Month: April 2019

Crazy Springtime

Yep! It’s that time again in Finland where we have holidays sprinkled here, there, and everywhere. I randomly have Wednesday off for Vappu. Okay then. So that makes it three 4-day weeks this month. I do appreciate having time off, sure! It’s just that it’s a little harder to get stuff done.

Enough complaining! Let’s see what’s on my table this week.

Here’s a sneak peek at a newly finished Clariel! This is probably the best handle I’ve ever done on a Clariel before and the new protective varnish I used on the blade is so smooth and glossy! Smells like a nail salon in Hell though. Blech.

This piece is going to be photographed by a pro before I sell it. A red light was requested for the photo shoot but can easily be switched out for my usual white light. (Seriously, all I have to do is pop out the light module and stick the other one in. Takes less than a minute.)

And a sneak preview of the ammonite shell I sculpted for the pommel of the coloured Zaapiel sword. Yep, I spent pretty much all of Friday making tiny clay bananas and sticking them on around and around in a circle. I think this one will also be photographed. Dunno! We’ll have to see what the photographer wants to do. 🙂

That’s all from me for now. I have a bunch of writing stuff to do today. I don’t even know if I’m going to get to the workshop today, but I’m going to do my best anyway!

Wish me luck.

Shiny Stuff!

The long weekend was nice and restful. I needed that. The photo shoot had to be postponed because of the paint-eating disaster. … No I didn’t eat the paint. The sealant ate the paint. I’m not that crazy. Yet.

So the transparent silicone from SeMost worked beautifully for the witchlight mould. I’m in the process of negotiating future orders. Hopefully we can get it all worked out for an agreeable price!

I did a kind of whitish one and then a kind of silvery one. I think the whitish one looks better.

Stuck a light under one to get a feel for how it will look once I can get the lighting rigged up properly.

And a red one just for fun. 🙂

Yes, that’s Cool Kevin in the background being too cool to appreciate my hard work.

I got some more green paint on the sword and got the initial sculpting done on the light cover in the pommel.

Don’t worry, it’s not going to stay white and marshmallow-looking. I just needed some initial structure to work with and support the design I want to do.

Now I’ve got to hustle off to the workshop and get the next stages going. Hopefully everything goes as planned and nothing breaks. Wish me luck!

Two Steps Forward One Step Back

So I have a photo shoot coming up with a photographer who just moved into my building this week. Cool! This will give me high quality photos of my stuff that I can use on my website. It’ll also give him more stuff for his portfolio and it will give the model stuff for her portfolio as well. All-around win right?

So the sealant that I put on the sword ate the beautiful solvent paint I had on the handle. The solvent paint that takes 3 days to harden fully. Yeah. That solvent paint. Photo shoot is on this upcoming Sunday. I still have to do the light fixture in the pommel and the seaweed wrap for the handle.

Did I mention I’m also working on these? Yeah. The Clariel there needs to be polished and have its handle sculpted, painted, light fixture in place and magnet closure installed.

Did I also mention the new witchlight mould I’m testing? Yeah. So this is gonna be a short update. I have to run this entire week or this all is not going to get done.

First stop: Hobby Point to get a sealant that won’t eat the solvent paint. Plus some casting resin if they have any on hand. Probably only the stinky crap but I’ll have my respirator on all day from the solvent paint anyway so I might as well. Then try to finish the light fixture while the paint is drying. When I come home, I get to look forward to wet-sanding the Clariel blade cause my apartment has running water and my workshop does not. Obvious choice there.

Tomorrow, will be sculpting the handle for Clariel. Hopefully I can get it done early in the morning so I can get it sanded in the same day. Then it’s on to carving the runes, painting, installing the light … you get the idea. It’s gonna be bonkers.

Wish me luck. Send coffee. Halp. @_@

Quick Update

Hi everyone! Yes I know I didn’t post last week. I’ve been crazy busy with some research & development, working on that sea n’ sky sword, and also doing a writing gig that I got with a local games company. Yay!

A bunch of stuff that’s within my skillset but never done it before. That leaves me with not much to show you but soon I will have stuffs I can take pics of. (Nobody wants to see my random pieces of clay and paint smears. LOL)

Today I will be testing out some new translucent silicone from SEMOST. They were kind enough to send me a sample of their product so I can see how it performs. I am going to be moulding the artificial stone that I created to make my new witchlights. Might as well do something practical with it!

I wanted to try a translucent silicone so that I can see at least some of the voids and bubbles that sometimes mess up my projects and be able to tilt or apply vibration to the right spots to get them out before the resin solidifies.

What’s more: it seems to be cheaper than the Zhermack 22A I’ve been buying from Materialshop. It may be a different story when I buy a bigger quantity of the SEMOST and have to pay customs fees on it … Either way, I’m trying my best to push down the cost of my products while keeping the quality high. This is not an easy thing to do.

Wish me luck!

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