoin, want the ultra-fine tip, small enough to fit on a curved wrist section. Doing a whole dummy from one barrel instead of juggling two pens matters more than it sounds when you are the person sealed inside the tape waiting for the marking to finish.
Marking happens after taping and before cutting, while the wearer is still in the shell. The standard sequence:
Give the ink a breath on glossy fresh tape before brushing an arm across it; permanent ink is smearable ink for its first few seconds.
The same kind of product from other makers we haven't reviewed, so you can price-check the pick above.
Best for: A budget marker multipack for marking up a DTD
Fine-point permanent markers for drawing seam and cut lines on a duct tape shell, at a fraction of the name-brand cost. Enough in a pack to lose a few at the con and not care.
The tempting substitutes are all pens already in the house, and they all fail on tape: ballpoint skips and scratches on the slick surface, dry-erase wipes off at the first touch, pencil does not write on it at all, and a washable kids' marker smears exactly when the shell gets handled. A single ordinary Sharpie does work, and if you own one, use it; the twin tip earns its slot with the label-sized second tip, and the 12-count is simply the sensible multipack.
Permanent is a one-way door. A wrong line does not erase; you strike it through and draw again, so think before drawing rather than sketching freehand. The ink is equally permanent on the wearer's skin, the helper's sleeve, and the hotel carpet the dummy is standing on, and a capped-off marker rolling around a taping session is how furniture gets autographed. This is also far more marker than one dummy uses, which is either a con or a lifetime supply depending on how you look at it.
Because the marks must survive handling, cutting, folding, and a trip through the mail on a slick tape surface. Ballpoint skips on tape, dry-erase wipes off at a touch, and pencil simply does not write on it. Permanent marker is the only common tool whose marks are still there when the maker unpacks the shell.
Follow your maker's instructions first; they trump everything here. The common baseline is front and back centerlines, a waistline, wrist and ankle lines, the cut path, and matching labels on both sides of every cut so the shell reassembles unambiguously.
Fine. The long lines are guides for shears and for a maker reading the shell from across a workbench, and the ultra-fine tip draws them too faint. Save the ultra-fine end for labels and small marks; that division is exactly why the twin tip earns its slot.
Ink sits on the tape shell, not through it; a DTD is taped over a coverall that is sacrificed anyway. The realistic ink risk is smearing fresh lines with a hand or forearm during marking, not bleed-through.
Ready to buy the Sharpie Twin Tip Permanent Markers, Black, 12 Count?
Check Price on AmazonCompared the options? Our pick is still the Sharpie Twin Tip Permanent Markers, Black, 12 Count.
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