Hydro Dipping Shoes... Easy And Effective

Intro

Do you like easy projects?

Okay, how about cheap projects?

Perfect, I have many tricks up my sleeve but I think this one is going to take the cake as far as bang for your buck. Unlike the custom painted shoes that take up a huge part of my day, this project can easily be done in under an hour (including prep time).

Here is a fun, easy, and vibrant custom you can do with out using much time or money!

This is how I did it.

What You Need

First thing you need is a pair of shoes. DUH! But hey I like to be thorough. Now you can pick anything from $6 Walmart shoes all the way up to Jordans or Yeezys... completely your choice. I went with cheap Walmart shoes to experiment with, and honestly they came out pretty dope! One thing to note is that different shoes have different materials which makes for different prepping steps (covered later in this post), nothing too crazy, again I just like to be thorough.

Okay the fun part in my opinion. Picking your color way. This is the part where you hit the spray paint aisle and just choose what colors you want to swirl and put onto your shoe. A couple ideas that come to my mind are matching your favorite sports team or finding a shirt with a tough color way that you want to match and keep alive. Rust-Oleum or Krylon both work just fine.

You will need a bucket or tub deep enough to dunk the shoe completely underwater in, painters tape, and gloves to keep your hands paint free. You will see later on that I forgot to put my gloves on and it ended taking a long time to clean off my hands.

And as always, acetone/ nail polish remover and cotton balls for prepping your shoes in the making.

(Optional) I used Rust-Oleum Adhesion Promoter as an added measure because I went with a soft canvas shoe and wanted to give the paint every chance to stick to the shoe as possible.

Step by Step

1. For shoes with a factory finish (like leather or pleather or vinyl or whatever has a factory shine) use a cotton ball loaded with acetone to rub and clean the shoe down to its bare material.

For shoes made out of a softer material (like canvas or cloth or suede or whatever doesn't have a factory shine) I like to wash or clean the shoe with a shoe cleaner ( ReShoeven8r is my favorite) and let it completely dry.

2. Take your painters tape and start covering up the areas you do not want painted such as the sole/ mid sole. You can also tape off different sections of the shoe to add dimension. An example would be taping off the nike check and soles on an all white Air Force 1 to give the shoe a nice contrast.

3. Grab your bucket or tub and fill it up with water. Hose water or tap water from the sink all work just fine. Room temperature as well.

4. This part is optional but I think it is worth the extra step. Spray the shoe with a couple light coats of adhesion promoter within 8 minutes of dipping (you want the primer to still be a little wet when you are dipping).

5. Shake up your cans of spray paint and start spraying directly at the water! A little over here a little over there, switch colors as often as you'd like...mix it up! I just try to make sure that there is no blank spaces or else when you dip the shoe it might look inconsistent.

6. Grab your first shoe and slowly dip it into the water. There is a little technique and perhaps a learning curve to this but if you mess it up you can always dip it again! Just make sure the area you want painted is facing down towards the paint and you pretty much lay the shoe across the design you just made while slowly submerging it completely underwater. JUST MAKE SURE YOU WEAR GLOVES! I had a hard time getting the paint off my hydro dipped hands. Once the shoe is wrapped in paint and underwater completely just give it a nice shake and pull it from the water.

7. I took a razor and ran it around the edge of the tape just to make sure I didn't peel the paint up or off when I removed the tape. The shoe was still wet when I peeled the tape but I am not sure if waiting for everything to dry makes any difference towards the outcome.

8. You can seal the paint many different ways or I have even seen people just skip this part all together. I don't know if I mentioned being thorough but if I spend time on anything then I like to add some quality to it, so I used Krylon Crystal Clear Finish to seal the deal on this project. I found this at Michaels and sprayed a couple light coats onto the whole shoe. Other options I have seen include Angelus Brand finishers, clear coat, and even modge podge. I use Krylon Finshers and Angelus Brand Finishers on all my customs so that is what I am comfortable with.

9. Lace em up and go flex! (put your shoe laces back in and go wear them)!

In Conclusion

It doesn't get much easier than this when it comes to customizing shoes. As usual I had a lot of fun with this project and I still have a lot of left over materials to keep going with.

The funny thing I realized besides forgetting gloves and hydro dipping my hands, is that you can hydro drip a lot of different things! Phone cases, bike helmets, gun parts, the possibilities are non stop. I was so laser focused on documenting this process that I kept a tunnel vision on shoes, but now the ideas are flowing!

Any ideas or challenges you would like to share? Great! You can comment below or email me, I would love to see what results you ended up with or hear any other ideas/ challenges you have for me!

AND...

If you enjoyed this post or think you know someone who would have fun doing this as well then please share!