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2024 art supplies highlights
As the year draws to a close, let's take a moment to chat about the tools we've been using in our various crafts.
- What have been your go-to art/craft supplies this year?
- What have you tried for the very first time?
- Have you returned to using something you haven't touched in a long while?
- Have you been pleasantly surprised by something?
- Has something disappointed you?
- Was there something you dreamed about making art with, but couldn't get for some reason?
Last year's thread: 2023 art supplies highlights
My go to supplies has been sculpey and my hot glue gun! Acrylic paint too. I'm making a few different things so I'm also rotating between different tools.
My hot glue gun. I didn't know you could sculpt with hot glue and I tried it out and it felt like I was 3D printing. I made a lava wave and it turned out better than I thought it would.
I also played with Resin for the first time. While it was fun, I can't really do more of it because I've got a very needy cat. She keeps asking for attention while I'm stirring and pouring resin.
I also built a big fantasy tree. And the challenge was that I had to use materials I already had or things I didn't have to pay for. So the foliage was made out of blended sponges and I went out hunting for some twigs to add to the branches.
My acrylic paints! I used to paint with acrylic for a fair bit but I stopped for a while. But making all these craft stuff has gotten me back to painting.
My hot glue gun can sculpt!
Not really. I don't think so at least. Making crafts was a lot of trial and error for me. Whatever failed versions I had didn't count as disappointments. Just more data for my next iteration.
Okay yeah no. I have one. I tried painting a galaxy and that went badly. I don't think I'm skilled enough for it yet.
Not that I can think of right now. I live in an area where things are pretty accessible.
I have always enjoyed the sculpting/model-making/minifig-painting videos of North of the Border, Steven Richter, Brice Savina, Boylei Hobby Time, Nat 1, Black Magic Craft, Nerdforge, Something Wicked, Miscast, and Conjured Craft.
So I recently starting tinkering with model-making myself, and bought a bunch of sculpting tools and some Sculpey. I haven't really made anything worth sharing yet, since so far I've only made things with my 10yo nephew. We made a bunch of Pokemon-like creatures that he drew in his art book, and a few other characters he created as well.
I bought all the model-making stuff right before we decided to move, so I unfortunately haven't actually had much time to play around with it on my own yet. But once we finally move and get settled into the new place I am looking forward to actually trying to make something for myself. My ultimate goal is to be able to make cool shit like all the above channels, but I know that's likely a long long way away. So right now I just want to learn, have some fun, and try to get into the habit of being creative and making things again. And if I can manage to do that and stick with it, only then will I consider finally buying myself a 3D printer... since right now I am worried if I buy one it'll just collect dust. :P
p.s. @rosco, have you had a chance to make something with your Sculpey yet?
Check out a youtuber called crafsman. There is no T in the name haha. He is brilliant and very calming. I don't even do crafts but I enjoy his videos.
I am always looking for new channels to sub to, so thanks for the recommendation! They make some cute/cool looking stuff. :P
Hey! I've been playing with Sculpey a lot too. I have the tools to sculpt from them.
I'm not very good. But it's serviceable. Right now I'm struggling with trying to make a really fat elephant. It uses too much sculpey if you make a big ball. So I'm thinking of putting foil in it to pad the body.
Do you have pictures of your Pokémon like creatures? I'd love to see it.
Yeah, every video I've watched has used foil and armature wires, rather than solid balls of Sculpey. So that's what I did with my nephew as well. One of them cracked during baking though, so I think we made the Sculpey just a bit too thin. Ah well, lesson learned for next time.
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures. I really should have taken some, but I am not a big photo person so I always forget. :P Next time I am at my sister's, or my nephew comes over to do some more, I will try to remember to take some pics so I can share them here.
Yea. I thought my Elephant was going to be small and wouldn't need the foil. But I underestimated how hard it was to sculpt small and it just kept getting bigger.
So I've sliced my elephant's body open and am placing foil inside.
I should have just used foil from the very beginning!
Yeah, for sculpting super fine details with Sculpey you supposedly need to buy the Firm kind. I've only bought the Premo variety so far, and even it can take a lot of elbow grease to get pliable enough to work with. So I dread to think how much more effort the Firm would require... Which is why I don't plan on trying the Firm kind until I have a pasta machine to condition the clay, since doing it by hand would likely be a massive PITA.
Hey! Awesome to hear you're on the journey too! I ended up making a few miniatures - 4 so far - all about 6-8 centimeters tall. I ended up running into this video on creating cozy cosmic horrors somewhere within a youtube rabbit hole and really liked the concept. I ended up drawing a few of my own: the librarian, the tea cozy, and the fire tender; before trying to make a few out of clay. They ended up coming out much better than expected! I'm still kind of figuring it out - how far to get before baking, how to stop the sculpey from sticking to the tools I bought (I ended up getting some cheapo ones with silicone tips from Michaels which have been... ok for sculpting), etc... It's been a really fun process!
