Chapter 1: Repairs & Improvised Fixes — Glues, Tapes, Stitches

Created by Sarah Choi (prompt writer using ChatGPT)

Repairs & Improvised Fixes for Prop Concept Artists: Glues, Tapes, Stitches, and Provenance

Improvised repairs are the fingerprints of use. A single wrap of tape across a cracked handle, a bead of epoxy that bulges at the seam, a zigzag of field stitching over a torn strap—these micro‑details compress history into a few square centimeters. For concept artists, repairs telegraph material truth and narrative in a tiny budget of pixels. For production artists, they are a catalog of surface processes—albedo tint, roughness shift, height buildup, edge failure—that must survive compression, mipmaps, and gameplay distance. This article organizes repair languages—glues, tapes, stitches, and stickers—into a system you can deploy across props to tell believable stories of maintenance, scarcity, and ownership.

Start with the failure, not the fix. Every repair should be the answer to a specific break: a cracked polymer shell; a delaminating laminate; a stripped screw; a torn webbing loop; a leaking hose; a rattling plate. Sketch the break first with physics: impact scars radiate away from corners; heat softens and glosses; solvents mattify and streak; fatigue concentrates at hinge roots and fastener clusters. Then choose a repair method that a plausible user, with plausible tools and a plausible timeframe, would apply. A mechanic under time pressure reaches for zip ties and hose clamps; an engineer at bench reaches for epoxy and inserts; a scavenger uses cordage, rags, and tape.

Glues and adhesives read through edge behavior, meniscus, and discoloration. Cyanoacrylate (“superglue”) wicks into hairline cracks and leaves a faint glossy halo and white fogging near joints, especially on acrylics and ABS. Epoxy builds volume: two‑part beads sit proud, smooth and slightly convex, with trapped micro‑bubbles and a warm tint that yellows with age. Urethane adhesive (like shoe goo) strings and forms rubbery fillets, absorbing vibration and filling gaps. Hot‑melt forms soft beads with characteristic tailing and catches dust; it looks amateur but can be right for field expedience. Contact cement leaves a thin, uniform glue line and characteristic “squeeze‑out dots” along edges, often amber. In depiction, exaggerate gloss differentials at the edge of the adhesive and add directionally trapped dirt where fingers smear and where dust settles before cure.

Tapes are the fastest visual shorthand for quick fixes and pack an enormous material vocabulary. Cloth gaffer tape has a matte, woven tooth with frayed edges and a tendency to lift at corners; dirt collects along its perimeter and the weave prints through paint rubs. Duct tape is shinier, with a cross‑hatch scrim and a slightly embossed foil feel; it creases and forms “elephant skin” at bends. Electrical tape is smooth, stretchy, and semi‑gloss; overlapping wraps telegraph tension and spring back, and edges cut cleanly with fingernails. Kapton (amber polyimide) telegraphs heat and electronics; it’s translucent with a high‑temp story. PTFE thread seal tape (white, very matte) feathers at ends and implies plumbing. Masking tape is paper‑matte, tears ragged, yellows and flakes, and invites hand‑written notes. When laying tape in concept, respect tension and path: wraps spiral with consistent gaps, patch strips follow stress lines, corners lift where hands rub, and adhesive residue ghosts remain after removal. In materials, map tape to slightly higher roughness than polished plastics but lower than raw paper; add raised edge in normal, micro‑fiber directionality, and dirt shelf at the step.

Mechanical lash‑ups feel the most credible because they reuse hardware already present on the prop. Zip ties leave square locking heads and little clipped tails that snag grime; double up or daisy‑chain when length is short. Safety wire laces through fasteners with twisted pairs and pig‑tail ends; it reads as disciplined if twist pitch is even, sloppy if not. Hose clamps (worm‑drive) give you readable screw housings and band overlaps; place them near a leak and add a thin dark stain trailing away. Improvised brackets show hack geometry: L‑angles, bent strap steel with slot holes, washers stacked as spacers, mismatched fasteners with misaligned head types. Rivets tell production constraints; a line of pop rivets implies a quick plate reinforcement with limited access to the back side. Always align repairs with load; plates should bridge cracks across the shortest span that still captures screws on either side, stitches should run perpendicular to tear direction.

Stitches, lashings, and wraps carry regional craft. Field stitching on fabric uses large, visible thread and simple patterns: running stitch for quick hems, overcast/whip stitch around edges to prevent fray, and baseball stitch to close a split under tension. On leather, saddle stitch with twin needles leaves a beautiful, alternating pattern and slight channel where a groover cut the path. Paracord lashings over handles create criss‑cross diamonds or cobra weaves; they bulk grips, damp vibration, and anchor accessory loops. Wire stitching on cracked polymer shells can be drilled and “sutured,” leaving metal bites and slight melt at holes from drill heat. When depicting stitches, vary thread thickness, fuzz, and dye wear; thread grows darker with oil at contact points and lighter where UV bleaches exposed runs. Shadows inside the stitch channel and subtle height along thread give them tactile presence; add tiny cross‑shadows where threads pass over edges.

