Happy Chinese New Year of the Goat everybody! It still is Chinese New Year as we supposedly celebrate it for 15 days, but the busiest few days, i.e. New Year's Eve thru till 2nd day of Chinese New Year duties are done with, and the last time for me as I will technically be part of a new family next year :)
Woah, so many months have passed since my last post, and not much done :( Healthwise, things are still a little more than hinky, but I am trying to motor on with the help of proper dosages of painkillers. Between November and now has been a hazy blur of unbearable ladypains (re: adenomyosis/endometriosis), colds, an upper respiratory infection that wouldn't go away for more than a month, and my old laptop of more than 5 years giving up after I caused a blackout with an improperly plugged in UV lamp :X The weather has also been a lot chillier and wetter, for a lot longer than usual, but it finally warmed up this week, enough for me to head back to the pool to lose the Chinese New Year weight gain :P So I tried my best to continue working on requests that came in last year, while I am able to.......
The good thing is, this lovely customer emailed me last July, stating that she had no problems waiting for this order, and I thoroughly appreciate that. I went about creating the smallest items I've ever attempted!!!
The masters for these, which I have since lost, were turned on my IKEA drill, which has also died :( The humid weather is killing all my electronic gadgets!!! Ah well. As you can see, they're about 2-3mm wide, and I cast them in epoxy resin, because I was fearful that clay would be too fragile at that thinness.....
She had also requested some floor cushions and a tatami flooring, found a lovely floral bias tape with patterns small enough to work for the cushion, and finished it off with a teensy weensy gold knot in the centre. Loving how it turned out! Each is barely 1cm square.
(table is an old Sylvanian family item I collected more than a decade ago! might have been a stool from a sewing machine set, or table from a micro sofa set? or is it Re-ment??! Auf, can't remember, but it's not made by me is what I meant to say.....)
1:48 scale miniature Japanese Tea Scene, UV Resin, Epoxy Resin, Polymer Clay, Cloth, Inkscape, Paper, Acrylic paint
Fired up Inkscape and heavily modified a free tatami texture I found online, did up a sample by scoring along the lines but at 1:48, ey, not sure why I bothered. :-/ I'm not sure if you can see but I've also detailed the Usagi Manju (Rabbit Steamed Bun) with red eyes and brown ears, and the sakura mochi has a teeny yellow centre and detailed indentations.....kind of difficult to detail items approximately 1mm large..... *squints*
I debated over the green, and decided to do a darker and chalkier shade so it 'pops' more, especially since it is sooo tiny, but in contrast, the pink of the mochi seems a little pale in photos?! It is a few shades darker in real life, I promise! Looks like my photography skills have reverted to n00b status after such a long break T-T
OKAY enough self-flagellation, I have another large-ish order which I'm mid-way through, but here's part of what I've completed :) It's 1:6 scale, which I am not often asked to work with, so it posed new challenges for me, which included sculpting with air dry clay since no batch work was necessary!
1:6 aka playscale assorted sushi, WIP. microbeads, paper, acrylic paints, oil based paints, air dry clay, UV resin
Ouf it's almost March.