Here's a new treasure chest I customised for the toddler. I didn't take the hinges off this time. As always, I started with sanding and adding a base coat of acrylic gesso. Unlike last time, I didn't bother to seal it with PVA first. I don't think it really has a noticeable effect. I made this in July, but I've been really lazy about posting on here lately.
I asked the toddler if she'd like an under the sea theme or a fruit theme and she went for the under the sea theme.
Continue readingThese have been on the backburner for literally years. I finally decided to give it a go. I finished these at the end of June but I got lazy and didn't post it. Anyway, these are squishy pen toppers I got for the kids a few years back and now they're worse for wear.
Here are the patients. They have cracks, tears and missing appendages.
Continue reading I made a corner shelf out of paper maché ages ago, back when I made the Commander Keen stage. It was actually a part of that video, but it turns out you can't upload more than 15 minutes without giving g00gle your phone number, so it got cut. The big problem with it was that things kept falling off it. So I decided to make another one, but with a lip on the edge.
Continue reading I finally bought myself a hot glue gun and a couple of months later, I actually used it! My Teal Times sofa had come undone. I'd been using that awful Hobbycraft double sided tape at the time; I didn't buy the UHU Power until I was about halfway through that project. Anyway, that tape was absolute pants. The adhesive deteriorated after a couple of years and discoloured. According to customer services, it wasn't even acid free. It had already ruined several scrapbook pages, and now had ruined my dollshouses too. So I had taken apart that sofa over a year ago now, and just couldn't be bothered to put it back together.
Anyway, now being in possession of a glue gun, I thought I'd see how that would go. While I was at it, I decided I'd see if I couldn't do something about my first kit. I only did the most minor of customisation for that one. I thought I may as well revisit it, since I was increasingly hating the decor.
Continue reading I've been having problems with cerulean pigment for years, and so I did some experimenting, which included asking some of my AIs what they knew. I did solve the mystery in the end, but here are the chats I had about the topic beforehand. First up, ChatGPT:
I was unable to find any information about this, and so for a long time I just assumed it was the cheap Wilko acrylic I was using. I can't varnish it without it smearing. I can't use it mixed with fabric medium without it smearing, even after several top coats of clear medium and heat setting it. The moment you add any acrylic or water on it, it reactivates the pigment. It's just not colour fast at all.
But then I noticed the same problem with cyan printer ink. When printing on photo paper, I can seal printouts with diluted PVA except cyan. Anything with a lot of cyan will smear, just like with the paint, but the other colours will be fine.
So if true cyan pigments are so problematic, why can I not find a single other mention of other artists having this problem? Why is it just me?
I'm sick of ruining my art. I decided to see if ChatGPT knew anything about it.
Continue readingI've been having problems with the rain. More specifically, I've been having problems with my mudguards. They just don't work on my bike. As soon as the roads get wet, my backpack gets covered in mud and it takes ages to get out. I'm already on my third mudguard, and I've currently got a home-made contraption on the back. I decided I'd revamp an old backpack, because fabric paint by its very nature should be waterproof, right? So even if it got muddy, it would be easy to wipe clean. Right?
I was forgetting about the joy that is cerulean pigment.
I mentioned in a previous post about how to turn acrylic paint into fabric paint. I bought the Scola brand of fabric medium, which seems to be the only widely-available and affordable option here in the UK.
Continue readingI decided in the end to base my second shadowbox on a DallE rendering of an Altrisian forest (yes, the same as the one on my penholder).
Caerulean paint, oh my gosh. It's so unstable! Anyway, Continue reading
I was looking up how to seal fabric paint when I came across instructions on how to actually MAKE fabric paint out of acrylic paint! I was like, "I spent over £100 on this for nothing?" I can't believe I'd never heard of this thing before!
Easily over £100 worth of paint. Scammage!
What it said was that you can mix equal quantities of Continue reading
This has been on my to-do list for a while. As usual, first step is sanding and priming.
I decided the best way to paint the insides was to use that old can of silver spray paint I bought way back in the days of the dolls' café monstrosity. So it did an okayish job of painting, although I did need to top a lot of it up with acrylic afterwards. That part was fine, but...
Continue readingI had an old jewellery box I haven't had any use for for years. I was never a fan of the design, the colours never did anything for me. I decided to gift it to Tines. I was going to paint some doughnuts on it, but she insisted on a sunset scene, like the one I painted on my Moriah-inspired underwater scene.
So I looked up some design ideas, because I have no creativity of my own. I found this tutorial and pathetically tried to copy it.
Continue reading
The boys were given some empty hankie gift boxes, and as soon as I saw them, I thought: shadowboxes! It took a while, but I eventually finished one of them.
Continue readingI think it must have been some server maintenance or something going on, because DallE is working fine for me now. Also, good news, apparently, there's no waitlist now, so you can have a go, too!
Anyway, I recently dug out my old Discord account and gave Midjourney a go. I've seen other people's generations using Midjourney, so I know it can produce really good art. However, you know the saying: a bad artist blames their tools. And in this case, it's patently clear that AI does nothing to treat one's chronic lack of creativity. I just wasn't able to produce anything I was really happy with. Here are the results of using the same prompts on Midjourney and DallE 2.
The original DallE generation from my last post:
Continue reading For the last 18 months, I've been having trouble with watching videos on youtube on my tablet via browser (the app is a joke of an adfest). Most of them will flash red and blue on 360p or above, so I have to watch them at 240p. Anyway, my mum's old Kindle Fire doesn't have this problem, so since she hasn't used it in years, I helped myself to it for watching videos. Anyway, the case ended up looking worse for wear. It started flaking all over the place, so Tiny and I had an ASMR-fest (kinda not really) and peeled all the paint off, and then I gave it a coat of gesso.
As usual, I had no ideas for what I could paint on it. Then scrolling through my tablet's gallery, I pulled up this screenshot that I took from a Chloe Rose video. I can't remember which one. But at the time, I had an idea of trying to copy it for practice.
To be honest, it was a pretty daunting challenge. If you've seen my art, you'll know that backgrounds and landscapes are my weak point (and creativity, and anatomy, and...). But I thought, maybe I can actually do it. Of course I knew I couldn't match the original, but I wanted to see how close I could get. So I started with a rough sketch, and started on the background.
Continue readingTechnically, it was just head surgery. Gingerbread man moneyboxes don't have brains. I forgot to take a photo of it before the repair job, but what happened was The Chipmunk's brother threw the box and there were two big holes in the skull. I patched them up with airdry clay (I love that stuff!), filled in any gaps and cracks with more clay, and did a repaint.
After the second patch up and sanding:
Continue reading 