Why’s it gotta be a skull ring?

…it doesn’t.  At least not all the time, right?

I’ve got a few projects in the works right now and a few of them get away from the custom skull ring thing.  Skulls: my bread and butter, of course.  Still, it’s fun to get out of skull island every once and a while and do something different.

Ian, author of Alien Phenomenology, one of my new favorite reads and the designer of Cow Clicker  (and the proud owner of THE Cow Clicker ring) just ordered a set of white gold wedding bands.

And here they are:

 

We’ve got a nut and squirrel theme here done on nice, substantial squared-corner bands.  This is how I like to do ’em.  They’ll be comfortable, but it’s still a RANG.  Not some thin, whispy metal string tied feebly around your finger.  It breaks the plane of the finger and stands out.  It gets noticed.  My thing is, if it doesn’t cause you to almost rear-end someone in traffic ’cause you’ve been staring at it while you drive, it ain’t worth wearing.

  

 

 

@ibogost and Cow Clicker

Ian’s ring is finally finished.  This one was epic.  A very, very tough design to adapt into a dimensional sculpture, let alone one that can be worn…let alone one that can be worn COMFORTABLY.

I actually finished this ring a few days ago, but when you pay for a totally original sculpt like Ian has (absolute top of the line, as far as custom work goes.  Hand-carved to one’s exact specs from a block of wax) that comes with the right to see it before anyone else does.

I was tending towards brushed metal for a finish, but once I’d put the hi-polish on it, I’changed my mind.  Hopefully it pleases.

Waxes for Shawn and Ian and a Game Design Update

I’ve made some good progress on Shawn’s 3 ring Big Voodoo as well as Ian’s Cow Clicker Skull.  It may not look like much, but Shawn’s wax will be ready to cast by Monday.

Rather than carve the rings direction into the forehead of the skull, I’m going to carve it separately and set the metal like a gemstone.  The skull itself will be hi-polish silver, but the rings tile will be a blackened, aged finish.  Should look great.

Ian’s two-headed cow conundrum has been combined into a ring that I am MUCH happier with.

I’m still working on skullifying this f’er and Ian and I still have some talking to do about the ears.   Hope to finish this wax next week as well.

I’m also pleased to say that I’ve finished the master-wax for the Game Design class ring.  This wax will be duplicated into lots of waxes so I can further customize for each of my clients.  Still a lot of work to go, but the end is in sight.

Torturing @ibogost

To make things more complicated for Ian, I went off on a tangent on a totally new take on his Cow Clicker ring.

Which cow would you click?

As great as the other ring is going, I felt like MAYBE I was getting too far from the actual cow clicker design.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  The trick has always been to get this f’er to look like  a skull AND a cowclicker cow.

You can see that the new design is much flatter, more subtle, and has significantly less of a profile.  It doesn’t have ears yet, but I’d definitely add those too.  I’ve asked Ian which direction he prefers.   I know this is torture.

Also, although we decided on skull eyes earlier, there’s something about the Xs on the new design that just work.

I also like the longer teeth.

So what’s it gonna be?  Eh?  One or the other?  Or maybe try to merge these two together?

 

Ian’s Eyes and Shawn’s Big Voodoo

More progress on Ian’s wax.

Ian, let me know what you think of the eye placement.   I can go small and beady like the image or I can make them larger and more skull-like.   Once we get those settled I’ll know how big I can make the ears.

Meanwhile, Shawn – an artist for Marvel and Oni – is getting two pieces made.  I can’t show one of them, because its kind of a surprise gift for a friend of his.  The other piece is a Big Voodoo with three concentric circles on the forehead.

This piece just needs more.  Maybe Shawn’s a minimalist, but I’m wondering if the rings should be dimensional instead of simply carved into the forehead.  I could take a cylinder of was like this:

…and cut it like a loaf of cookie dough to get a nice bullseye shape to set like a gemstone in the forehead of the skull.  I suppose it depends on how sleek Shawn wants this bad boy to be.  Shawn, let me know what you think.  Also, what kind of attitude should this skull have?

Now I obviously can’t shoot the surprise gift he’s commissioned,  but I can tell you its going to get made from this pendant wax that I never finished.  I started making this for a client who changed his mind halfway through and went in a different direction with a ring.

It would have been fun to finish, but it’s almost the exact width and shape for what I’m going to do next.  I’ll post images of the finished piece once I hear from Shawn that he’s given it to the lucky sonofabitch.  Shawn, I also forgot to ask you if you wanted any gemstones involved.

Finally going to be getting away from just a bunch of pictures of waxes and start posting some METAL next week.  I’m expecting to finish Mike’s Japanese ring, the massive Boss Voodoo as well as that Blues Power Ring for the Nathan Morgan Trio.  Stay tuned.

 

 

Cow Clicker waxing or waxing Cow Clicker

I’ve got a good base constructed for Ian’s Cow Clicker ring.  It doesn’t look like much yet, but getting the basic frame finished like this is a big step.  The entire structure of a ring rests on this thing being solid.  The rest is just shape and detail work.

I’m leaving the shank nice and thick so I can carve “CLICK” on the back.

Cow Clicker

Here….

You see that?  Yeah?  I’m going to make that into a skull.

 

This ring is for Ian, who’s  a game designer and all around brilliant dude with a great palate for cocktails and parts of animals you can’t buy in a Kroger.   He’s got this game called “Cow Clicker” and he’s let me know in no uncertain terms that its skull-ring time.  Ian’s actually in Atlanta, so we were able to have a face-to-face consultation over a few sazeracs.

This is a tough one because first I have to translate the 3/4 view into a front-facing ring.  Then we have to make sure the thing still looks like a cow.  Next, we have to make it a skull without loosing the cowness.    I’ve started the wax.  Pics to follow in the coming weeks.