10-9-2009

today I finished my week's batch of scales! half of them went into the acid but there are still half to go tomorrow. it's exciting every time there are more scales to weave! there is no other step more enjoyable than the weaving... it will be sad when the project is finished. I think I will have to start another one to keep myself from going into shock *_*

after some mail delivery shenanigans, I finally got my new glasses today. they're shnazzy. I really needed them, because my old ones were falling apart and scratch to heck and held together with wire.

hurrah!

10-8-2009

got through those 60 last night and another 60 today, with another 60 tomorrow I will have 210 and will do the acid. and then I get to weave, which is the best part.

I also made a new colour version of the Dravyn hatchling creature for Second Life.

d'awww so cute.

10-7-2009

today was productive! I got 120 scales dipped in the asphaltum and now have them sitting in stacks on my desk. I'll try to get through at least half of them tonight.

I set up a chair in the bathroom and put a board on it to support two copper branches. they're in the bathroom because it has an exhaust fan and a door to close to keep the fumes away. the cardboard beneath them is there to catch the dripping of asphaltum. it's getting rather black by now, as it gets approximately 1.5 drips per scale and I have been using it since the beginning of September.

10-6-2009

today was a long day. I had lots of school things to do so I didn't get much done on scales. I did, however, make a superhero outfit for one of my creatures in Second Life. *runs away*

modeled in Maya, textured in Photoshop.

10-5-2009

so lately I've been a little bit unhappy with the task of etching scales. every day, I have to move my chair into the bathroom, set up the little copper twig on a board on the chair over a piece of cardboard to catch the asphaltum drips. I have to put the fan on and open windows (if it's not too cold out) and then, after dipping, I have to wait bloody 3 hours for them to dry before I can do the relatively quick step of actually scratching away the design. the acid takes another hour and a half per batch, and it takes forever to get all those scales onto strips of tape. but enough about that, I did my thirty for the day.

I balanced the camera on the ladder leading up to my lofted bed for a much cleaner shot tonight. this is the left shoulder seam. it fought me very hard while I tried to put 3 rings into each scale and took well over two hours for just 28 connections. afterwards, i found a better way to do the shoulder seams, but I won't think about that right now.

I wanted to show as little of the stainless steel split rings as possible, so it was unfortunate that these seams show so much stainless. however, I found that if I tried hard enough, I could add yet another scale to those poor rings to form a single row of scales that cover the rings nicely (though they have a tendency to move around a bit). these are the four rings at the bottom of the seam there. however, why am I worrying about this at all? the shoulders will be completely hidden by the bronze plate armour anyway.

10-4-2009

got up late today and wove another inch down the back of the shirt. an inch is 4 rows, and each row contains 20 scales, so that inch contains a total of 80 scales. whew!

ceiling lights make it look super shiny! *squints* you can also see the start of the sleeves on either side there... I'll get more detail shots when I find a tripod of sorts.

10-3-2009

oh no, I stayed up too late! I found the blog for Maru the cat and got distracted for many hours.

http://sisinmaru.blog17.fc2.com/

today I wove 4 rows of scales onto the back and added one contraction to each side. plus, my new camera came today! I don't really know how to work it very well yet, but I took some pictures today after a long time without new images. how exciting! I promise to take more soon!

this is an image of the back of the mannequin. you can see I used a large safety pin to hold it together. the space in the middle is where the zipper will be grommeted into place. there is enough length now for eight grommets! but I will wait until I have more done before I add the zipper because it would look silly with so few connections.

this photo shows the scales moving over the right shoulder from the back. you can see the lines left on the scales from my steel wool but I promise that the scales are very smooth to touch!

I made more butter chicken today. it's very good, but I think my last batch was better. I will add more spices tomorrow. I also remembered to check the refrigerator in the metals studio today but there was no cheesecake! I couldn't even find the pan. I hope it didn't get thrown out!