#blueritual

[pigmentpeach]

New friend from @blue-ritual!! Cherry Cola Malus! Nice and soft. Absolutely amazing! A lot bigger than I was expecting, too, which is a pleasant surprise. The box it was shipped in fooled me. Can't wait to try this beast out 😍

[blue-ritual]

New logo!

I wrote about this more on my Patreon, but to make a long story short, I wanted to return to simpler, sleeker logo.  The cracking egg represents the conceptualization of a new idea, while the sparkles formulate the constellation “Sculptor”-- playing off both my constellation-themed design names and the nature of my work.

Some brief updates: Malus is 90% done, Fornax is printed (awaiting shipping), Monster Fucker stickers will start shipping this upcoming Thursday.  Malus and Fornax will be getting molds very shortly, so these next few weeks will be an exciting time of more upcoming designs! The MegaTutorial is being rewritten/formatted for the web, but should be in a presentable format by the end of this weekend.  Please stay tuned for lots of cool new stuff in the future!

(P.S., I switched FurAffinity accounts to the proper non-hyphenated name... I’ll be uploading relevant content shortly, but for now please bear with the empty account. ♥)

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[blue-ritual]

Okay so... Fornax kinda got messed up in every was possible! To make a long story short, it’s going to be delayed while I edit some parts of the design, reprint, and remold it.  

And the juicy details:  Fornax was really tricky from as soon as I started printing it.  My printer is underextruding (needs a full hot-end cleaning... something to do tomorrow) meaning that there ends up being some tiny little gaps between some layers... like a horizontal woodgrain effect.  So the first issue was sealing up those with acetone goop, sanding, acetone vapor chamber, etc etc etc... More and more little flaws started cropping up and it was getting kind of frustrating. 

Then the second big issue happened:  after the mold was made and I was trying to remove the print from the mold, I realized I could not invert the mold due to the sudden diameter change between the knot and the base.  So I had to grab my trusty exacto knife and cut a vertical slit in order to remove the print (and all future casts)... and this is the point where I knew things were really going south!  It’s very tricky to get a cut-open mold line to make a flawless seam with a glove mold.   

But, undeterred, I decided to cast it anyway.  When I pulled it out of the mold, not only did the mold line split /further/, meaning there would inevitably be issues with future casts, but parts of the head adhered to the inner mold surface (insufficient mold release-- dumb mistake on my part), leaving big craters.

And, upon inspecting the final casts’s surface finish, I just wasn’t pleased. Too many irregularities, too much loss of detail on the surface of the base, etc.  And the darn thing just flops over instead of standing up. :p

SO... in conclusion, I’m going to be editing Fornax’s design to make it more castable.  The knot will probably be narrowed, at least at the base, and the section under it may be made thicker.  Of course, I’ll be posting about the design’s progress... and printing and post-processing and molding all over again. :p

Stuff like this sucks but setbacks are inevitable in art.  Not everything works the first time!!  In the mean time, I’m going to be continuing to work on commissions, so keep your eyes on the store for occasional mis-pours. Larger Draco is still in the near future, as is beginning work on Pyxis 2.0 (which should be /much/ less drama to cast).

And I think that’s it. Thank you all for the support! 

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[blue-ritual]

I’m pleased to announce that the new Blue Ritual website is live!

This new website replaces the Etsy store.  I will still be fulfilling existing commissions on Etsy, but all new orders should be placed through the new website!

The new website brings slightly lower prices on some commissions, as well as easy reference for measurements.  It’s still in a pretty early conception of what it will eventually become, but I do believe all the necessary information is on there.  And what is on there is more commission slots, and some stock pours!  

So please go take a look!  And if you’re on Patreon, head on over and claim your 10% off coupon to celebrate the new store!  🎉

[blue-ritual]

Experimenting with a different Opal technique... More stock coming soon!

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