EratoTiaTuatha

My good friend Deskleaves is having an art raffle! 

You can win a full body pic, how awesome is that :3 Here's the link to the thing: 

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I've always admired Desky's art and there used to be some of it featured on my profile while I had the premium (uh, sorry, Core ) to do so, but it's about time anyway I featured some more, right?  

Here goes :3

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I would urge you to take part in the raffle. In fact, I do. But let's be honest here, you don't want to wait for the results to come in, do you? Go grab a commission! Here's Desky's comm info: 

deskleaves.deviantart.com/gall…

And once you've done ordering one, then join the raffle anyway  

As some of you may know, one of my dogs, my precious little sister Mariko has been very ill for the past few days. She's in a lot of pain, and there was a moment there where it looked like she had the beginnings of paralysis. Me and our vet figured out it's probably an issue in the neck region of her spine. Maybe a slipped disc, maybe something else. We can't make sure without x-rays, and possibly further tests after that. Depending on what we find, there are a few treatment options. If we're very lucky we will be looking at meds and home arrest to prevent her from moving too much. If not, we're going to have to consider surgery. 

Seeing as I'm broke and jobless, with the help of my wonderful friends I decided to try raising money for her treatment through DeviantArt, namely releasing adopts. There have been two batches released now, one of them containing some truly amazing designs provided by my awesome friend Deskleaves This journal is going to get updated on both the sale's and my dog's progress until the situation is resolved entirely.

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DOG'S STATUS

As of writing this Mari has received her third (and for now last) injection at our regular vet, and is scheduled to meet a specialist tomorrow evening. We will get x-rays of her spine done, and then hopefully learn how we are to proceed. I am also happy to report she's finally feeling better, and has been enjoying cuddles and walking on her own which she wasn't capable of just this morning.

UPDATE 22.10!! We took Mari to the specialist clinic yesterday and got the x-rays done. The diagnosis is slightly surprising, but overall good. Turns out she must've been hit pretty badly, which is just mind boggling seeing as she's a big crybaby but somehow I never noticed the injury actually happen. She has a single vertebra at the base of her neck pretty beat up, but does not require surgery which was my main concern. Instead we are to continue administering the injections we were already on for about two weeks. 

Sadly, we also found out she has a genetic deformation to the vertebrae in her lower spine. According to the vet, it's pretty much inevitable it will give her trouble down the line, beginning as a painful condition that eventually settles as painless, but limiting the mobility in that area. So far though all looks good and I'm going to monitor the progress of that issue closely.

Other than that, she's perfectly healthy, the vet was actually pretty impressed and pointed it out a few times. I didn't want to start another argument about dog diet, but I silently congratulated myself on sticking with Prey Model Raw, because let's be real here that's the reason why she's doing so well Apparently she has an especially well developed, healthy heart. "Like a sportsman's", the vet said.

Thanks to the purchases and generous donations the vet visit has been paid for in full and we have enough for a few days of treatment, but sadly not the entire thing. Therefore the emergency fund stays up and running! Please consider buying some adopts, spreading the word, or maybe getting me to do some customs for you? As an addition to the premade adopts, I will be happy to offer customs from both my species as well as real life animals (and maybe open species from other artists if their rules allow it) for $10 each!

By the way, here's a little pic from today's car ride to the vet:

Mari is feeling much, much better now, which is a double edged sword because it also means she's stopped being careful. So most of the day was spent on acting normal, interrupted by sudden yelps of pain every half an hour or so, whenever she forgot she wasn't supposed to move her head a certain way >.> As she's not in constant pain anymore, I decided against painkillers because FSM only knows what she'd do to herself if she didn't have the pain to serve as a "pssst don't do that" warning *shrugs helplessly*

UPDATE 26.10!! The strong painkillers from before the x-rays wore off entirely and Mari is in way more pain than necessary, so we got her painkillers today. First dose is tomorrow morning so I'll update you guys when I know how it's working. Hopefully it will keep her comfortable, but not too comfortable Obviously I would very much prefer for her to not be in pain at all, but sadly the location of the injury makes it impossible to immobilize effectively, so the only way I can prevent her from constantly making it worse is if she has pain as a signal to tell her when she's pushing it too far. 

