Things Get Finished

Here are the bigger eyes for Bex that I finished today--the brown ones were a little small. I ended up making a lot of pairs of eyes and I think about half with be usable--4 of the pairs I like a lot. I made half rolling by hand and then today made a second mold and did a few pairs that way. It's hard to get the eyes out of the mold without pulling the eyes out of shape a little, and I decided I preferred the hand-sculpted ones anyway. It's not like I am making these for production so it's ok if they are a little quirky. I also scorched the set I cooked in the toaster oven on toothpicks, because they were too close to the top element. So in the end what worked best was hand rolling a ball, chilling it for 30 minutes outside (or in your freezer) slice it in half with a sharp knife, and then use the back end of a paintbrush to sculpt a tiny torus at the top of the dome. I found the end of a plastic straw was the perfect template for an Iplehouse eye iris size. Then steam the eyes for 18 minutes, let cool, paint the pupil and iris, paint the eyewhite, then fill the top with polymer gloss varnish, let it sit overnight, fill it again with varnish, let it sit at least 3 hours, then varnish the sides. Metallic paint, micro glitter and pearlescent stuff all made the eyes nicer. You can adjust the shape of the eye to fit even terrible wells like Angel of Dream dolls' eyes..and my little Resinsoul girl will finally get some eyes that fit perfectly. I also made a pair for Mr. Ropuha, though I am not sure I remembered his size right. Here's what got done:

Also, just between the two of us, we have nearly finished the cake:

It also snowed like crazy in downtown Chicago, but here it was cold and sunny. I think the mermaid is done with winter, though: