Mold Making First Attempt - part I

So I've started my first foray into molding and casting. It's been interesting so far. No major disasters but a couple minor ones.

Here's the victim.



First here's a cardboard prop to keep the bust I'm molding in the right position. This led to minor disaster number one, I managed to both cut myself with my knife and burn my fingers with the hot glue gun. The prop worked well though.



The next couple steps I forgot to take pictures of, I built a layer of Klean Klay (sulfur free modeling clay) over one half of the bust and then layered plaster of paris on top. Once dry I flipped it over and did the same on the other side, this gave me a nice plaster mother mold that will be filled with the mold rubber. Here's where minor disaster number two and three come along. On one side of my mother mold layer of plaster for some reason didn't quite adhere to the first layer and flaked off so I wasted quite a bit of plaster and time. Then I managed to spill plaster all over my floor which I'm still working on cleanign up. A minor annoyance was finding out after I used vaseline as a release agent for the plaster that I could have used liquid soap instrad which would have been far far easier to clean off.

After all the plaster was dried I had to open up the mother mold, that went well even with the vaseline making a mess all over my hands. I removed the klean klay from one half of the mother mold, and on the other side you can see the clay bed that will be a barrier to the rubber when I pour it. I had to position the clay bed so that when I open the rubber mold that it won't catch uder her ears which was the only majot undercut on this bust.



Next step will be to pour the first half of the rubber mold, that I will probably do tonight so it can cure overnight.

Impatience

I've come to the conclusion that being able to track a package being sent to you online makes waiting for it even worse.

I ordered some sculpting and casting supplies and they should be arriving soon. I'm planning to document my first casting attempt here, I'm hoping it goes well rather than embarassing.

I've continued brainstorming sculpture ideas, a little more seriously than last time.
- The Dord Fian, mythical celtic horn that calls the fianna (army of heros led by Finn Mac Cumhail)
- Boudicca - I love history and Boudicca was a very heroic and tragic woman who defied the roman empire. She supposedly had hair down past her knees, sculpting hair liek that would be a wonderful challenge.

What a sculptor does when she's bored.

So I was on IRC(#pixelation on irc.sorcery.net) last night a bit bored so I did some brainstorming for sculpture ideas. The guys on the channel found them funny so I thought I'd share here.

1) Squirrel holding a ring "my precious".
2) Kitten in the holy grail.
3) Bonsai kitten assembled kind of like those ships in bottles.
4) Hatching baby gryphon based on baby cockatiels (they are ugly beyond words).
5) Christmas Platypus. Okay, this was an idea I had a while back but I still like it.

I have no idea if I'll ever sculpt any of these but it was fun coming up with them.

Sculpting

I suppose I really am not that great a blog writer, I don't update anywhere near as often as I should but I'm going to start trying to update a little more often.

So I've been seriously sculpting lately, I really do seem to have found the medium I work best in. I still draw and paint but I'm definitely not as good at that, my theory is that 3 dimensions is easier for me to work in than 2. With a drawing I can't rotate it to see it from a new angle. You can check out my Sculpture Gallery to see all my finished sculptures.

Mostly I've been working with a mixture of Super Sculpey and white and black Premo Sculpey to get a nice nuetral grey color. Plain super sculpey is a translucent beige pink, the translucency makes fine detail difficult to see sometimes.

This is my most recent work in progress sculpture a wood nymph, she still has a ways to go, the hands need work, the feet don't have toes yet, and a few other things still are unfinished.

As sort of an offshoot of my sculpting I plan to try casting copies of my sculptures in resin. I'm still waiting on my materials to be delivered but as soo as they are this will be the first piece I attempt to cast.

My hope is to sell some of them, whether or not that works I'll have to wait and see but I hope it works.

Katrina

I'm sure by now everyone has seen the damage caused by Katrina. I want to add my voice to the many advocating donating to charity. Donate to the Red Cross or other reputable charites and please be careful of scams. I've already recieved a few spam emails that say they are about the disaster that I'm pretty sure are viruses or phishing scams.

I also want to encourage anyone reading this in the United states to contact your senators or representatives and urge them to overhaul FEMA. The delay in getting those desperate people food, water, and medicine verges on criminal in my opinion. FEMA and the Homeland Security department must be more prepared for emergencies like this. Natural disasters occur all over the country and are always a matter of when, never if, we should be more prepared whether it's hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards or anything else mother nature throws at us. I remember the ice storm that hit the Northeast in 1998 and I thought that was bad being without power or heat for 2 weeks in the winter but at least I had food water and shelter, many of the victims of Katrina don't have that. They deserve better, all human beings deserve better.

