Alright iv'e been thinking of trying to paint of some shoes of mine. Canvas fabric shoes but I have no idea where to start D: I dont want any paint ect. that I put on em to wear away, crack or flake off. And about sealants for keeping the paint on, i just dunno DX and i have done some research but its all vague and theres no tutorials out there i can find and stuff. If anyone has any info on how to paint fabric shoes then please help me out xxx cheers

I'll risk stating the obvious with some of this. The first point would be, no article of clothing you paint for the purpose of appearance is going to be very durable afterwards (as far as keeping the painting intact goes) so the shoes would have to be considered akin to dress shoes once painted... That is, when wearing them, no going on clam digging odysseys and slam-dancing in gravel pits unless you're prepared to have their paint job get wrecked. They have to be your special dress-up shoes in which you only do fairly gentle things. That said... Step one is to wash them in the washing machine and put them through 2 rinses, to get them clean of anything that will stop the paint from adhering (including any sizing or treatments applied at the factory) and to raise the fibers on the cotton. 2 rinses helps assure you won't have any detergent left on them to foil your paint job, and needless to say, don't use any fabric softener as this will seal your fabric and make the paint perform awfully. Let dry completely once washed. Step two, once they are nice and dry, would be to select the kind of paint you wish to use based on your final desired effect. I'd recommend staying away from oils of any sort, since, even though oil paints are traditionally used on canvas, they only do well when hanging on a nice, safe wall. Shoes are likely to come into contact with all sorts of greases, chemicals and residues that can re-activate oils and turn your shoes into a sticky, greasy mess later on. Acrylics, however, will do wonderfully, since once cured they are waterproof, and also tend to not react with oils or other chemical solvents. If you want hard-edged vibrant designs, you could use the sorts of paints used for doing craft t-shirt projects (puff-paint, dimensional paint, they go by different names, but are available on great huge racks in craft stores) but you're probably going to be happier with durable craft acrylics such as Ceramcoat. Just be careful of buying a bargain acrylic, as some of them are TRULY weak, and will even re-liquify later on if wet. If you go with puff-paint, just follow the bottle instructions, as you'll be painting on a fairly ideal surface and the bottle instructions will serve you well. If you go the more artsy route and go with Ceramcoat, though... Step 3 would be to prep the shoes with a base coat. I believe Ceramcoat makes a primer/gesso you can base-coat with, but you'd also be fine just mixing up a base color from the normal paint colors and priming your shoes with that. For example, if you wanted a white base coat? Just take a bottle of white and use a brush to work a nice layer of it into the surface of the shoes, so they are then all white. Want a black base coat? Do the same except with black. This gives you a surface that the other paints you will be adding will stick to well, and which will give you a predictable result when you do your actual graphics. If you just went straight onto the raw canvas with your design, you might get nasty surprises such as bleed. Base coating prevents this. Once you base coat, let the coat dry thoroughly. Step 4 is just painting your graphics on using Ceramcoat paints. The only advice I would really give would be to avoid thinning the paint or doing any sort of glaze, and don't wad it on too thick. The paint performs best when straight from the bottle in the most modest amounts required by appearance. Once you finish your painting, let it dry thoroughly then... Step 5 would be to give it a few nice, thin coats of transparent acrylic glaze, allowing each coat to dry completely before applying the next. Once this step dries... You're done! Show off your shoes. Naturally, wherever I said "Ceramcoat" I really meant "whatever brand you decide to use" but I've always had good results from Ceramcoat as it cures out to a very durable, plastic surface that doesn't crack or re-liquefy. I'm sure you can get excellent results from other brands, but be warned, some brands will also be nightmarish. Hope this helped!

Holy crud, thanks very much for all of that seriously, I wouldn't have figured alot of that out. All that knowledge, wow. And yeh theyre gunna be 'dress shoes' i wont go to the beach in em ;) Thanks very much again! this helped loads xxx