#old art posts incoming.. dusting off this blog..

[nevert-the-guy]

First Post, now Edited with my info:

You can call me Nevert, Nevert the Guy, Nevertheless Thermodynamic Guy, Nev, or "that guy". You're not getting my real name.

Current Age: 23

Primary Interests: Kirby, Pokémon, Sonic, Mario (of both the Paper and the & Luigi varieties), robots, indie games, various webcomics.

Current Side Interests: Persona (3 Reload), Deltarune (second-handedly)

Favorite Food: the humble cheeseburger. Oh, also onion rings.

Self-Appointed Titles: Mass Attack's Strongest Soldier, The Vivian Post Guy, the Checkered Champion

Art Post Frequency: Tragically Low

Art Tag: #nevert's funky lines

General Tag: #nevert's rambling

Birthday Tag: #nevert's birthday bash

Also Look At: #important, #palestine

Donation Reblog Frequency: As I See Them, Approximately 3 Hours After Last Seeing Them (note: I do not have my own income, so as of now I won't be able to donate)

Good Point: Creative

Bad Point: Low Motivation

Likes: video games, drawing

Dislikes: doing things twice

Favorite Pokémon Type: Ghost

Favorite Classic Mega Man: Mega Man 4

Favorite Pokémon: Pichu

Elemental Attributes: Ice, Lightning

Opinion on fish: afraid of them in life, don't like eating them in death

Handedness: Right

Mario Kart Main: Shy Guy if available, Luigi if not

Favorite Mario Kart Track: Airship Fortress

Kirby Air Riders Mains: Waddle Dee (Air/Top Ride), Starman/Knuckle Joe (City Trial), Vampire Star (Machine) [Currently Experimenting]

Current Favorite Normal Song: Such Horrible Things - Creature Feature

Current Favorite Video Game Song: Master of Shadow - Persona 3 Reload

Favorite Balatro Deck: Checkered

Max Hit Points: 25

Favorite Colors: Yellow, Cyan, Green, Red, in that order

Favorite Words: ennui, grandiose, rather, allegedly, rebar, cromulent

Favorite Historical Figure: Giles Corey

Least Favorite Pokémon: Galarian Stunfisk

Favorite Season: Fall, probably

Prized Possession: a Pichu plush I got as a kid

Pokéwalker: Currently At Large

Favorite Transformers:

-Autobot / General: Jazz

-Decepticon: Soundwave and/or Starscream

-Minicon: High Wire (cartoon design)

Favorite Robot Master: Three way tie between Crash Man, Galaxy Man, and Dust Man

Favorite Koopaling: Lemmy

Firefox Waterfox Tabs Left Open: 16

Favorite Ship: SS Edmund Fitzgerald

Preferred Outfit: Assorted caps, T-shirt, cargo shorts, and maybe a jacket. Think Soos but a little bit thinner, and you're in my ballpark.

Warnings & Notes:

-I joke about sex and stuff every now and then. Also I say the fuck word, much more frequently.

-I am not perfect. If I reblog a scam or something from a shitty person, please let me know as soon as possible.

Line in the Sand: Racists, sexists, LGBT-phobes, ableists, and any other discriminators of that sort, you all can fuck off my blog and fuck off this site

-If you send me a donation link, while I don't currently have the means to donate myself, I will promote it when I'm able to, with a bit of spacing out to give other links some time as well

Dream Projects:

-A webcomic about a modernish society with robots (I'm WAY more passionate about it than that description implies)

-"The Quirky Kirby-Inspired Platformer with Themes of Anti-Capitalism" (see Guycon)

-An RPG with M&L inspiration, a mild element system, exchangeable teammates, and a peculiar focus on being set in Michigan (very little on paper) (EDIT: Well THAT hole in my heart got filled)

And now, the Guy in my Icon (the Guycon, if you will)

Also, my art tag is "nevert's funky lines" for my stuff, and "other people's art" for, well, other people's art.

More Pablo under the cut:

Some stuff I want him to do. If it ain't signed, it ain't near final.

Character bios for the main players of the story, sorry if the normal humans look a bit funky:

Intermission: See those little skull-faced guys earlier on? The throwable ones? Those are Goons (the minion kind). Here's an old species runby (ignore the element stuff):

...I have GOT to get a way to scan this stuff.

...anyway: Pablo's old Halloween costume from October 2024: Hasty Construction!