For your entertainment, and to show you where the money I made and got went, I decided to show you the x-ray of doom You can see how the part that's knocked over is right between her shoulder blades, which is both the reason why we couldn't diagnose it without an x-ray, AND the reason why I can't just put her in a cast or bandages and give her all the painkillers she could want. Also highlighted is her amazing heart, not only because it is indeed overflowing with LOVE, but also because the vet commented on how epic and perfect it was, and how it looked like she was a sportswoman I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit proud to hear that

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SALE STATUS:

Here you can see the sales created specifically to raise money for Mariko:
Foskas; $10 each; currently 7/12 available:

Chibi ghettis; $10 each; currently 4/4 available:

Chibi ghettis; $10 each; currently 5/5 available:


And here are some earlier batches that still have designs available in them:
Chicken ginks; $5 each, currently 5/8 available:

Ghettis; $10 each; currently 5/6 available:

Ghettis; $15 each; currently 3/3 available:

Ghettis; $20 each; currently 1/3 available:

So, I believe I have managed to replicate a clay mix created by the awesome Deskleaves, called Derpentine.

It's a mix of polymer clay and two kinds of air dry: stone and paper clay as well as glue. The original recipe goes as follows:

4 parts FIMO
1 part paperclay
1 part stoneclay
a small amount of white craft glue

and can be found here: Adventures in sculpting 1 (clay recipe is (c) to Deskleaves and if I see someone claiming it as their own I shall murder them so painfully and slowly they'll be literally able to feel each of their body cells dying   o n e   b y   o n e...)

Now, I was making some Jonni's Air Dry clay [(c) to Jonni of www.ultimatepapermache.com/ ] The recipe for that is:

24 grams of toilet paper, dissolved in water and drained until the combined weight is 110g
200g of acrylic joint compound
130g wood glue
140g starch
3 tablespoons oil
+add more starch until it reaches perfect consistency

I typically add 3 tablespoons of vinegar to this recipe, in order to prevent molding.

Since, as you can see, Jonni's is both a stone clay (acrylic joint compound) AND a paperclay (toilet paper obvs), AND includes glue, I decided to try using it instead of all three ingredients, so the final recipe was:

2 parts polymer clay (old, stale Cernit One in my case)
1 part Jonni's Air Dry

Now, let's get on to some impressions of the clay after making it and playing with it for a while:

1. MAKING

It took a very long time to mix. First of all because Cernit One is a very stiff clay and doesn't condition easily, so I had to knead it for what seemed like hours (in reality probably 20 minutes+). At first the clays did not want to mix, or so I thought. Then I noticed that the thinner ingredients of Jonni's (joint compound, glue) were being absorbed readily, while the paper tended to clump together at the top. The mixing process kept happening only on the surface, not reaching into the polymer clay. I kept on kneading it with seemingly little to no progress, until it suddenly went full 180 on me and turned soft and pliable within ten seconds or less. It was also at that point when the clay readily absorbed the paper fibers. After that point it took about a minute or two of continuous kneading to even out the color and consistency, as well as make the clay sticky. As soon as that happened, all the bits of clay that had become stuck on my hands before got quickly cleaned up and mixed into the clay.

2. PROPERTIES

The clay has remained sticky, which could probably be countered by reducing the amount of glue used for Jonni's recipe slightly. It does not, however, stick to hands or color them at all. It is incredibly soft and seems to be very fine grained. It holds detail astoundingly well, as it can be thinned down to well under 1mm and still easily stand upright. It catches and maintains any and all impressions readily, something to keep in mind as a great asset for detailed work, but a possible downside if you don't like to worry about leaving fingerprints in your creations. Despite having a definite bounce, the clay can be easily stretched. Its paper fiber content reveals itself then, making it streaky and rubber-like. Again, this could probably be countered by mixing the paper fibers more finely while making Jonni's clay. It is still incredibly easy to smooth. Unless freshly pulled, the clay appears shiny. 

