Another Post on Packaging

I know I've talked about packaging before but I'm going to do it again because I think it's an important way to make your customer see how much you care about the products you make. I have a whole Squidoo lens dedicated to the idea, you really should go check it out: Make your Handmade Products Stand Out.

The reason I thought about this subject again was that I attended an Etsy Virtual Lab Wednesday night on packaging and it was full of good ideas. One thing that was really stressed was that just sending out your products in it's pretty packaging isn't enough when you're sellign online. You should show your customers exactly the type of packaging that your product will be coming in. The best way is of course to include a photo of your packaging in the product listing.

Here are some examples of my packaging that I photographed last night:

And here is a new video I put together to replace the older one:

Packaging Video

Happy Halloween!

I put together a little video on how I package my jewelry when I ship them out. Hope it gives you some ideas and make sure to check out the Squidoo lens I have on the topic: Make your Handmade Products Stand Out! Using Creative Packaging

Translucency Test

Now that I have some test cuttlefish with this new clay blend I needed to test just how translucent it really is. I'm very pleased with the results. Here's a photo of the cuttlefish pendant held up to a candle.

I eyeball amounts when mixing clay so this isn't exact but the mix is basically 1/4 of a 2oz package of premo frost, a pea size ball of white premo, a smidgen of blue premo (maybe 1/6 of the size of the ball of white). You want to add just enough white and blue to make the premo frost look whiter, it's normal color is a little beige or cream colored but much less so than normal translucent premo.

Next up is painting these cuttlefish. I need to be very careful to only slightly tint them with paint and pearlex, I don't want to hide the translucency at all. I'll probably wait until after my new beads arrive to start painting because I want to be able to compliment the bead colors nicely.

Winter Cuttlefish Test

So I've sculpted the first winter cuttlefish pendants and earring bases. Took me a bit to get just the right blend of clay, I wanted translucent but needed it whiter so I added a tiny bit of white and even tinier bit of blue premo to premo frost so get my mix. Here's what they look like compared to my usual peach base.

Winter cuttlefish may not remain the name of this line depending on if I decide to keep making them throughout the year. Haven't decided on an alternative name though (anything but pastel cuttlefish).

New ideas and waiting for supplies

So I ordered some jewelry supplies Thursday night. Lots of nice goodies to play with when they arrive. I ordered from Firemountain Gems and they have lots of cool stuff and an even cooler assortment deal. I had picked out 12 items that I wanted and it came to about $46, little notice on my shopping cart said that if I ordered 15+ items I get the discounted prices for them, so I picked out 3 more things and guess what? The cost actually dropped to $37! Now that's pretty cool.

So I'm still waiting for my stuff to arrive, according to FedEx that will be Thursday. In the meantime since my wrist still hurts I'm planning new designs that will use my new goodies. Some of the things I ordered are little glass bottle pendants, I'm thinking tiny Perma-Pet necklaces.

I also got some nice pastel gemstone beads and I was thinking about making some winter cuttlefish using translucent clay mixed with a little blue and white and tinting with pearl ex in various wintry colors.

Not entirely sure how I'm going to decorate them yet but I ordered some blank barrettes and hairsticks.

I'm sure other ideas will come to me once I have my little paws on my new supplies and can start playing with them.

Can't Make Up My Mind

I bought some really pretty glass beads last weekend, lavender briolettes (teardrop shaped with a hole through the point) and oblong frosted clear beads. I put them together with some clear size 6 seed beads, those are the larger of the two common sizes, on my bead board into a very pretty necklace design. I also made wire-wrapped dangles with 3 of the briolettes, 2 are for earrings. The third is where my problem comes in, I want to sculpt a central pendant with that briolette hanging from the bottom.

I have no idea what to sculpt! I'm totally drawing a blank, about all I've decided is that it should be in the same general color palette as the beads. This is a very different design in color and mood than what I normally do so it's really frustrating me, flowers come to mind but so many designs use flowers.

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.

Rainbow and Sculpey Ultralight

So yesterday was one of those days when the weather just can't make up it's mind. It switched off and on between light rainshowers and sunshine. Now that's a perfect recipe for a rainbow and about 8 o-clock PM (yes, I am far enough north that the sun is still up at 8pm this time of year) I caught this one. I've tried taking photos of rainbows before usually without success but these photos came out quite nicely.

Now to something about sculpting. A few weeks ago I picked up a package of sculpey ultralight to try out for making armatures. There are just times when aluminum foil isn't the best choice for an armature. For example sometimes the foil can show through when using translucent clay, like on my cuttlefish pendants and permapets. I decided that for large armatures that what would probably work best is still to use aluminum foil and maybe cover it with ultralight when using transluscent clays (I wouldn't bother with opaque clays like my gray super sculpey mix unless I really needed to cut down on weight). I just realize one very useful benefit of this clay as an armature tonight, I can draw guide lines on it.

The downside of ultralight is that it's a little chalky and not as strong as other armature materials like axpoxie sculpt so I wouldn't use it to support weight, only for bulking out so I may not use if much for really large pieces. For things like my cuttlefish earrings where weight is a big consideration for the wearer's comfort it's perfect.

Fire Dancer Concept

Here you go, as promised the concept art for my Fire Dancer sculpt. I decided to play with watercolors a little bit for this one. I never claimed to be any good at watercolors but it gets across the idea of the motion and the vibrancy of the colors I want.

And here's a photo of the fabric that was the inspiration for this sculpt. I'm still working on getting the right way of stiffening it for use in this sculpt.

In other news, I now have an announcement newsletter that you can sign up for. It'll go out once or twice a month and announce new artwork, sales, deals, etc.