[pan-delure]

hey I'm starting dice casting in resin as a quarantine activity! anything you think I should know? (I have researched a decent amount about what to do or not do but I feel like it'd be better to get the opinion of someone who knows things!) thanks for your time! I love your blog btw

Oh my gosh, thank you! Wow... okay where to start... (Just a heads up to anyone reading, this is going to be a long and probably rambling post)

There's definitely a large learning curve for dice making, so like you said it's really good to do your research! Experimentation is important, but I'll try to share as much as I can to help!

There are a few important stages that help improve the quality of your dice, and the quality bumps up a bit each time you go up a stage. Each stage would cost a fair bit to bump up, but it does show an improvement and most importantly, each one reduces the amount of time and effort you have to put into completely finishing a set of dice. If you ever get discouraged, remember that failure is part of learning, and of course your results will get better with experience! I'll include some pics of my first dice versus my most recent ones for comparison.

The first tests I ever tried with making dice, I had barely a clue as to what to try. The first molds I ever made were made with a small, extremely expensive Hobby Lobby silicone mold kit, and a small bottle of Alumilite casting resin.

At the time, I knew from watching King of Random videos that the best thing to use to remove the bubbles from silicone (improving the quality of your molds and final product DRAMATICALLY) was to use a vacuum chamber to "degass" the silicone as much as possible. At the time I couldn't afford one, so my old molds often had tiny bubbles that would leave small, stippled pieces of resin all over the surface of my dice. So, how do we get around all of this?

Well, one way would be to buy a vacuum chamber, but I recently found a better way to make sure there are no bubbles! But, I'll talk a bit more about this later.

(Side Note: I do not support Hobby Lobby or their policies in the slightest, but at the time it was the only place in my town that offered silicone or resin, and it still is. I now buy almost all of my supplies online, and buy direct from the manufacturer if they have a website to avoid using Amazon.)

So first off, what kind of resin should you use?

This is normally just determined by personal preference, but I really enjoy using Art n Glow casting resin for all of my dice. You measure the two parts in a 1:1 ratio by volume, and it hardens pretty well as long as you mix it for 3-4 minutes before adding any pigments or dyes. I'll add a link to their website here, but keep in mind they also sell a lot of interesting pigment options besides just resin.

So what about silicone?

So after my first unfortunate mishaps with my old Hobby Lobby silicone, I decided to do some digging and see what would actually work the best. After watching a lot of Rybonator's videos on youtube about making molds, I went with Smooth-On brand Mold Star Slow 15 silicone for my first serious molds. This specific silicone is a two-part, green platinum cure silicone, which basically means it will last a lot longer than something like a tin cured silicone. (I would add a link for where to buy it, but there is another silicone that I like much better that I'll talk about in a moment.)

This worked pretty well for me, but there is a major downside. When you use an opaque silicone, you can't see the resin as you fill up your molds. This works for a LOT of applications, but if you're interested in doing layered, swirled, or pride themed dice, I would instead go with Smooth-On Sorta-Clear 37 silicone (link included). One trial kit is more than enough for one full set of dice molds, with a bit extra left over for other projects. Not only do the clear molds leave you open to being able to make layered or pride dice, but the silicone itself is a bit firmer than Slow 15, which makes it easier to secure the mold together before you pour resin into it, and the mold is a bit more durable overall.

(Comparison photos of molds I've made with Slow 15 and Sorta-Clear 37, and my og molds)

But how do we deal with all of the pesky bubbles in the silicone and resin?

Well, I'm glad you asked. So, normally a vacuum chamber would be used to remove the bubbles from the silicone, and then you would use a pressure pot after you fill them with resin to basically crush down any bubbles that are suspended in your resin while it hardens and cures. When I wasn't unemployed and had a decently steady stream of income, I went out of my way to track down a decent vacuum chamber and a vacuum pump (which I had to buy separately). However, with a bit of experimentation, I found that you don't really need a vacuum chamber at all! Instead of buying both pieces, which would (if you're lucky) would cost around ~$75 for the vacuum chamber and pump, and $100 for the pressure pot, just using a pressure pot in place of a vacuum chamber will save on both time and a TON of money.