Stickers and tags are the language of provenance. A calibration sticker with initialed boxes and a date implies maintenance cycles; a tamper‑evident VOID label torn across a seam tells story and adds adhesive residue ghosts. Barcodes, QR‑like codes, and serialized asset tags anchor a prop to an organization; place them near serial plates and service panels. Field tags—hand‑written masking tape, shipping labels repurposed, hazard triangles cut from larger stickers—convey scarcity and personality. Layering is key: an old label half‑peeled beneath a fresh one telegraphs long service life; a clean rectangle of brighter paint under a removed sticker reads as a “shadow” of provenance. In materials, isolate label ink in basecolor and roughness; do not rely solely on normals. Slightly sink stickers by airbrushing a soft dirt pass over edges, then chip or lift corners at touch zones.

Color and value shifts make repairs read at distance. Even before micro‑detail, you can telegraph a fix with a darker band where an added strip lives, a glossy seam where epoxy sits, a different finish where a replaced panel or 3D‑printed part lacks paint match. Use A/B material contrast: OEM powder coat vs. rattle‑can satin; anodize vs. raw billet; woven nylon vs. improvised canvas tape. Keep the base prop recognizable by preserving brand geometry and signature break lines; let repairs interrupt in believable, orthogonal ways.

Narrative cadence matters. Too many repairs turn a hero prop into noise; too few leave it sterile. Cluster fixes where hands work and forces travel: near handles, hinges, seals, vibration sources, and heat zones. Pair a single bold repair with a few whispers: a big bracket plate on a cracked chassis, plus a little electrical tape on a cable strain relief and a calibration sticker near a dial. Allow repairs to age at different rates; a fresh tape patch next to an old yellowed label feels authentic. Show failed repairs—tape residue where a strip was ripped off and replaced with zip ties—to hint at trial‑and‑error.

Causality is your anchor. A cracked battery door suggests swelling cells; add gentle bulge and stress whitening at tabs. A taped hose joint implies a leak; add mineral stains and dust adhered to the wet edge. A stitched strap implies torn weave; fray fibers at cut edges and heat‑seal the ends of synthetic webbing with a gloss dark bead. A glued sight on a tool implies stripped screws; show enlarged, chewed heads, maybe an insert plate added later. Tie every repair to a physical cause; the audience may not articulate it, but they feel it.

Pipeline and performance benefit from modular repair libraries. Build a small atlas of tape strips (straight, folded corner, torn edge), adhesive beads (thin CA, thick epoxy, urethane fillet), stitch normals (running, whip, baseball), zip‑tie heads, and rivet lines. Keep roughness and height subtle but present; thin details shimmer, so thicken strokes and bevels beyond realism to survive TAA. Use mesh decals or deferred decals for late‑binding repairs you may reposition; texture‑bake only when the geometry forces it. Share atlases across props so a world’s repair language stays consistent.

Material recipes make depiction fast and repeatable. For cloth tape: basecolor slightly warmer and lighter than the substrate; roughness 0.6–0.8 with directional weave; normal micro‑weave at 0.2–0.4 strength; edge lift mask with cavity dirt. For duct tape: basecolor cool grey, subtle anisotropic highlight; roughness 0.35–0.5; normal cross‑hatch; emboss on creases. For electrical tape: deeper value, roughness 0.2–0.35, soft corner highlight, stacked overlap masks. For epoxy: basecolor lightly tinted amber; roughness 0.05–0.2 in body, 0.3 at scuffed edge; normal meniscus; micro‑bubbles in opacity if translucent. For stitching: basecolor off‑white or dyed; roughness 0.5–0.7; height 0.2–0.5 mm; AO in stitch channel.

Cultural and factional signatures enrich repair language. An organized corporate maintenance team uses printed calibration stickers, even spacing, and color‑coded heat‑shrink; a rebel cell uses mismatched bolts, scavenged plates, and handwritten tape; a frontier maker uses leather wraps, brass rivets, and careful saddle stitches. Define two or three signature repair cues per faction and repeat them across props to create identity without logos.

Safety and ethics still apply. Do not depict unsafe “repairs” in a way that confuses the player about safe use unless the narrative demands it; when you do, add hazard overlays (out‑of‑service tags, lockout hasps) to signal risk. Avoid real restricted certification labels; invent house equivalents. Be mindful with language on hand‑written stickers; keep it readable and respectful across locales.

Testing and proofing keep repairs legible. Down‑res renders to gameplay TD and check at typical distances; if the tape edge shimmers, thicken its keyline or move it to a decal. Print at 1:1 for practical builds to judge stitch spacing and tape width; in film, test under different lights—glossy duct tape can flare under high key and wash out. Verify that repair detail supports the shot’s story beat; if the scene never reads the micro‑type on a tamper label, consider spending those texels on a stronger silhouette change.

Deliverables that downstream teams love include a “repair kit” sheet: a reference grid of tape variants with widths in millimeters, adhesive bead profiles with labeled materials, stitch patterns with nominal spacing, and a few plate/fastener arrangements for common crack spans. Provide vector sources for stickers and tags, roughness/normal stamps for tape and stitches, and a short note per prop explaining why each repair exists. When repairs are designed as a system rooted in failure physics and lived‑in use, your props gain that immediate, trustworthy weight: they have been somewhere, someone cared enough to keep them alive, and the world around them starts to feel real.