They’re ready!

I finished them all, this morning. Huzzah.

Alas, I currently don’t have the funds to buy the proper postal parcels, so they’re all going to be sitting quietly until I have money again.

Sigh. O, fuel… why do we keep needing you?

Since the finings came in gunmetal and black [it was that or silver and gold] I did my best to hide it behind silver and gems. You just can’t get gunmetal stuff that’s easy to appropriate for other purposes. Sorry.

What do you think, bunnybennett? Which set runs the trans-pacific gauntlet first?

Progress at last! Thanks to my new tools, it took roughly five and a half minutes to file the nipples off the back of each stud. So the line-up in picture 2 represents the better part of an hour’s work.

Cumulative, of course. I had to take frequent breaks because, though it’s a small thing to do, it’s a lot of work. My wrists were complaining by the third pair.

I finished the final pair this morning, and now they’re all in their intended destinations, drying nicely.

Tonight, I should be able to add the dangly pieces with no worries at all.

Eureka! To the right, an ex-stud earring with the dreaded ‘nipple’. To the left, the ex-stud earring with the ‘nipple’ almost gone.

The solution to the cursed ‘metal nipple’ problem is to have two very important things: a hand vice, and a set of fine metal files.

The hand vice pictured here has some foam pieces cut off a bit of leftover underlay so nothing nasty happens to the bit that’s going to show.

The back of the piece in the vice is fucked up because of my prior attempts with sandpaper. It won’t be visible by the time I’m done.

And yes, it takes a bit of a while to file a ‘nipple’ flat… but it’s worth it.

bunnybennett, you shall have some shiny bling. International postal departments willing, of course.

I found a blank art book, so I’m drawing my universe.

It’s not like anyone else is doing it.

I’m still working on all the detail of the station. Trying to make it look like it was patched together out of whatever was close at the time.

Amalgam Station is technically in Cuidgari space, being in the Kuiper-belt range of the Cuidgari Primary Solar System. It has, however, had numerous owners in its expansion-pack past… including the B'dauss. It masses the same as a Dwarf Planet, but is significantly larger because Dwarf Planets rarely have shopping malls, living space, farms or cinemas inside them.

I did draw an earlier version of Amalgam Station, but this is the one where I worked out which fins did what.

“Up” is an arbitrary concept in space, but Station-up is the passenger fins. Cargo is generally offloaded from one ship and loaded on to another, so keeping that traffic out of the way of primarily passenger vessels is a priority.

Docks and locks, at the ‘tail’ of the station, is where most of the repairs or building goes on. Yes, Amalgam Station farts out new vessels on occasion.

This photo set actually covers months of dithering.

I got the crackle coat on very quickly. I needed two coats of base paint because the first coat dried too grey for my liking.

Then the mask sat in my craft room for months while I pondered my next step.

It was only after I found a couple more spare masks at the dollar shop that I felt confident enough to actually cut.

You need GOOD scissors if you’re going to cut a papier mache mask. The ones pictured are my best, and it was still a cow.

I cut big, and used a pencil to draw roughly where I wanted the plate to end, and trimmed everything else away.

All this fuss and bother for a very small piece of shaped cardboard.

Now I have to figure out how to get the rose on there.

I can’t art. It’s obvious.

Alas, I also lack the resources to purchase pro-level art for a book that will never pay me back.

My usual design consultant [aka best-beloved SO] is too busy to help me before the October 4 publication date.

So. Speaking as someone who lacks design skills to everyone who actually has them: What do I need to do to make this cover look cool?

My goal is simple, but slightly “off”. Like a Penguin Classics cover from an alternate dimension. You remember how they had the title and some old etching art with a crappy colourisation job on the cover? Something like that, with a hint of eldritch.

That’s why I put the shadow effects on the title, to make it look like it was about to float away from the cover.

As always, I insist that my name is in a smaller font size than the title.

Hints and tips appreciated, peeps. Just remember I have limited Photoshop skills [I moebius’d the front wheel of the bike myself :D It took me five hours and fifteen goes.] so if you’re going to get technical, break it down to the For Dummies version :)

I wanted a title font that looked slightly unhinged. Better suggestions also appreciated. Thanks in advance for all your help.

What would you do to make this look cooler?

Building Bitzer part 4.

I found the hat once upon a Halloween in a dollar shop and thought “Ooo! This looks like fun to play with!”

And so I am.

Not shown is the really tacky rectangular buckle that, thanks to the simple fact that it’s plastic, we cut off with side-snips before I could document it. If I find a similar, pre-buggered hat, I shall photograph it for educational purposes.

The white feathery thing was a hair comb, purchased the last time feather accessories were so popular that they turned up in dollar shops [hands up if you’re spotting a pattern with my accessory haunts, children]

The flowers are combination hair clips and brooches that I got for $5 each at the local K-mart. The necklace was at the bargain bin at Target, owing to the fact that some of its gems are missing.

I’m going to reduce the necklace to its central gem-and-chain setup, fix the missing gems, and affix a brooch backing once I obtain one. I’ll then use the resulting frankenstein jewellery to fancy up the front of the hat.

The method used for the arrangement on the back was a succession of jiggery-pokery as I fooled with places to pin the brooch part of the flowers [You can tell I just snipped the comb into next-to-nothing and just kept the bit that was glued to the feathers.

Once the flowers were in place, it was just a matter of pushing the feathers in until the flowers kept them in place. It’s surprisingly stable. I know, because I held the hat upside-down and attempted to shake the feathers loose :D And since I couldn’t do that, no random gust of wind should disturb them.

Also not shown, yet: an extra length of ribbon that I’m going to add to the original ribbons. It will require partial disassembly of the existing rig and some clever insertion with a brass safety-pin. As well as some special goo to prevent later fraying.

Building Bitzer part 3

The trick to getting an even crackle, I am told, is to get an even surface. This is harder than it looks on a paper maché mask.

Especially when that mask is divided into sections for testing.

The final method used involved daubing paint mix on with cloth and then lightly rolling it back/smooth with the roller.

Further irritations were met when it looked like the damn paint wouldn’t crackle anyway, since the mask was still permeable to moisture even with the base coat on.

I’m hoping a longer drying time will give us SOME result.

Otherwise we’re going to have to add layers of lacquer.

I’m already turning a dollar shop nightlight into a $300 light-up accessory. I don’t need lacquer on top of this mess. Ugh.

Cross your fingers for tomorrow. Or give me hints and tips on how to make it go. My goal is the really fine crazing that old glazes get, so that the black shows through a little.

I just saved 100K words

At 500 words a day, that’s 200 days of effort. I have 40 days worth of writing left to go.

That is, before I get to my target. I may go over.

Then I have editing and only three reliable beta-readers. Should I ask for more? Would I be asking for trouble? I’m pretty certain three is not enough.

Ugh, editing sucks.

SKIP Revamped: The Case of the Alliterative Arsonist

SKIP Revamped: The Case of the Alliterative Arsonist

Stuck on yet another WIP.

Send help and chocolate.

Or just chocolate.