Using a pressure pot is one of the main stages that helps improve the quality and time spent sanding dramatically, and both Rybonator and Peter Brown have great videos on setting up your pressure pot. Harbor Freight sells a great model that has a massive capacity and is absolutely perfect for dice making! The technique for using a pressure pot for curing silicone is rather simple, just pour your silicone into your molds and place into the pressure pot, then let them cure for the length of time given on the packaging instructions.

In terms of actually preparing dice for molds, I would follow this guide from Rybonator, which is pretty much what I've followed in making mine. My molds are slightly different, but it's just trial and error to see what works for you!

Hey, so how do you pigment your dice?

Pretty much any way you want! There are lots of different ways to color and tinted resin, and nearly infinite things you can inset into them!

A few of the things I use are the cheap $0.50 bottles of acrylic paint you can buy at Walmart or any hobby store, alcohol based inks, liquid glitter, glow powder from Art n Glow, mica powders, pearl powder, cocoa powder, gold leaf, so pretty much anything! Peter Brown has an amazing video series where he takes household items and tests how well they work as resin dyes (link), and it serves as a pretty good source of inspiration for what to use!

Oh lord, am I going to have to sand these?

IMPORTANT NOTE: ALWAYS WEAR A RESPIRATOR OR FACE MASK, EYE PROTECTION, AND GLOVES WHEN WORKING WITH RESIN! (Yes, always!)

Unfortunately, sanding your dice can be one of the most tedious parts of this hobby, but each of the stages I've mentioned such as using a pressure pot or even getting your own dice masters can really cut down on the amount of time that you have to spend sanding and polishing. Personally, I use a mix of different wet sanding grits (normally the grits I use are 300, 600, 800, 1200, and 2000), and once I'm happy with the surface finish I move on to something called Zona papers (link), which work amazingly well compared to things like micro mesh pads that I've used in the past. I normally sand each face, including when polishing them, for about a minute or so on each face in a figure-8 motion, making sure that there is plenty of water to keep both dust from clogging the sand paper, as well as to reduce the amount you are breathing in. Buying master dice, such as those from Blue Mimic, can really reduce the amount of time you have to sand, but most hobby dice makers may not go so far as they can cost over hundreds of dollars, but are necessary if you ever plan on selling them or starting a business with them.

That's about most of the advice I have when it comes to making dice, but if anyone has any questions please don't hesitate to ask!! If I think of anything else I'll add a reblog onto this with any extra info. Remember, any failures you make are absolutely part of the process, and make sure you keep them to remember how far you've come!

[merlinsmushrooms]

Updates!

{{I said there was a massive update incoming and it’s now mostly complete!  I’ve got a new theme thanks to both @elsaofarendelle and @cotton-candy-tail . Sadly we couldn’t get the music player to work, so it’s disabled for now. I’ll share the playlist separately in a bit for anybody curious New verses include: ..{{A Better Me}}..  Canon based post Day of the Sorcerer’s verse. ..{{Enchancian Magic}}.. This verse is now the pre-S4 canon verse for this blog.

..{{Hexes at Hogwarts}}.. I promised a Harry Potter verse ages ago, and now I feel comfortable enough to have Cedric act as a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. ..{{House of Mouse}}.. Can Disney please reboot this show already? If you have no idea what this verse means, off to youtube with you! Glorious crossover crack awaits you! 

If there’s a certain verse you’d like to see from me, my inbox is open! Now is the time to poke me about what you might like to see as I’m still working on formal updated descriptions for all my verses. Major character relations are now tagged! All interactions with Sofia the First characters or other important characters will now have a separate tag. I will not be going back to tag old threads - I’ve got 4,000+ posts and I’m not rummaging through all that - but all new threads should be much easier to find and read! (I might go back and tag old artwork, but that’s about it.) These tags will be added slowly over time.  The non-child friendly tag will no longer be used. This blog - and website - are for people at least 13 years of age. I will never post blatant NSFW writings or imagery on this blog, but the wand jokes that slip through will no longer be tagged with a general tag. Some of these threads I am writing are getting darker and more mature in a SFW light, but it’s getting redundant using a tag that I honestly feel stems from hyperbole.  Proper trigger warnings will still be used for the content it’s required for. Please let me know if you need something tagged. --- There’s still a bit of dust as I finish a few extra minor things, but for the most part, I am ready, hyped, and absolutely excited to keep writing Cedric. Here’s to another year of magical mayhem! }}

[sentientspaceship]

(ID in alt)

We’ve all been there right guys