Hi OOAK’ers !
In my search for information and tutorials (TuTs) for either were to find / buy OOAK eyes for my sculptures I found a lot of results …. but none that were what I needed / wanted. Reason being is that 95% of the doll eyes out there that are pre-made are too big. They start at 8mm in size and for sculptures ranging from 6 – 8 inches, those eyes are far too big (keeping in mind that I’m trying to go for realism in my sculptures). The appropriate size eyes that I’ve come to learn is from 4 – 7mm.
Now …. there are gorgeous eyes out there, not the size I’m looking for of course, and I did find TuTs on how to “make your own”. Very nice TuTs, but I thought to myself “I don’t have enough skill and experience for that.” (I’m not a pessimist). The thought that launched me into a different kind of search for eyes was “I don’t have those supplies from that TuT”. And there it went, the thought process of “How can I make my own eyes with the supplies I DO have ??”. SO ! what I did was I ended up going to Michael’s Art Supply store on another day when I was visiting family, and I saw some tiny ‘Crystazzi‘ flat-back crystals
I have no idea how the sizing of these things work because it says “ss10” for the sizing, none-the-less, they’re the perfect size.
What I did was; * I created two tiny balls with white clay, it’s technically not white, the color’s Translucent but it looks white pre-baked, so I called it white.
* After making two equally sized / shaped “eyeballs” with the clay, I took a permanent black marker and since the crystals have a flat top as well, that worked out perfectly, too, because I could fill in that flat, tiny surface with the black marker to simulate the pupil (YaY).
* I then took a set of tweezers to place the crystals on the clay balls I made earlier. Once they were on there I pressed them on lightly just enough for the crystal to get slightly embedded onto the clay, then I turned the eyeball upside down, the crystal facing the floor, and I gently pushed the crystal slightly deeper into the clay by pushing down on the clay ball against a surface.
* Now, I can cure them. This was a little process, too. When I did this I was very careful because fortunately, I had cured translucent clay before and learned the hard way that if left in the oven long enough it will change into a different color so I was very careful to cure in very short increments. For example, as I always like to say, “You can always add but rarely can you subtract”, I started curing first at 8mins, then I took it out, checked the color and made sure it didn’t change on me, if it was still white but still soft, I would out the eyes back in the oven for another 8mins until ready. Ready being hard but not discolored.
I take this “baby step” approach because you can always cure more, but you can’t de-cure — :~D — This is what they look like once done. It’s different so we’ll see how this method evolves.
Enjoy !
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