Saturday, August 30, 2008

Bubble Gem Cephalopod Jewelry Sale

I've decided to stop making my bubble gem cephalopod jewelry and to clear out my inventory of them to make room for new projects. To help do that I've lowered the price, you can now snap them up for $10 a piece, down from $25. Bubble Gem Cephalopod Jewelry

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Follow me on Twitter

I've recently begun using Twitter more. If you aren't familiar with Twitter it's basically a mini-blog/social network where you can have conversations or just see what someone is up to. I use it for all those little things that aren't worth a full blog post here (like announcing a new listing in my shop) or is off topic. So, if you would like the most up to date news on what I'm doing or to get a heads up on new stuff go over to my Twitter profile and follow me.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Update on the Commissioned Sculpture

Here's a little update on my sculpture commission. This is the sort of messy, ugly looking stage that I hate showing but just wanted to show everyone reading that I haven't fallen off the face of the earth and have made progress on this sculpt.

The body and neck still need a lot more filling out and you can see that I've constructed the basic shape of the drapery. I've left a lot of room to be able to build up the folds, under a very thin layer of clay is some wireform mesh. I love that stuff, it's you've never tried it, wireform mesh is made by Amaco and is a very flexible fine aluminum mesh that you can cut and shape really easily (heavy duty scissors will do the trick). Great stuff for fabric, wings, and other thin areas that need support.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Started on New Commissioned Sculpture

So I've begun my latest commissioned sculpture, Mike is a wonderful client to work for since he really didn't specify anythign more than final cost and that he'd like a full figure (he already has a bust I created for him). Things are still very rough right now, only an armature but I have an idea where this is going to go. I ran across these gorgeous stock photos on DeviantArt by Lockstock while browsing for reference photos last week.

I'm going to be doing a combination of these two poses and all that lovely drapery, it's size is 1/8 scale (a little over 8 inches). Here's the armature, it's mostly aluminum wire though the weight bearing leg also has a piece of much stiffer steel wire reinforcing it and helping anchor it into the base.

It doesn't show that well in the photos but the fingers have some extremely fine beading wire wrapped aroudn the fingers and then secured with a little super glue. I always have trouble getting clay to stick well on fingers and when I saw this wire I thought it would be perfect, it's really not much thicker than a hair or piece of thread that's how fine it is. Since I'm going to be doing so much detailed drapery in this sculpture I made the arms so they can be removed, the head can also be removed to make working on it easier.

I used a little aluminum foil for bulking and then covered it all with Sculpey Ultralight which after baking is much more secure than just foil and I can write on it. You can see the center lines I drew on the chest and head as reminders of the positioning I want.

To support the drapery I'll be using some wireform mesh, it hasn't been added yet because I had to order more (probably won't arrive for at least another week, a few things are backordered) and I also think it might be easier to get some of the torso roughed in before adding the mesh.