Note: This is based heavily on Naughty Secretary Club’s tutorial, with a few modifications and additional comments.

Materials:

• Tights (not pantyhose; they’re too flimsy and may tear)
• Fabric paint (I used a Tulip starter kit)
• Fine paint brush (optional)
• Fabric marker (I used a fine-tip black Uchida marker)
• A cylinder about the size of your calf; I used a can of tomatoes
• Pattern (choose one that isn’t too intricate; the original tutorial suggested a coloring book design or an embroidery pattern, which have nice simple lines)
• Tape
• Small piece of cardboard for stretching after painting (optional)

Click the thumbnails for larger images.
	Print or photocopy the pattern in whatever size will fit nicely on the back of your calf and tape it to the cylinder. The NSC tutorial suggested using a hunk of PVC pipe or a mailing tube, neither of which I had laying around. A can of tomatoes worked fine for the smallish design I was doing. If you’re planning on covering more leg, you may need a longer cylinder.
	Carefully stretch the tights over the pattern, making sure it’s properly positioned. You may want to try on the tights and use a disappearing-ink fabric pen to mark around the area where you want the design to help with positioning.
	Paint the design, taking care not to glop on too much paint. You can use a paintbrush, but the narrow tips of the paint tubes I was using worked okay for me.
	When painted, outline the edges and add detailing with the fabric marker.
	Let the paint dry slightly, then carefully slip the cylinder out of the tights. Don’t let the paint dry completely with the pattern still in place; my first experiment stuck fast to the paper and the tights ripped when I tried to dislodge it. You might be able to just lay the tights out flat to finish drying, but I slipped a piece of cardboard inside to keep the paint from seeping through to the front.
	Let dry, and wear with pride. (The skull looks a little stretched in this photo, but it’s just the angle of the shot; the canned tomatoes actually worked pretty well.)