Enigmatic Staff

This was the first of three staffs I made for the last Empire Larp. The first was for me, an 'Engimatic Staff' attuned to the realm of night. The description said 'These polished black staves often bear subtly scintillating runes of black upon black'. But black on black isn't especially interesting to look at (though I considered one of those slightly iridescent black paints) so I went with silver runes and silver vines going up it.

I did briefly attempt to give it a glow in the dark glaze over the runes but it was barely noticeable at night and dulled the silver during the day.

Its a simple bit of dowel that I engraved with a dremel. Which actually took ages, all the little ridges from the grain meant it took forever to get it smooth. After engraving I gave it a light sand, stained it ebony, and used some silver enamel paint for the vines and runes.

Jade Cthulhu Idol

Back again, various other things to show as soon as I get round to it. Here, however is my first attempt at an actual fimo sculpture, which worked out fairly well in my opinion.

It's a tin foil core, covered in a thin layer if emerald, followed by a thin layer of translucent green - the two layers were probably unnecessary but I didn't know how transparent that would be. Then I added the tentacles and tried to blend them in. The wings I was puzzled by how to do well before I settled on them being pulled in tight, though perhaps I should have added a little more thickness for the wing membranes.

After it was baked I added a black wash which dramatically improved it.

It's far from perfect, and there's a couple of annoying fingerprints on it, but I'm pretty happy with it. Works better as a static prop in my opinion as its so lightweight it instantly wrecks immersion when you pick it up. 

Bloodstone Jade Seal

So I got myself a blank Chinese seal from ebay a while back and decided to use it for my Larp character. Honestly I spent more time trying to decide on a design than I did working on it, but in the end I went for a simplified version of those (already fairly simple) drawings of mountains you get in various Asian cultures (the nation he's from is vaguely Tibetan in some ways and live on mountains), plus a star/moon/sun, plus the rune for 'A' (for Arcadius). It also represents thought and scholarly things, which fits well with the character (though it *is* associated with Day magic rather than Night or Winter, but we can't have everything)

Needs to be engraved a little deeper (and needs tidying up a bit) and I may add more little details to make it a little more interesting, but for a simple little prop I'm happy with it.

Need to see if it works as an ink stamp too, certainly less costly than sticking wax everywhere. May be just as messy though. Biggest issue is that the larger chinese style seals need a fair bit more wax than the european types.

Stone Cthulhu

My first proper carving - in that I actually shaped the stone rather than simply engraved it.  It's made from slate again, but this time it was a piece that had rather appropriately been worn by the sea.  I have a couple more pieces like that that a re light green and thus even more suited for our octopoid friend, but they're smaller.  The original stone (shown in the fourth picture) was also perfectly shaped to produce the effect I wanted with minimal work.

Minimal work being about three to four hours I think, maybe a little longer if you include finishing.

I started with the piece shown below, decided I'd use much the same design as before - half his head and one wing - and got to work with a file and my dremel, getting rid of the waste material (picture five is after an hour and a half or so, maybe?).  Then I had to smooth out the wing piece and shape the head, which took a surprising amount of time.

I was going to do it as a relief, with the 'bones' of the wing raised, and then cut away for the wing membrane. It's at that point I realised I'd accidentally manage to (in my mind), mimic Inuit soapstone sculptures (which actually is been looking at yesterday), so I decided to run with it and go with a few engraved lines instead.  Also it would take a lot less time and I figured I'd pick the simpler option for my first attempt.  Some of the wing lines are a little wobbly, unfortunately it was tricky getting a good angle with the dremel where it wouldn't wobble.

After doing the details I smoothed out as much as I could to get back to the sea stone look (though really there should be a little more removed on the wing for that but meh), and sand it down.  At which point I realised I had the wing section TOO smooth, rather than the smooth but dinged texture of the bits worn by the sea.  So I tossed it around in a bit of gravel to add a few scrapes - it didn't look perfect but it looked believable.

After washing off all the dust I polished it with beeswax which made it look great and really brought out the purple colour.  So I put another coat, but that just made it totally uniform and dull looking, so I scrubbed it off with soap and hit water, then scratched it a little more, then put a thin coat back on.  End result isn't quite as good as it was after that first coat - and in some light is a little dull - but I'm pretty proud of it.

The camera won't pick up the right colour though, in the right light it's got a good dark purple look (though in the wrong light it's a little brownish, I think that's the beeswax).

The final picture is the Elder Sign pebble after I coloured the engraving silver, you can tell because the engraving is now silver.  I couldn't find any solder to do a proper metal inlay, so I just used one of those metallic ink pens - I think it looks quite nice, albeit lacking the natural look it had before.  I think it's got the reflective look to it that silver paint doesn't have, so to my mind it does look like a very small amount of actual silver has been dribbled through to coat it. 

This has to be useful for something, right?

I picked this up in a field last year and have been meaning to do something with it ever since.  Main possibilities are either carving runes or symbols into it or using it as a hilt for a 'sword'  - it's actually nicely shaped for a one hander.

I bleached it right after getting it to whiten the bone and clean it ( or to mention kill off any diseases).  Unfortunately I don't have a before and after picture.

No idea what animal it's from, I assume a cow probably?

Fragment of a slate tablet of Cthulhu

So, the first actual stone item I've made -  done just before the Elder Sign below, since this one didn't actually need the dremel given how soft slate is.  Softer than I remembered actually, I knew you could leave white lines on it easily, didn't realise how easy it was to properly carve into it though.  Neat.  That said the dremel came in useful for the writing/markings on the reverse because the shear number would have taken much longer than the few minutes it did.

I tried to give the look of it being a mere fragment of a much larger piece by having Cthulhu only half on it and having the symbols go across the edge. Not sure how successful I was. I also wanted the symbols on the back to look much simpler, but also more like a possible language - more like cuneiform. So for that I went with lots of little dashes in lines, while the front had larger, more abstract symbols dotted between the lines of Cthulhu himself.

Interestingly (to me) the state feels much more fragile to the touch now.  Not in that it's cheaper umbra, more that the thinner bits just give the impression of being ready to snap at any moment. I kinda like it, I was expecting a stone piece to have a solid feeling

Elder Sign Pebble

So, I finally got a chance to try out the new set of diamond engraving tools for my dremel.  Didn't have time to do anything majorly complicated, so here's a pebble engraved with an Elder Sign (Lovecraft version). 

This is a nice small piece on its own but I'm considering Melting some solder into it to give the impression of silver inlay.  Not sure how well that would as u all work, but still.