Pin Up Ghoul on STAEDTLER's Cover Page!

So happy to see this little ghoul again!

She's being featured on the STAEDTLER cover page with the product of the month!

You guessed it!

FIMO!!!

Happy October!

Sweet Summer Giveaway!

We've been very excited to announce this special summer giveaway!

of our blog followers will each receive a Lily Fairy kit containing....

12 half blocks of various STAEDTLER Fimo flesh tones.....

a flexible STAEDTLER Fimo Lily Fairy mold and instructions.

Contest rules and regulations:

GIVEAWAY CLOSED!!!!

To win, you must follow this blog

You must leave a comment on this post.

You must live on the planet earth.

Contest winners will be drawn on August 30th 2015.

Draw will be announced on Monday Aug 31st, 2015.

You've all got another day to follow and comment!!!

Good luck!!!

A HUGE thank you to STAEDTLER for sharing these kits!!

Now, join and comment!!!

Batty Bathilda in Watercolour Crayon

I've been sketching up a heap of designs these past few weeks. I use my STAEDTLER Triplus fineliner markers and my Karat Aquarelle watercolour crayons the most when I'm trying to figure ideas out.

I thought you should meet Bathilda. She'll be hanging around in other forms very soon.

I'm still trying to figure out expressions and costuming before I commit to a 3D version of her and make her real.

I really am loving the process.

I think I might just be a huge kid and LOVE to colour.

Note that MOST of the colour is in the lines.

Progress, Slow and Steady

Thought I'd give a sneak peek at how I develop some of my designs. A big part of helping an idea become an actual piece is sketching it out. I grab my STAEDTLER pigment liner four pack and get on with it.

I start with a soft pencil and go over my lines with the pigment liners. If the sketch turns out to be something I want to continue on with I can erase the underlying pencil and elaborate on the ink lines.

George is keeping a very close eye on me.

My sketch books are filled with ideas roughed out like this one.

These sketches help me remember construction ideas and possible materials. Do you use sketches to rough out ideas before you create?

And so..... It Begins!

Super excited to get started on some projects that have been in the planning stage for EVER!

There are more than 40 different designs in the works.

It's an ambitious few projects and I'm completely stoked about getting things up and running.

I've spent the weekend conditioning heaps of STAEDTLER Fimo Puppen. It's my go to clay for doll and puppet making and I'm so happy to have it in my hot little hands again. 

Here's the tutorial I posted for making these eyes. If you're feeling like playing along with us, you might want to craft up a few of your own.

I'll be sharing more about what's happening over the next few months.

I can tell you that I've finally given in to those of you who have been at me to sell my actual work, not just the instruction. And I can't wait to introduce you to our creations!

Maggs of the Macabre

Look away those prone to swooning at the sight of blood. 

Maggs is at it again. 

Another school project in the works and she's robbed my STAEDTLER fimo stash once again. (I never mind her robbing my stash, but don't tell her that I won't have anything left at all!) 

She's creating a work inspired by the paintings of Francis Bacon.

This time she's decided to make a mobile with sculpted body parts.

I almost can't look at some of them. They look painful to say the least.

Her Uncle Alan asked if they were candy..... 

so I guess she'll be using my Easy Mold to make candy molds too.

Time to beef up the stash again I see!

GIVE AWAY CLOSED!!!!!!

It's give away time!
I figured since it was the first ever Make it with me give away I should really make it BIG!
I have included a load of very cool new Fimo products and some old standbys that you maybe haven't had a chance to play with yet. A huge thank you goes to Staedtler for their never ending support. I have also included the not yet released Make it with me Skelly Bracelet Kit in black and blue.

Here is a close up look at what's included

Here is the much asked about Fimo air for microwave.
This is the clay I did the bat wing headband tutorial with.
I also used it for the horn and antler tutorials.
There is enough clay here to make all three projects and then some.

I have included a 100g block of Fimo air, air dry clay.

and a 100g block of Fimo air natural, air dry clay.

Here is the Fimo liquid I used to make the flat backed eyes tutorial for use in ball jointed dolls like the Pin up Ghoul seen on the cover of PolymerCafe this fall.

A 56g block of Fimo Soft colour # 0 white

A 56g block of Fimo Effect colour # 014 translucent

This is the very first Make it with me Kit. It has everything you need inside it including instructions with pictures and diagrams to make one skully bracelet in blue and black.

This kit has a blue cameo and blue floss instead of the pink the tutorial shows.

Well, that's all that's in the give away.
Hope it is all you were hoping for.

To qualify for a chance to win all of these great products you will need to do two things......


#1. Join this site. Click the join this site button on the right and up a bit and follow the directions you find there.


#2. Tell me what your favorite Fimo product is and why in the comments below. If you have never tried a Fimo product, no problem..... just tell me how you plan on using the give away products if you should be the lucky winner!


Only one chance per reader. I'm moderating the comments so I will only publish the first comment if multiples show up from the same reader.

The give away will be drawn on Sunday October 23. There will be no further blog posts here until then.

But ooooooooooooh do I have news!

GIVEAWAY CLOSED!

How to Make FIMO Clay Eyes For The Pin Up Ghoul

*Please read the important edit at the end of this post*

Before I start I want to make it clear that for the Pin Up Ghoul doll that appears on PolymerCafe's October 2011 cover I used mass produced store bought 14mm flat backed doll eyes. Folks have been letting me know that doll eyes are a little bit hard to find, so I decided to show you how easy it is to make your own.

Here we go!

Supplies needed to complete this project:

FIMO soft in white #0
FIMO effect translucent #014
Half a block of scrap clay to make molds and stamps
FIMO liquid
Acrylic paint in various eye shades
Iridescent acrylic paint
sculpting tools, knife, stylus or needle tool
fine paint brush, Heinz Jordan gold sable mini script liner
Large soft paintbrush for dusting the mold
Cornstarch or baby powder
Glass marbles or ball bearings in the same size diameter that you want your eyes
pencil
Medium grit sandpaper or nail file
Super glue
Acrylic or latex gloves
Non food use baking sheet and parchment paper
Oven

Since we're working with white clay I'm taking extra precautions to keep the clay clean. I'm wearing gloves to keep the oil from my hands from staining the clay and I have protected the work surfaces with white parchment paper to cut down on anything getting in there and making the clay look dirty.
I mixed half a block of translucent FIMO soft with 1/6th of a block of FIMO soft white. Mix them thoroughly until there is no marbling and you have a consistent colour throughout. Roll the clay into a one cm thick worm, and set it aside.

Soften some scrap clay and roll a worm larger than the marble you have chosen for the eye diameter. Mine are standard marbles and will produce an eye that is close to 14mm. Push the marble into the clay so that half of the marble is still exposed as shown.
Bake the clay with the marble in it for 15 minutes at 230 degrees F. Allow the piece to cool.

Use the tip of a craft knife to gently pop the marble out of the newly made mold.

Use a large soft paintbrush to dust the inside of the new mold with cornstarch or baby powder. This will act as a release agent.

Cut your worm of mixed white clay into equal sections that are about one cm long. Roll each of these sections into a ball and push them one by one into the mold to shape them into half rounds.

Use the tip of a craft knife to pop these half rounds out of the mold. Set them flat side down onto a piece of parchment paper and set them aside.

Take a small amount of scrap clay and make a donut shape that is the size you wish your iris to be. Use a molded white half circle to help you determine the size. With a needle tool, stylus or a knitting needle (anything sharp and round) push a hole right through the middle of this iris shape to form a pupil. Make sure the hole is large enough. Bake for 15 minutes at 230 degrees F. Allow to cool.

Super glue this baked iris donut to the eraser end of a pencil.

Dip the iris donut into some cornstarch or baking powder and tap off the excess. Push the iris donut down onto the center of each unbaked eye half round. Coat and tap off extra cornstarch between stampings. Make sure that you are going an equal distance down into each eye. Bake the stamped half eye rounds for 10 minutes at 230 degrees F. allow to cool.

I chose to use Golden artist grade acrylics for this project because they have a wide range of interference colours. These colours will make the shimmer in the eye colour that will help make them more glass like. Thin out the lightest colour with some water or some blending agent and fill in the indent of the iris. Thin out some darker colour and paint the outside edge of the iris. Bring some radiating lines of dark colour into the iris.
Paint some interference colour onto the iris in radiating lines. Allow them to dry completely.

This is an idea of what we're going for. We want the outside edge of the eye to be a bit darker than the center and we want the lines to radiate from the outside edge to the center of each iris. Don't worry about any smudged paint at this point. We're going to clean it off after it dries.

