Cleaning out my jewelry box

I’m a jade guy.  I wear a lot of it.  But I USED to be a turquoise guy and I have to say it’s still my favorite stone to set in a skull ring.  But I have too many pieces I don’t wear anymore and something’s gotta go.

So I’m going to sell these two puppies.  Polish ’em up, clean ’em up, and sell them.  The Big Voodoo is a size 11.5 and that Little Voodoo is a size 9.  Solid sterling, of course.

Email me at matt@mtmaloney.com or message me on twitter @MT_Maloney and let me know if you want to buy one or both.  $125 for the big one and $100 for the little guy. Call it $210 for both. Shipping on the house.  I used to wear the big one on my ring finger and the little guy as a pinky ring.  

Pinky rings are badass anyway and a skull ring pinky ring is almost drop-the-mike time.

Apologies to my international clients, but I can’t send these overseas with shipping costs.  

Austro End?

 

 

Yep, this might be it.  Think I’ve finally finished this austro skull ring.  Just need some final input from Marty.

 

 

 

 

australopithecus

Say what?

For those of you who aren’t evolutionary biologists, the australopithecus is basically this:

When I was a kid, I had nightmarish images in my head of this thing just running at me screaming.

So now, thanks to Marty, I get to carve a australopithecus skull ring.  We’re going to use a lot of photo reference here . This really isn’t a shape I’m familiar with, so I might fail gloriously.

 

You can see that the jaw is massive, but deceptively narrow.  The eyes and nose are kind of on the same plane and the head is very very small.  All in all, not a good-looking dude.   Remind you of anyone?

Yeah.  Nothing fucking terrifying about THAT.  Spend too much time in an isolation tank and I’m pretty sure you turn into one of these things.

I started the wax over the weekend and have just now gotten it to where it’s not just a blob.  You can see that I’ve started working on this the way any sculptor tackles a foreign shape: by working on the major planes first.

I began with the side profile and then started cutting in angles based on all of the photo reference I was able to collect.

Not braggin’, but if you look at the pictures of the skull, you’ll see I’ve pretty much nailed the profile and am very close to finishing the front view.

Although we still have a very long way to go, getting to this stage is actually a huge weight off of my shoulders.  See, we’re not just dealing with a sculpture here.  What we’re dealing with is an intersection between the complex diagonals of the skull and the rigid parallel lines of the inner shank.  If they don’t mesh, they don’t mesh and there’s not much you can do about it.  Sure, I’ll have plenty of opportunities to F this up on a spectacular level, but so far we’re doing just fine.

On a sadder note, I’m sold out of Big Voodoos.  Just sold the last 2 today.  I’m going to cast more, but it won’t be until after the Xmas break.

Stay tuned.

OM

Final work done on the shank.  This bad boy is ready for my client’s final approval.

 

 

Let’s cast this sucker.