My soap supplies arrived today. I have 20lbs a soap, with 6 lbs of it being shea butter, and 14lbs of it being standard clear glycerin. The new lavender fragrance and orchid mica powder arrived as well. I tried mixing them into the shea butter base and it turned out to be a very lovely pale pinky-purple color that smells amazing (provided you like lavender).

I tried pouring a lavender kitsune soap and the ears popped out of the mold just fine and seem to be relatively strong. I'm very pleased, as this means I will actually be able to use the mold.

So happy! (there's just something fun about making soap, haha.)

Just a quick heads-up: If you send me an LJ note but have enabled the privacy option for your messages, I cannot reply to you unless you add me as a friend or turn off that option. This is the first time I've encountered this error. I feel bad, because I have no way to reply to this message or let the sender know that I'm having this difficulty and am not ignoring them.



I hope that everyone had a great holiday!

And they return by the promise of maturity without displaying one of their own.

Predictable.



EDIT:
Will do a member list cleaning for meltfire by 31st. So be warned.


EDIT2:
Turns out I can't afford to wait 3 more days.

I just sat down and actually drew something for myself for the first time in.. weeks?

Slightly liberating. But of course it's crap that will never be finished. :)

Back to commissions and costuming shiz now.

I decided to use the last of my silicone and make a second soap mold. Sometime mid-January I'd like to pour some more soaps. I ran a poll on Deviantart for a 6th scent to add to the line-up, and Lavender won. When I make soaps again, this will be the final scent/color lineup:

Black Raspberry Vanilla (Black Soaps)
Brown Sugar & Fig (Bronze Soaps)
Eucalyptus & Spearmint(Emerald Green Soaps)
Fresh Vanilla(White Shea Butter Soaps)
Juicy Cranberry (Red Soaps)
Lavender (Pastel Purple Shea Butter Soap)

The new mold that I made to go with the dragon was a kitsune. I kept it simple and round... with the exception of the ears. They stick out. I tried making fox ears that layed against the head, but it just didn't look right. I worry that this may have been a mistake, because I don't think that it will be very nice to use as soap with ears sticking out. I also worry that though I made them fairly thick, that when cast as soap they may be rather breakable. Could be a problem for demolding and shipping :-/

Another issue that I ran into was that I used all the rest of the silicone that I had left. It was *just* enough to cast this second mold. The bottom of the mold is very thin along the bottom, with the deepest part of the mold being a mere 1/16-1/8 inch thick. This won't effect the soap itself, but I fear that the mold may not be very durable. If it lasts through 15 castings I'll be surprised. (I made over 100 dragons on the first dragon mold. It's still holding together, but it was a very thick mold.) Until I get my soap supplies I won't know the final weight on the kitsune, though I did try and keep it of a similar volume to the dragon. The dragon casts a soap that's 4.3-4.5oz.

Between the fragile mold and concern about the ears, this may end up being a very very limited edition soap. When I finally get my soap supplies, I'm going to cast a single kitsune, see how it demolds, then try and break off its ears. Depending on how easily they snap, I'll decide whether or not it's something that can actually be sold or not. I have no doubt I'll be able to snap them off, but it is going to depend on how much effort it takes. If it takes a bit of effort, then they'll probably ship just fine :-)



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Apologies on the lack of art posted to this journal of late. Most of what I've been doing the past few months has been exclusively book related. I'd prefer that much of the book be a surprise. :-) Once I finish, I hope to resume normal sketch posts and the like. For now, everyone gets to deal with mah craft binge instead! :-)

I did draw a bunneh oekaki on the NDA oekaki boards. Click to view animation. :-)

Due to machine/tablet issues, I have drastically fewer opportunities to work on commissions than I had anticipated.  Because time is limited and I know some of these are intended to be gifts, please let me know if you need your commission(s) completed before Christmas so I can prioritize.  You can e-mail me at "chewja(at)gmail(dot)com".  Thanks!

I was recently commissioned to do a signature banner of a roleplaying character. If anyone else would be interested in one (or something of a similar format) just let me know at chewja(at)gmail(dot)com and I'll set up a status page.

To view image, right click and select "view image".


plain / dark

Thanks to everyone who participated in the flavor choosing for the lip balm. I won't be able to order any supplies until after the holidays, but I figured I'd get a head start on some label preparation. 4 of 9 labels for lip balm tubes. :-) Firebird Flare is obviously still a work in progress. These are going to be printed at a very tiny 1.7" x 2".



Other flavors will include:
Basilisk Blood
Fenrir's Folly
Gryphon's Glee
Pegasus Pinion
Serpent Spell (sea serpent)