To remove unwanted paint from the surface of the eye white and to clean up the edge of the iris, rub the eyes onto a piece of sandpaper or a nail file. Dust off the eyes when your done.

Dip your needle tool or stylus into black paint and coat the pupil of each eye with one drop of black paint. Let them dry well.

Here are the eyes completed waiting to be flooded with liquid FIMO. Try to make sure you have good even pairs at this time. Fix anything you want to be fixed now.

It's important to make sure you fill the eyes as close to the oven as possible. any bumps or jolts might make the liquid overflow the molded part of the eye and spill out over the white. Hold the liquid FIMO bottle upside down until the fluid slowly comes to the applicator tip. Don't shake the bottle to make this go faster, you'll just create bubbles. Fill each eye evenly with the same amount of liquid in each eye. Use a toothpick to remove any access liquid from an iris. Let them settle a bit before baking. Bake these filled eyes for ten minutes at 230 degrees F. Let them cool.

Here is the result of all the hard work. A pair of workable matching eyes.
You can make many different sizes of molds and stamps for these eyes and it will help you have more evenly sized eyes.

I can't wait to use these guys!
Let me know how yours came out.


*EDIT*
September 26, 2011

Hey guys... just ran across this tutorial.....

http://mistymooncreations.blogspot.com/2010/10/glass-eyes-for-your-dolls-tutorial.html

It was posted about a year ago. It's dang near the exact same technique (without the molds and stamps) that I outline above. We have a few different tricks and tips between us, but she certainly uses the same familiar products. Aimee Jeffries has done a fabulous job explaining exactly how and why she used the products she did. She is an amazingly inventive artist and teacher with a super sense of humor. I bow to her excellent talents.

Making Faces

Here are some of the face molds I've produced over the years. I think it's time to update the collection and make them available to everyone. In the past I've only given my students the opportunity to purchase them.

These are the products of five or six different face molds. Most of these pieces were included in classes and given to the students so they could practice painting detail.

This is the first mold I ever made of one of my dolls. I have a few of these ones left in a bin in the studio.

This is the original doll without her wig.

Here is another mold I pulled from an early doll. I like this one because you can see the teeth. These simple little molds hold a surprising amount of detail.

I'm thinking of putting these on ETSY. Any thoughts?

DIY eyes for BJD Using Polymer Clay

I want to try a few different tests for home made eyes to see what works best for me.

Here are some made from white Fimo, polymer clay.
I used Genesis heat set oils to paint the colour onto the eyeball, but you can use acrylic. I'm just using what I have.
I top coated each eye in clear gel topcoat and cured under a UV lamp.

I made a few different sizes of polymer clay balls. I tried to make sure I had matching pairs.

I put each ball onto the end of a bit of armature wire and embedded it into a hunk of clay so it would stand up nicely and I could paint them.
I baked them at 250 for 10 minutes and let them cool.

I painted some colour onto each eye trying to make matching pairs. This is harder the smaller the eye is, and these are teeny! I baked them for another 10 minutes and let them cool again.

I gave them all a couple coats of clear UV gel and cured them in the lamp for two minutes each coat.
Can't wait to try them out.

DIY Eyes For BJD Using UV Nail Gel.

I decided to try to make my own eyes for my BJD sculpt.
I may try a few different mediums and techniques until I get one I'm happy with. Here is the first try. I used UV Gel for nail extensions to make little eyeball blobs. I kind of like these. We'll see if I can improve on them a bit.

Here is what I did.

First I stuck some nail form foils to a sheet of scrap paper. I figured this would keep them flatter than if I just left them on the roll.

I made blobs of white gel using the tip of a knitting needle (It's what I had lying around) and cured them in the UV light.

Then I made dots of dark green and light green onto the white blobs and cured this also.

Here I tried a dot of blue in the middle of each eye. I liked it but it wasn't dark enough. I cured them again.

Here is a side shot so you can see the profile of the eyes. They're quite 3D already.

Here they are with a coat of top coat UV gel on them. This should seal the colour in an make them have more depth and shine.
I cured them again.

I cured them in the light one final time after I flipped each eye over. Because the white gel is opaque the UV light doesn't get through to the middle of each eye, flipping them over allows them to cure on the bottom too.

Here are two of the eyes. I didn't match them for size but they look pretty good. I think I'll have to experiment with this technique some more. It has promise.