This week I have been working as often as possible on my Mad Hatter so that I can send off the last of the photos to the Craft Fair Jury and today, actually just a few minutes ago I realized that I had done something that is so cool that I wish I had thought to do it. (This is how I learn all sorts of things...by accident!)
Let me preface this by saying that when I sculpt a figure I pre-make the eyeballs out of an off white clay mixture and then bake them so that I can set the already hardened eyes in the face and sculpt around them. I make lots of eyeballs and have painted many sets from this batch, however, I usually don't paint them at night so it wasn't until I was set up and ready to go that I noticed the eyeballs of my Hatter were sort of glowing! Yep, I used glow in the dark clay for this batch of eyes and I had no idea.
In the first photo you can sort of tell his eyes aren't quite right. I don't know how to set this camera to take images with a slow shutter and no flash so I sort of had to wing it using different settings. The first was for a night time setting but it still flashed. The last two were done using a sunset setting and you can actually see the glow though the pictures are blurry.
Now that I know I have glow in the dark eyes all ready made I have to make something that needs them! Some fun goblin creature that hides behind books, yep, that's what I'll make- a Book Goblin - so check back in a couple of weeks for that project! Of course I may have to make more eyeballs out of pure glow-in-the-dark clay so they glow brighter.
Here is the Mad Hatter as he is now. He has bones and muscles. Once I paint him I'll add his skin then it's hair, costuming, accessorizing and making his stand.
My mind is too busy to paint right now. He'll be painted tomorrow. I am thinking of all the cool creatures I can make with glow in the dark eyes!
I just love when things like this happen :0)
More pictures to come soon.