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Pondering

I've spent a good chunk of the past few days editing cuttlefish jewelry pictures which is quite repetitive and I've gotten to the point where editing photos is pretty automatic for me. This gives me plenty of time to think and come up with new ideas. I don't know how many of these I'll actually make but they're all pretty fun (my mind starts getting silly after a few hours of any repetitive task).

1: Jellyfish necklace. I picture a transluscent bell with beaded tentacles coming out and wrapping around the neck.

2: Salamander sculpture. I'm craving sprign and one annual sign of spring here is when the spotted salamanders start emerging an migrating to water to lay their eggs.

3: Steampunk cephalopods. I'd need to get some gears and other mechanical bits and sculpt a squid or octopus with a panel that opens up to reveal clockwork inside.

4: Dance figure studies. I've found some great reference photos of dancers and contortionists that I'd like to incorporate into some sculptures. I've had the idea of a fire dancer for a while so maybe consinue the theme with different elements.

I think I'm done with creating cuttlefish jewelry for a while. I love making them but I've got a pretty good inventory of them right now so I need to move on to other projects. Here's the most recent additions.

All my Cuttlefish Jewelry.

Shop Blossom

Okay, I know I said I'd have non-web and marketing stuff soon and I will. I just finished sculpting a bunch of cuttlefish earrings and pendants (they are just awaiting paint right now). However I have to share my newest web project.

Shop Blossom is a social network I just launched last night, it's a place for any online small business including of course artists who sell their work online to join (even if you aren't an online business you can join if you are interested in the subject). You can create a profile page, network, add photos and videos, promote your business, and discuss how to make your business better in the forums and groups.

This is a new adventure for me, I've moderated forums before but never a social network. I will be moderating it too to make sure no one is spamming, flaming, or posting inappropriate or adult content. A lot of parents work from home, I want them to be comfortable viewing it while their kids are in the room.

Sculpting the Aging Process with Philippe Faraut

I'm a huge fan of Philippe Faraut's sculpture and anytime he puts a new video up on YouTube (which is sadly not often enough) I get really excited. This video is an amazing progression aging a teenage face into that of an old man.

DeviantArt Stock Roundup

DeviantArt has a lot of stock photos available for artists but the quality is pretty variable. You have to wade through of a lot of less than wonderful photos to find the good stuff. Here's a list of some great stock photo deviants I've found lately.

Those marked with a * contain tasteful artistic nudity which may make them unsuitable for viewing at work or school.

Female:
Mjranum-Stock* - Some of the most beautiful stock I've seen including some 360° flyarounds.
SenshiStock - Wonderful collection of figure photos, with the model in a leotard.
spiked-stock - Various poses in casual clothes.
wildchild-stock - Ethereal draped poses.
Elandria - Fantasy and historical costume.
Iardacil-stock - Fantasy poses and costumes.
gentlemansclubstock - Vintage nude photos.

Male:
Darknight-Stock* - Gothic guy and poses.
watchstock* - Nude male in classical life drawing poses.
Ahrum-Stock*
Felixdeon* - Nude males.

Bit of Everything:
mizzd-stock - Fun collection of models in costumes.
lindowyn-stock - Mostly fantasy poses and costumes.
lockstock* - Great mix of stock.
AilinStock
LinzStock - Along with some good people stock there's some wonderful animal photos.
atistatplay - Really fun stuff, mostly from RenFaire and the like.


I also have a small DeviantArt stock account, not much there right now just some photos from the garden and my pets. Absolutely safe for work viewing. Noadi-Stock

Sculpting Background Noise

I can't work in silence, it drives me crazy to not have any background noise when I'm sculpting. Sometimes I sculpt to music but being a former percussionist and singer I either start tapping out the beat or singing along (or both). Sometimes a movie or tv works when it's something I've seen lots of times or a documentary since those often can be just listened to, I don't have cable so that's basically the few hours a week PBS has Nature and Nova on. So recently I've started using audiobooks.

For a long time I resisted, I'm an avid reader so I've always felt that audiobooks are cheating. I still have that nagging feeling from time to time. The big problem with audiobooks is that I can't really afford to buy lots of them. So I've been looking around online for places where I can download audiobooks legally. Here's a few places I like. There are also some podcasts that I like but I'll save those for another post.

Librivox - Audiobooks in the public domain. Lots of classic literature here. I just finished downloading a bunch of Coleridge's poetry. I'm not generally a poetry person but Coleridge I absolutely love.

Telltale Weekly - Some are free and some books are for sale dirt cheap. They've got the first 3 chapters of Bulfinch's Mythology up so far, can't wait for them to get the rest done.

Audiobooks for Free

Project Gutenberg Audiobooks - Most of the human read books here are from either Librivox or Audiobooks for Free but they also have a large selection of computer read audiobooks if you can handle listening to it (I can't).

BBC Radio - Not really audiobooks, they have lots of radio documentaries and other shows (seriously if you haven't listened to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radioshows you must). I especially like their science programs. Some are available for download as MP3 but most are .ram streaming audio so you'll need a player that can play them. I recommend Real Alternative package for Media Player Classic which is free and doesn't have ads or play havoc with your registry like RealPlayer.

Sculptor Profile: Mark Newman

Mark Newman has been inspiring me for some time, he has an incredible eye for detail and sense of facial expression. Since he also works often at the same scales I do and in super sculpey, I see what he creates as a challenge to me to expand what I'm doing even more.

A perfect example of this is the sculpture of Serafina from the Golden Compass which he did. The sense of flight and defying of physics is wonderful. I really wish he had shared pictures of the armature he used, since it must have been pretty well engineered for the super sculpey to not crack when it was cured.

Mark's Sites:

• Mark Newman Sculptures
• Mark Newman on DeviantArt
• Mark Newman Gallery at the Sculptor's Corner

Other Sculptor Profiles