Simulated Nature

I love animals, I have practically a miniature zoo with dogs, cats, goats, rabbits, chickens, a gecko, and recently fish. It's the fish I want to talk about. Now with most of my pets I try very hard to prevent them from having babies. My dogs are spayed and nuetered, my male cat is nuetered and none of them including the females ever go outdoors, I only have female goats and only one gecko. The fish and the chickens are the only ones that I want to have young.

So far while my hens lay eggs and I'm sure the roosters are doing their part I have no chicks because I don't own an incubator and evidently instict has yet to kick in with my hens because they aren't setting on the eggs at all. My only success showed up today, right now there are a number of tiny baby guppies in my aquarium and looking at the mother guppy more on the way.

I was really worried about my guppies, of the 8 guppies my brother bought me all but the mother guppy has since died. Most likely because they are feeder guppies that are meant to be food for other fish not pets so I don't trust the conditions of the tank they were kept in in the pet store since most of them died within a day in my tank while of the other fish I bought only one of my tetras has died and that one I know died after fighting with the other tetra and not from anything wrong with my tank. The tetra and the skirt are actually thriving, both have gotten bigger the skirt in particular has trippled in size in the two weeks since I got him/her.

Aquariums are much different than how most pets are kept. Dogs and cats don't live in anywhere near their natural environment (dogs are decended from wolves and cats from small african and probably also european wildcats). Aquariums however are meant to somewhat mimic nature, you put in rocks, shells, and either real or artificial plants (I picked real and they are so far still quite small), a filter so both keep it clean and give it some current. While not quite natural it's the closest most people can get to seeing the way fish act short of going diving so you can really watch the life cycle of fish in an aquarium. In the two short weeks I've had my fish I've seen the whole range, death, feeding, fighting, mating, and now birth. As I learned to my surprise guppies don't lay eggs, it's live birth! I was really surprised by that. Needless to say my aquarium is here to stay and I'm off to go take photos. Expect to see some photos once I get the film developed.

Two Noadis

Creating a fantasy world is a learning experience and one thing I've learned is that you can't hold on to what doesn't work. The problem with Shaman is that what is currently in the game is diverging from the fantasy world more and more. At this point going back and changing major parts of the design document for the game isn't practical but Noadi is no longer the same in both the written fantasy world and the world of the RPG.

In the RPG Noadi has lavender hair and a falcon companion. However while both of those things work beautifully in the game they don't work in written fiction. Lavender hair while it looks cool as artwork is just silly to explain in a story. I have absolutely no experience with birds of prey and that's okay in the RPG where plausible raptor behavior does matter too much but it makes it impossible for me to believably write about as a major character. As a result Noadi is almost like two characters now. I'm not sure how this change will work so it should be interesting.

Edit: I almost forgot, I'm 23 today. Happy Birthday to me.

Budding Entrepreneur?

Well maybe.

Starting as soon as possible I'll be selling some of my sculpted pendants and beaded jewelry at a local florist and landscaping shop. Now I know that sounds a bit odd but I'm crossing my fingers that it will work, I really could use a little extra money. Now I don't intend to make a huge profit, just enough to cover my art supplies which are pricey and if I can make at least some of what I make pay for itself it will be worth it.

This it a terrible web cam photo of one of my pendants. If any of you wonder why I'm not attempting to sell on Ebay the quality of my camera should explain it.



Wish me luck!

Tools for drawing in ink.

So my last tutorial was on pencil drawing materials and this time we'll focus on inking supplies. Some of the drawing supplies apply here as well (refer to Drawing Materials for details on them), rulers, templates, scanner and software if you plan on displaying online. Most people prefer to ink over pencil lines as well so for your base drawing you'll need pencil drawing materials as well with the exception of blending tools.

Pens

There are quite a few options for pens that you have on what to use for inking, I'll list the pros and cons of each option.

Dip Pens: These are quite old fashioned pens but still are wonderful for drawing. You buy the holder and nib(the pen point) separately, this means you can have one or two holders for a wide variety of pens. The nib is loaded with india ink from a bottle (it must be india ink not fountain pen ink) either by dipping the pen right in the bottle or by applying the ink to the nib with a brush (much less messy). Dip pens can give a very wide range of line thicknesses just by pressing harder or lighter with the pen which makes for some beautiful ink effects. Also india ink is waterproof, non-bleeding, acid-free and non-fading. The disadvantages to dip pens are that they take some setting up (you have to get all the materials, put the pen together, load it with ink, and refill the nib often), they can be very messy since it involves lots of liquid ink, the nibs are pointy steel so you have to be careful of poking yourself, and they are not very portable.

