I’ve made some new progress on the Explosive Ordinance ring.
As usually happens, the wax has inserted its own point of view onto the shape, but I’ve been able to keep in mostly like the drawing.
I’m still working on the flames and the skull’s jawbone.
This whole thing is a deconstruction of this:
..combined with a half-skull from the client’s tattoo. Yeah, it’s gonna rock. Especially once we get the lightning bolts worked in. I’m not kidding.
And I’m gonna give Tumblr a whirl.
We’ll see how it goes. I get a ton of hits on this studio blog, but Facebook traffic is really light. You never can tell who’s into what on social media.
Think we’re done with the Lucky 13 ring. It’s been a blast and I’m posting pics up for Heather to give feedback. I’m voting for brushed metal, but we can go high-polished too.
This one is all about the sides. The 13 diamond is a classic design, but I tired to improve the typeface and give the ring some consistency as far as the diamond shape is concerned. Mine carries all the way around the shank. Heather wanted it to be a bit more dynamic than the standard 13 ring.
She’s everything a ring like this should be. Big, chunky, unique, but still a classic design. This one’s a one-off, but maybe someday soon I’ll do a ring like it for sale.
Whew. Last of my Christmas orders are TOAST. I’m the kind of guy who’d love getting a skull ring for Christmas, so it doesn’t seem weird to me. What better gift can you give somebody?
For whatever reason I had a number of really interesting projects as well. I got to work with cool people on some cool ideas.
This is a King Skull for David with some badass shank carving. He had great ideas for placement of a peace sign and an anarchy symbol on either side. He also designed this great minimal feature for the centerline of the forehead.
Can’t go wrong with the gunmetal finish either. Just a great way to finish off a skull ring. Gotta say, I’m a big fan of this and the brushed metal look. High polish is always a great classic look (all my personal wear is hi-polish) but more and more I’m drawn towards these other finishes that let the sculptural planes of the ring show through.
Now we’ve got some cool sets coming up. Mike ordered a custom Big Voodoo for himself and an awesome Little Voodoo / Pendant set for his lady. He’s got a samurai theme going on with jade eyes and a Musashi forehead emblem. She’s got a heart and cross motif with turquoise eyes. I can’t talk much about what Mike does for a living, but let’s just say he lives up to the warrior theme.
I realized after the fact that I didn’t get any pictures of the back of his ring before I shipped it which is a shame. I did a braided samurai sword pattern across the shank and it looks great. These have already shipped out. Hope they please.
I had another set underway for Ron. The Wonder Twins thing, remember? Well they turned out great.
That’s a jawless jupiter with a full sugar treatment and a full-custom companion band I made for the lady.
Awww. Couples rings. They can be the coolest freak’n thing in the world or they can be lame as hell. This set falls into the former category. I can tell how cool a couple is by the silver they want made and this is a cool couple.
A little hard to tell, but those are faceted black onyx in the eyes. I had to set them super-deep so they wouldn’t chip.
Her ring? Just as cool.
It might not look like it, but that’s still cast as entirely one piece. No solder. It has a raw energy that I really dig. Not too delicate, not too sharp. It’s still a hand-carved piece with substantial mass and a comfortable band. I put some sugar carving and flowers around the shank.
So what’s next? More on the Lucky 13 ring after the Holidays and a new ring for Jason that I’ll show you a sketch of….
Yeah, that’s gonna be fun. Lock and load. Stay tuned.
We might be about done here.
That’s a little hard to see in blue wax, but it says Tattoo Crue.
Lighting bolts on the other side. Equally tough to read it wax, but they’ll look great in sterling.
And a bit more detail on the top.
Gotta run now. More to come soon.
Lucky 13….you bet your ass. After complaining about the crappy designs of so many of those mass-produced 13 rings, I had to step up the typeface. We’re going big! See, we don’t need to see every part of the number “13” to know what it says. We’re not morons, right? Plus, because it’s a classic design, we can count on people recognizing the style.
So continuing with the wax carving, I went ahead and figured out a border.
I freehand this stuff. I could use dial calipers for this, but we want the top of this ring to have some real raw energy so I’m going freehand right into the wax with this border and the number.
I recessed the entire diamond with a thin border and then the areas around the number are going to be recessed much deeper. Pen-line first, then needle, then wax carver. Gotta be careful here. There’s a potential to screw up and cut the entire ring in half.
And here we are. Pretty cool, I think. Heather’s gonna have to let me know if she wants it clean like this or if we should go with some tattoo-typeface detail within the numbers and on the border.
It must be Xmas time. I’ve had so many orders come through and I’ve been hacking away at them as quickly as possible. I’ve had a few killer custom orders- stuff I’ve been meaning to write about….but I just haven’t had time.
Like this one. That’s for Mike. A Samurai-themed Big Voodoo with big old jade eyes. I’m doing this as part of 3-piece set for Mike and his lady. I’ll definitely be posting more shots of these once I get them finished.
Meanwhile, I’ve got another badass his and hers set that I’ve been working on for Ron. He’s got a jawless Jupiter Skull ring with a slick flame-job on either side and a heart and cross recessed into the forehead.
Badass as is, but even MORE badass when you see his wife’s piece.
It keys into the forehead of her man’s skull ring like the freakin’ wonder twins. Hell yeah.
So that’s going to be awesome. More shots of that when I’m done too.
On top of this, I’ve been working on a new diamond 13 ring for Heather. You guys have seen these before. It’s a great, classic ring style that’s been around for ages. Looks like this normally:
Yeah…that’s a shitty one I found listed on Ebay. Probably hollow-backed and tinny as hell. Nice typeface fail.
So Heather asked me to step it up and do my take on a similar ring. And that’s what I’ve been working on .This is going to be BIG and SOLID. I’ve started with a raw block of wax and included some images from the process below. I don’t offer a regular diamond 13 ring on my site yet, but maybe this will be a good launching point for a piece for the new line.
First thing is to measure out a portion of flat-topped wax tube and saw it, creating a three-foot high pile of blue wax dust that is now all over my studio.
Then I find the center line. We can’t have a crooked diamond ring, can we?
Then we taper the sides. I know I want it to be solid, but let’s at least make it remotely wearable by making the rear of the shank a bit more narrow.
Yeah. Now it’s time to size it up to the right size. Heather’s man is an 11.5.
Then we need a diamond shape on the top. This is going to create 4 corners that we can mess with later.
Then I carry those corners on the side all the way around the shank. This is the basis of my take on this ring. That horizontal line of the diamond will wrap ALL the way around.
Now that isn’t a new concept, but our treatment of that contour is going to help establish where we can carve custom text into specific recessed areas of the ring. It’s going to be like a piece of armor. We don’t want to get too far away from the classic ring design.
This markered up version shows the areas that will be recessed. I actually need to check with Heather on that and make sure she’s cool with that approach. Hopefully we’re on the right track.
Stay tuned for more. I’ve got some finished pieces rolling out soon that I’m going to want to feature. I’m also finally getting around to yet another website update. About time. I love my whole white and gray thing, but it’s time to add some color.
Skullworks 