these look awesome!

Hey! These look great.


I'm glad you were able to make the casting come out so well. Great job, man.

I really appreciate the kind words. I've made 2 new castings since I posted those pics. The first was a failure, the nucleus wasn't secured enough in the precast resin and fell, pushing the mitochondria into the outer segment (top). It cured in two unconnected pieces, outer segment with mitochondria out of place and the bottom with nucleus out of place. But I'm trying to fix it like this.




Before preparing to recast, I wet sanded the pieces. I don't like the red nucleus in clearish resin, but this might be something weird.

The other one came out satisfactory. I don't have any pics yet and it's currently set out to dry from a second coating of glaze, but the color is very light blue/clear with strong GID inside parts.

Next I want to try the following colors, GID with black inside parts, orange with black inside parts, green with purple nucleus, pink with blue inside parts.

I'm still thinking of a way to market these. The production costs is pretty high and about 10 hours of manual labor goes into each one. But as a no-name, I need to make them affordable. I think they'll be made-to-order from a menu of color options.

One the left is the newest one I demolded this morning. On the right is my first casting that didn't cure due to faulty hardener. I'm trying to save it with a few coats of Triple Thick.

I can't help but think about the Blaschkas:

http://magpieandwhiskeyjack.blogspot.co ... nasty.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_an ... f_Blaschka
https://www.google.com/search?q=LEOPOLD ... 80&bih=892

And we can't forget Grandaddy Haeckel!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel

That amoeba is awesome, thanks for sharing.

Here's a color pic from today:


Going to attempt some new colorways, purple, green, pink, orange and then I'll make an etsy store or something and try to market to vision scientists and biologists. If anyone here is interested in these, please let me know.

This is the one on the right from the photo above. Fixing it up:





I think this one will be available for sale.

I've made 5 casting so far. The grey one was done in solid white and I added black pigment hoping for an all black version.

This has been an interesting project! Any thoughts of future pieces?

If you mean for this project, I'm working on the following colorways:

clear orange w/black inner parts (cast today)
clear pink with light blue inner parts (cast day after tomorrow)
glow with w/black inner parts
clear black w/black inner parts
purple with green inner parts
green with purple inner parts

Once these are done, I'll post them and take made-to-order orders. I'm thinking that this is marketable towards fellow science geeks, biologists and vision researchers (what I'm doing). But if Skullbrainers are interested,I might cap each colorway off to a limit of 3 to 5 to make them collectible.

As for new designs, I'm working on a bust of the Screeching Weasel mascot. I made a prototype, but the eyes were way too small, so I have to fix it up. I'm not posting it until the sculpt is complete.

Then I want to do a bacteriophage.

The Screeching Weasel mascot? Interesting! I've been a punk fan from way back. That'll be fun to see.

The proportions are screwed up. The eye is too small or the mouth is too low. Had a difficult time with the lower lip.

Oh wow. Looking very cool to me. I guess I haven't scanned the source material like you have but it looks pretty good so far!

the eye is too small and the back top of the mouth is too low, so I will start over. but thank you, i appreciate your input and comments very much!

Update, project now completed:















[imghttps://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t1.0-9/10525926_10152487521253076_502596206944661560_n.jpg[/img]

Pricing.



Each colorway will be limited to 3 and then capped off. Production time will take about 1 to 2 weeks. In addition to the production time, it is very expensive to produce each one. I can offer packages to try to reduce costs.

Standard edition. Glaze is sprayed on in 2 coatings. Very shiny, but no oozing texture, nor color of ooze.
Premium. Glaze is resin coated. The process takes about 4 hours of continuously scooping up and repouring the finish until it all cures in place. In the end you can have a nice ooze effect in color. Here is an example:

From left to right:
1. First casting attempt, but didn't cure. Left leg is bent upward. Glued back on. Glazed multiple times for handling, but ugly piece. $30
2. Horror version. Blood red nucleus in clear resin with purple oozing resin glaze. Everything glows. Mitochondria creeps up through the outer segment. Total of 6 mitochondria (rest have 3). A few hairs encased in the casting. $150 for original, $135 for replica (limited to 3)
3. Halloween version. Orange and glow pigment encasing black inner parts. Orange resin glaze $150 for original, $125 for premium replica or $75 for spray on glaze standard version.
4/5 My boss (a vision scientists) gets to have his pic of one of these. I'll keep the other). $125 for premium replica or $75 for standard version with spray on glaze.
6. This was cast to use to make future molds. $75 for premium replica or $35 for standard version with spay on glaze. Note, no inner parts in this piece.

Shipping is not included in the price. Prices can be reduced by requesting less glow pigment.

Just a note about air bubbles. One of the perks about using resin was being able to get air bubbles into the piece in the correct places. As these are cells, I needed air bubbles to provide certain effects, especially in the legs (axon terminals) where vesicles are stored. I decided to make the legs the pour holes so that air bubbles travel up towards the feet. I didn't get as many as I wanted, but the effect worked out rather well. I'm really happy with the air bubbles around the nucleus. I can just imagine the mRNA transcriptions.

These feel totally alien and cold to me. Like dreaming of floating through space a la "Gravity" with no hope of ever returning home. Which is my way of saying, great work!

I really appreciate that, thank you. I wish I could make them more affordable. I would like to do a 100% charity raffle in the future.