Here are some photos:
clay after rolling:

fingerprint left after pressing gently:

Piece under 1mm thick pinched:

Same piece in profile:

Result of stretching:


All in all, I'm pretty sure this clay has THE best properties I have encountered so far, beating all my current favorites.

3. CURING

AIR-DRYING (a separate piece, I am not air drying any other bits of this clay):
12 hours, clay is slightly more rubbery and appears darker in color. No visible change in volume, can be reconditioned easily.
24 hours, no change.
32 hours, no change

OVEN BAKING: 1 hour 20 minutes at 100C, no visible change in volume, no cracking, no apparent shrinkage. No discoloration observable. While still hot the clay is fairly soft, rubbery. Does not pick up impressions easily and cannot be shaped, but can easily be scratched or dented with a fingernail. As it cools it feels way more solid, but still flexible. Very similar to thick rubber. Easily sandable but doesn't smooth completely as it remains slightly scratched and a lighter color (as is to be expected from polymer clay). Much like polymer, it can be smoothed completely and made shiny by rubbing with a bit of vaseline. Educated guess is the air-dry components and glue have solidified, but plasticizer from the polymer is still present.

15 minutes at 130C. Fresh clay shows a single crack across the whole piece and some swelling, both indicating the "slo-mo explosion" effect (water in the clay boiling and expanding while baking above 100C). It was possible to push the crack back together and it has remained in place since. The clay that was pre-dried at 100C shows no such signs. No shrinkage in either piece. Both appear to have mostly the same properties. Clay is more solid than after baking at 100C, but still slightly flexible. Despite feeling rubbery to the touch, it's impossible to dent by pushing into it, only shows flexibility when the whole part is bent. Overall it's about as, or slightly less flexible than the original polymer after baking, meaning that air-dry clay does add rigidity to the mixture.

30 minutes at 130C (two times 15 minutes) the clay is actually more flexible now? And kinda wants to tear when bent? What is happening?? I think the polymer went more rigid but as a result the air-dry is now damagind to the integrity? It's probably better to only bake for 15 minutes.

Oven-drying identical, 3 gram pieces of Derpentine mix, derpentine with commercial mineral/paper clay (Darwi Roc) and all ingredients separately, compare their properties after a few different time intervals (15 min, 15min, 30min, so one hour total)

15 min:
    derpentine - appears solid
    derpentine Roc - slightly less solid, wanting to tear a little
    Cernit One - appears solid, but more flexible than either derpentine
    Jonni's - still soft, wet, crumbly
    Darwi Roc - appears solid, but wet on the inside, could be crushed/crumbled
30 min:
    derpentine - fairly bendy, difficult to break
    derpentine Roc - similar to the other derpentine but still more brittle than flexible, kinda wants to tear still
    Cernit One - more solid than either derpentine, almost impossible to bend, not tearing/cracking
    Jonni's - about the same as Roc 15 minutes earlier, solid on top and still wet inside
    Darwi Roc - fully dry and solid, hard and durable like a rock
60 min:
    derpentine - bends ever so slightly instead of breaking or tearing, but in general is barely flexible
    derpentine Roc - got eaten by one of my dogs
    Cernit One - solid
    Jonni's - solid, hard, neither bendy nor crumbly
    Darwi Roc - still rock hard, you could probably kill someone with the sharp edge

recommendation: Pre-dry at 100C before baking; Possibly only use pre-drying while working on the sculpture, and only bake the finished product once. Air drying appears to have no effect either way, so pieces can but don't have to be left out before baking

Just LOOK at what the wonderful Chiss did for meh!!! 


Vex pixel by Chissington

DID U KNOW that Chiss is taking commissions? Yeah go check them out! 

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YOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Everyone go to my frand ' journal here: 

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and get yourself arts. Desky's an ahmazeballs artist and an awesome person and could use some emergency commissions!!

Just click it. You know you want to