I've finished my turtle pocket-watch! Unfortunately, I'm going to have to try a different way of hinging polymer clay in the future, but on the bright side I really like how the paintwork came out. I really wanted to achieve a realistic turtle shell texture so I did some research first. I found some interesting tutorials, some crappy tutorials and some partial tutorials that I'd have to pay for to get the complete version. That information got all blended up in the ol' meat-filter between my ears and I made it my own. I'll explain so you can blend it through your meat-filter. The Carapace Whereas I might have used a dark pastel powder, I began by using a technique I saw performed by Drew the Artist (a friend and old boss for whom I've stretched canvases) on a few occasions before. With both a dark brown and very light...
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I Hope you all had a super fine awesome Thanksgiving! I did, and we're still eating the leftovers! The pecan pie's all gone though... both of them...AND the burnt one...I couldn't stop. Between meals, there have been an increasing number of niggling things to deal with including (but not limited to) THE HOLIDAYS!! On the up-side, the weather is cooling off and I might be able to break out the cosy clothsy - hoodies and sweaters and such. And on the up-side, I whisked away all the afore mentioned "little niggling things" and buried my nose in a book for almost 2 weeks. What an escape! I got caught up in the Dexter novel series by Jeff Lindsay, "The book that inspired the hit TV series!". It's just barely like the TV show in all the ways that count, but different enough to not interfere with your enjoyment of both. I visualize...
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I'm revisiting the Rook that I've been working on for a longer-term chess set project. I'd specifically like to share my thoughts on the creation of the head on this little fella... As you can see the head turned out much different than the image Eric provided. I decided to leave it at this stage without the spikes based on the following reasoning: Artistic liberties were reserved in advance. If I leave it unpainted I can add the spikes to it later. It'll be easier to mold without spikes. The face just seemed to evolve on it's own. Originally, I made a quick stand-in head to help position the rim of the turtle shell and get an overall feel for the size of it. I think it was in how I had cut the mouth that gave it the "je ne sais quois" that...
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