Tina’s Caving Skull

Tina goes underwater in small, small dark places full of batshit and batshit insane people who enjoy cramped, dangerous, cold places with no light. So, yeah, she’s a caver.

She wanted a skull ring that was all about her caving (and love of vampires.) I carved up special ring for her. Pic is a little small, but you can just make out the two fangs on the skull. It has a caving helmet on and in place of a light or torch, I set a piece of amber into the front of the helmet.

For those of you who haven’t seen Jurassic Park, amber is fossilized tree and plant resin and its often found in caves. A good fit, no?

Again, I always dig posting pictures of my clients after they get their goods.

Frank on the town

Sharp and I took our rings out for a beer and some chips last week and I forgot to post.   I think you can tell from the superb collection of surfaces on display precisely what kind of Atlanta haunts I frequent.

mawnch, mawnch, mawnch

Frank is the name of my skull.  I’m going to make sure Frank gets out more.

Land of the Gods 2

This is my first marker pass at Mike’s ring.  He wants the eye pattern from Becky’s Sugar Cat (which I agree, does have a Japanese flavor to it.

This is a rough marker pass, so it might be a little hard to see.  There’s not enough room for five individual rings in the forehead, but I am going to come up with something using the lotus theme.

The shank has horizontal lines running around it (like a helmet) and meet at a seam in the back.  We have to have someplace to put the sprue, don’t we?

Mike, let me know if I’m close on this one.

Five Skulls on the chain

I’ve got five friends over at a production house in town that have done me a massive favor so I’ve carved up 5 little Day of the Deads for them and put them on some sterling chains.

Not polished yet.  That’s next.  Enjoy, amigos.

The Boss Voodoo

I’ve decided to make a huge ring in the Voodoo style that’s completely over the top.  Bigger than the King Skull, bigger than the Big Voodoo.  This is the Boss Voodoo.

The nose is blue because I fucked up and hacked it off in a fit of rage.  So, yeah, it had to be remade and fused on.  That’s why wax is so cool.  There’s really nothing you can do to it that can’t be undone.  The Boss Voodoo will have big turquoise eyes and 10K gold teeth will be added after its cast.  Its got the full sugar treatment.  I just have to decide what to put on the shank.  This particular piece isn’t for a client, its for me.  I may end up selling these on the site.  We’ll see how it looks once the gold is added.

Land of the Gods

Mike has ordered a Little Voodoo (I’m seriously almost out of these waxes) and he wants a full custom job on it.  The themes are complex but to sum it up, its going to be Japanese.

Now I’m not talking about anime and neither is Mike.  That’s not Japan, okay?

I’m talking Musashi Miyamoto, Book of Five Rings, Seven Samurai, Bushido, Zen, badass Kamons, green Jade eyes, Son of Heaven, Shogunate, land of the gods Japan.

Like most things Japanese, this is going to be simple, but also complex as hell.

I’ve got a leg up on this because I’ve seen everything Kurosawa’s ever done. I’ve seen some Mizoguchi, a ton of Ozu, and a few Seijun Suzuki flicks.    I’ve read The Book of Five Rings.  I’ve read some histories of Japan.  Yeah, I’m not an idiot.

Now the first thing is obviously going to be jade eyes.  Mike and I are on the same page here.

Forehead?  Right now I’m thinking of making a kamon out of the five ring motif that appears on a number of editions of Miyamoto Musashi’s “Book of Five Rings.”

kamon, man.

Mike was very clear that this shouldn’t be mistaken for a Chinese ring and I couldn’t agree more.  So using a Kamon is a great way to go.  Check out the lotus in the upper right hand corner of that pic.  I can work that in with THIS:

The five ring symbol creates a sort of lotus-type shape anyway and I can probably combine that into an original crest that fits the bill.

I’ve also collected a lot of kanji.  But here’s the thing.  Unless you’re born and trained in kanji and the art of making script, this stuff is almost impossible to do correctly.  There are subtleties in the form that my Irish-American ass won’t be able to get a grip on.  So likely this is out, unless I keep it very, very simple and have Mike approve everything before I try to carve it.  Musashi details elements in his book (fire, water, earth, void, etc) and I’ve collected kanji script for each element.

that means "water" apparently.

If you think you understand this stuff, trust me, you don’t.  Typefaces in the English alphabet are like child’s play next to kanji.  Still, the kanji script for all of Musashi’s elements would look great around the back of the shank.

Yet another thing to think about is this tsuba shape, which is supposedly designed by Musashi before he died.

This too could be worked into something like these images:

I really dig the upper right hand corner, second from the right on the top row.

For the shank, it would also be interesting to explore a diamond patter like one might find on the hilt of a sword. Damn, there are so many options.

Anyway, Mike, let me know what you think about my five rings idea.  Or if you like something else you see up here.

NMT is good to go

I got the word from Nathan that the Blues Power skull is good to cast.

I’ve had a lot of people asking about the new site and all I can say is that it’ll happen soon.  I don’t like the internet and I don’t much care for the tedium of site design, so its dragging.  I promise its not the only thing in my life that’s behind schedule.

Anyways,  stay tuned.

Blues Power

Think I’ve got Nathan’s ring figured out here.

In addition to carving the type into the shank and forehead, I’ve put a glare on the eyes so they are a little more hostile than usual.  I’ve seen these guys play and I wanted to it the aggressive style of the music.  I also made the teeth crooked and a little less even.

Let me know what you think, Nathan, and I’ll fill this bastard with silver.