My Other WIP

    Well, it's 90% done, all that's missing is the "dressing up".
I've been toying with the headwear that I posted about earlier, and this is where it is at the moment.

The 80's called. They want their headband back.

   The fiber is black alpaca tops and this is the first layer. I wound it around the antennaes starting from the top.

I couldn't find my Fabri-Tac (argh!) and had to settle with a cheap basic white glue which is killing me because not only is it NOT clear, it's also not very good. And it smells. Well, as long as it keeps the fibers put, I suppose it'll have to do.

Oh the sacrifices we must make.

   If you're wondering why I didn't just glue the hair straight onto the head, it's because I have serious commitment issues. Well that, plus I wanted to practice making removable headwear so I can make it really huge and elaborate and still relatively easy to pack.

Besides, I never do things the easy way because I like to suffer for my art :p

   As for the rest of the head-dress, I still have no idea what I'll do with it. Maybe add some interesting fabrics and bits & bobs, some jewelry and things like that. Or I might go crazy and add plastic utensils and a crown of bottle caps. The thing is, I never know in advance which way it's going to go.

Thumb

       I was tempted to call this post "All Thumbs", but it was a little too cute. And a little too soon after the Eyes Only posts.
    
     Got the thumb sculpted to the relaxed hand today, plus some knuckle-refining that was frighteningly close to knuckle-destroying. Clay flew and curse words were thick in the air.
As much as I love air-dry clay, and Premix is a fantastic air-dry clay, I just can't help but miss polymer clay on days like this.
The thing is, polymer clay bends. It bends beautifully. Sculpting hands, even the fiddly little fingers in polymer was a dream compared to air-dry.
Toes and fingers never got torn off by accident because I bent them a bit too much.

These days I often get to the point where I have to put the clay down and back away from the WIP before I "overwork" it and ruin it completely.

Progress was made and I didn't break anything! Huzzah!

I'm not finished with this hand yet. Tomorrow will be Round Two. Ding ding!

Eyes Only Part 2

Today I applied the second layer of laquer, and the eyes are starting to look better.

Milky eyes from the fresh Gallery Glass. It dries clear, but I like the effect.

       I've devised my own method of applying laquer, because I always get air bubbles with the "lens method" which is basically just a drop of laquer applied straight onto the pupil where it spreads a little covering the iris and creating a lens.


1. Squeeze a generous amount of laquer on a palette (in my case usually cardboard or tinfoil) and dip a soft medium sized brush (no. 4 round for example) into the laquer. Be careful not to stir air into the laquer and create bubbles. Pick up quite a lot on the brush, while avoiding the visible airbubbles.
2. Next touch the brush to the pupil, and let the laquer flow onto the eye, creating a lens. Normally this is where you'd stop, but I have an extra step to get rid of the air bubbles:
3. Swirl the "lens" lightly with the tip of the brush and start spiralling in bigger circles until you have moved outside the iris and continue around the eyeball all the way down almost to where it's attached to the stand. The little airbubbles are moved from the iris area to the eyeball and down to the base where they can't be seen. If you spot an air bubble still on the iris, touch the tip of the brush to it and gently drag the bubble down, away from the iris.
4. If the laquer is uneven around the eyeball and you want to fix it, just dip the brush in the laquer again and touch it to the uneven areas and brush down or around, whichever direction works for you.
Be careful to add fresh laquer onto your palette if the process takes longer than a few minutes. It should flow easily and not get sticky while you're applying it.
5. Let the laquer dry at least a couple of hours, or preferably until the next day just to make sure it's dry. Repeat as many times as you like until you get the look you want.

It probably sounds a bit complicated, but it's just applying a dollop of laquer on top and moving it around and outward. Works for me, and I hope it will work for you too!

Eyes Only

Eyes. You know how it is. How can something so simple as layering a couple of colours be so difficult to get right? The theory is easy, applying it is not, at least for me.

Yesterday I painted this little batch of eyes. These are experimental, I'm still looking for *my* perfect method and while this is not bad, it's still a bit wobbly. I'm not very good with tiny details, my hands are not steady enough.
However, I got at least five usable pairs out of this, so hey!

I feel like I'm being watched.

Light green.

Brown with a bit of gold.

Next up: adding layers of laquer to make them shiny and more lifelike. I'm using Gallery Glass because I once bought two huge bottles of it and I better use it up. It's a good laquer though, I've had much more success with it than I've had using for example Lisa Pavelkas Magic-Glos. Maybe my UV lamp is not good enough or something, but I always get air bubbles with that one. It's a great product however, and I think it must be my technique that's lacking. I have to experiment more with it.

Liquid Polyclay though (I have Fimo) doesn't work for me at all. The surface gets all cloudy and dents if accidentally poked with something, which is not really what one wants after all that work that's gone into them. That's why Gallery Glass works for me, the surface, once completely dry, is hard enough to withstand my poking and other whoopses.
I've seen really pretty eyes done with the liquid polyclay method though, so clearly it works for some.
My quest for the perfect method, however, continues.

WIP

It's a beautiful spring day and it makes me want to draw the curtains aside and work on my sculpts. Free light and all :)

Today I've been wrapping this weird skeleton of a headwear in florists tape to make it nice and sticky for whatever I'm going to apply later. I have really no idea at this point.

Antennae?

How's the reception on this thing?

My WIP, actually, is this odd looking thing:

She looks sleepy.

Really in rough form. The body only has the underlayers, the feet are a mess, hands missing fingers... the works.

 

Excuse the mess. I'm a terrible housekeeper.