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!
This beauty is sitting in my workshop right now, all ready for a heat-cure on the green-blue lacquer you can see on the handle there. What is this wondrous paint that sticks to resin? It’s Deka Transparent Glass Paint.
It’s bold. It’s beautiful. It smells really bad. And nothing else works quite so well! So if you want to treat yourself to this rocking good fun that is painting on resin, you will need a protective mask that will guard against vapours. Yes. Specifically vapour. A regular dust-mask filter will not save you from the smell of this solvent-based paint. I tried just painting it on without any mask, thinking “oh it can’t possibly be that bad”. Yes. Yes it can. I got dizzy and my sinuses burned like I’d just snorted nail polish remover.
Yes, you can certainly do it outside. It’s currently 1C outside for me so … not an option. Vapour protection it is then!
Is it worth it? Ohhhh baby. Yeah. I mixed the greenblue translucent paint with the black translucent paint and then diluted it with acetone. You must use acetone and not water because Deka translucent glass paint is solvent based. It will not play nice with water. You’ll have to use a solvent.
I airbrushed the paint onto the sword hilt. Heavier on the back of the handle and lighter toward the hilt and blade because I wanted it to fade into clear. I wasn’t bothered by the uneven “waves” in the paint where I sprayed it (a little too diluted I think) because I was trying to achieve a water-like effect.
What else do you need to know about Deka Transparent Glass Paint? It needs to set for 72 hours. So if you’re in a hurry, uh … well don’t be in a hurry. After the three days have passed, you should give it a heat-treatment.
The instructions recommend putting the piece in an oven but there’s two reasons why I can’t do that: 1. My piece is made of resin and will deform at roughly 100C, and 2. My sword won’t fit in my oven. So I’ll be using a heat gun (carefully!) to do the heat treatment.
I’m really excited to finish up the handle and show you the piece! I’m not sure if I’m installing a light in this one or not. I kind of want to but I’m nervous of cutting into that pretty blue handle now that I’ve got it all nice … we’ll see.
So there I was in the workshop, mixing up the resin for a sword. The resin had gelled so I had to re-liquefy it. No big deal, right? Well, despite it being the same resin I used to make the sabre for the Arabian Nights pinball machine, this one did not turn out completely clear.
It has clouds in it.
Now, this would be a difficult task to achieve on purpose. To do it purposefully, I would have to mix up a separate batch of resin with white dye, then do some very skilful pouring to get this kind of effect in a completely opaque mould without being able to see what I’m doing.
What happened? I have no idea. I’ve asked Hardcore Craft and they haven’t responded. There is no dye in this sword at all. It just did this by itself. The white parts are fully hardened. They don’t take any impression from a fingernail as I’d expect if it wasn’t fully cured. I’m baffled, to be honest.
What will I do with it? Finish it of course! But I can’t really say that it’s a Seraph Blade. Every Shadowhunters fan knows that a Shadowhunter’s blades are made of adamas, which is a crystal clear metal with angelic properties. Looks like glass, hits like mithril.
It will be an art piece, for sure. I’m just going to let the blade suggest its personality to me and trust in the crafting process.
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