Drawing Pens: Under this heading is a wide variety of pens and prices, some refillable, some disposable, and come in many line sizes. What they all have in common is durable, lightfast(won't fade), acid free, waterproof ink. They are very convenient if you don't like the prep time that dip pens require and they don't have the potential to cause as much mess, they are also quite portable. The downside to them it even if you buy several different sized pens you can't get the line variation that you can with dip pens. My reccomendations for affordable pens is Faber-Castel Pitt Pens, Zig Millenium Pens (I actually bought a pair of these in the scrapbook aisle in Walmart's craft department, I was quite surprised to find them since they are a quality pen), and Sakura Pigma Micron Pens.

Gel Pens: These are quite common pens, available in many colors and with nice thick opaque ink. They are very affordable you can buy them just about anywhere some are even acid-free and light fast. The disadvantages are the pen points sometimes clog up, there's no line variation, and they aren't waterproof. I wouldn't reccomend these for most art, but they are wonderful for doodling and the colored gel pens can be used for small accents in drawings.

Ballpoint Pens: These are the pens you see most often everyday for writing. There is a wide variation in quality of ballpoint pens, I'd only reccomend the nicer ballpoint pens (such as pilot) for any type of drawing. They are affordable and great for doodling and practice. However they sometimes bleed, are rarely lightfast, many aren't acid-free, and aren't waterproof.

Markers: There are several types of markers to consider, the first are art markers. These are usually acid free and lightfast but rarely waterproof and often are quite pricey, however it you enjoy large areas of ink they can be a good choice. The second type are permanent markers like sharpies, these aren't meant for art they aren't acid-free or lightfast and often bleed quite a bit. The third are childrens markers such as crayola, these are great only for little kids to play with not anything you want to really last.

Brushes: Okay so these aren't technically pens but you still use them for applying ink. Like dip pens you use them with bottles or india ink. You use them much like you would with paint. They can cover large areas with ink quickly. The disadvantages are that they can be very messy, aren't very portable, and they are probably the hardest to learn to get controlled lines with. I prefer using brushes with dip pens (pens for the lines, brush for filling in areas).

Fountain Pens: There are two types of fountain pens now. The first type is about the same as the refillable artist pens I mentioned, these have ink cartridges that you buy to replace the empty ones in the pens. The difference is that they have a nib similar to a dip pen. The other kind is very old fashioned and you fill by hand with liquid ink, not many of this sort are still made. Most fountain pens being sold new are intended for calligraphy (fancy writing) not drawing but I thought I'd include it anyway since some of them can be used for drawing. You have to use special fountain pen ink with them. The disadvantages are that they can be hard to find and they can be messy.

Inks

The following section is about inks, these are for use with brushes or dip pens. Of course you can buy prefilled pens with different inks in them if you want to try colored inks as well. There are also fountain pen inks in a variety of colors but I'm not familiar with those so I can't really cover them.

India ink: India ink is a rich dark black ink, it's waterproof which makes it perfect for going over with watercolors or thinned colored ink after it's dry. Chinese ink is very similar to india ink and has the same basic properties and most of the same ingredients. There are also some colored varieties of india ink as well but the term is usually used for the black ink.

Walnut Ink: This is a beautiful old fashioned brown ink, it's not waterproof but nice if you want to give your work an aged feel.

Acrylic Inks: These are waterproof, lightfast, colored inks that can be diluted with water to get lighter shades.

Papers:

Pretty much any paper can be used for inking. Markers and some ballpoint pens will bleed on softer papers so always test on a corner before using. Bristol board and other illustration boards are most popular for crisp inking such as comics or detailed illustrations.

On Death and Family Love

I usually want to keep my blog about issues related to my art and world development but something in the news has grabbed my attention because it hits so close to home.

This case of Terri Schiavo brings up lots of questions, I won't comment on the particulars of that case since there is more involved than simply whether she or her husband as next of kin should be able to make that decision. The question I'm concerned with is should someone have the right to end medical care for themselves or their next of kin or should everything be done to keep someone alive who is dying? I come down firmly on the side of patients and families deciding that question not the government.

January 2004 my grandfather passed away after a long illness. He was one of the lucky ones, polls say that 70% of people would choose to die at home while only 25% actually do. My grandfather died at home with my grandmother next to him and since everyone knew he was dying the whole family had a chance to say goodbye before the end. My grandfather could probably have been kept alive for a few more weeks but niether he nor the rest of my family wanted that. It was more important to him and us that he be at home surrounded by the familyhe loved than alone in a hospital hooked up to a respirator. Everyone dies eventually and we never can know how or when for sure, the best we can hope for is to be with those we love when it happens and if that means dying a few days or weeks or months sooner than I'd rather die sooner and happy than later and alone.

My grandfather was lucky and I feel sad that Terri Schiavo won't get that. Her parents and husband will be fighting until the moment she passes away rather than surrounding her with their love even if she isn't aware of them.