I've been taking pottery classes as well with all the fixings - wheels, glazing, firing, etc - and I've decided I'm going to try and make some larger versions of the ones I've already done and try to glaze them up! I've even got a plan to make the fire tender into a ceramic night light for my nephew! (kind of like this, sorry for the Facebook video link, it's all I could find) It's all been a really fun, creative outlet. Once I'm a bit more adept and dexterous with the tools, I'm hoping to move onto making smaller minis like those from 40k.
In the meantime I'm going to continue to make fun little, cozy minis. I've decided most of what I'm making might fit amongst the faerie folk or house spirits of Celtic lore and am kind of running with that. I'm trying to imagine what fun little helpful, or annoying, house spirits I might have around the house to draw them up for a sculpey or clay version. Since I broke my toe on my trip to Japan back in September by wanging it into a coffee table, there might be a stubbing sprite in my future; or with the foraging season in full swing I might have a mushroom hag to help me collect the local boletes and candy caps!
Anyway, sorry for the ramble, it's been really fun getting into it and I really appreciate all the advice you gave! I hope you're able to break out the sculpey again soon and I'd love to see the creations you get into with a 3D printer!
Oh, nice. If you like that concept you would probably like Something Wicked, who does similar cosmic horrory stuff. They don't put out videos very often, but when they do they're pretty cool.
Also, nice to hear they're turning out better than you expected. Awesome idea on the pottery class too! Within walking distance of our new place is a pottery shop that has classes as well. So I should definitely give them a try as well.
LOL, that's basically what kicked this whole thing off for me too. I wanted to paint some 40k models, but they're so damn expensive that I thought about getting a 3D printer to print my own instead. But it's been so long since I last did anything creative (despite going to art school way back in the day) that I didn't want to buy it and then just have it collect dust. So I figured I would start small first, with just some poly clay models, and see if I could actually get in the creative habit again. And only if that works out will I then consider getting a 3D printer. :P
And the house spirit idea is awesome, BTW. I actually might steal that for our new place. ;)
Never need to apologize. I've enjoyed all our discussions on Tildes, and I find these one in particular really encouraging too (since they keep reminding me to stick with my goal). :)
We move in Jan 7. It'll prob take us a few weeks to get settled, unpack, and I still have a ton of new Ikea storage stuff to buy and put together. But after that, I am definitely going to model some stuff for myself (without my nephew directing everything ;).
I don’t really consider myself a creative person, but I did work on some projects this year. Last year I got casually into sewing. My parents had 3 old sewing machines in their attic. One was a plastic piece of shit, but was barely functional so we donated it. One was a cast iron beauty in decent condition, but it has a plastic case that was falling apart, and I would have had to remake the plastic to make it work. Last was a perfect condition Japanese dressmaker clone. It’s not a fully metal drivetrain, but it’s mostly metal and in extremely good condition. So I cleaned and lubed up the dressmaker last year and did my very first sewing project. It was a bag for my climbing rope with integrated tarp. But that was last year, so doesn’t fit this question.
So I had the scraps from that project sitting in a bag in my closet for a few months. I finally came up with a project to use them for. I always wanted a nice pouch to keep my QuickDraws in (two climbing carabiners attached with some fabric), but I never found a pattern or even a commercial product to buy. Earlier this year I had some free time, so I finally decided to make it myself without a pattern. Here are the photos. I cut and made the bias tape around the outside by hand from the main fabric. The top horizontal webbing has two layers and integrated steel cable (wrapped in duct tape to not poke through the fabric) for structure. You can see in the fourth picture that it didn’t work quite as well as I had hoped. A wooden dowel would have been better, but I wanted to make it with just the bits and pieces I had around the house. Overall I am very happy with the project!
I just picked up a cross stitch kit that I am excited to try.
My drawing tablet for some small projects; I used paper mache for a while; and then ink, pencils, watercolour and markers for sketching.
My answer will sound a bit facetious, but it actually touches on all of these questions: my mind.
To clarify, I spent some time in the past learning how to draw, but I never moved past the attempts (and subsequent frustration) of drawing exactly what I see, with no extra steps in between.
But recently I have gotten back into sketching, which in turn led me back to studying drawing. This time however, I seem to have understood the benefits of construction, and I have groked the importance of form.
I have also discovered how interesting it is (to me) to study the subject and, instead of trying to match what my eyes see with pencil on paper, to spend some time looking at it; and asking questions. How do the forms relate to each other, how do they connect, what function do they serve?
I don’t know how I made this connection during my long break away from drawing, but it is the reason why I consider my mind the newest instrument of mine. I did hear it in the past - that drawing is a mental activity, unrelated to the tools or arms - but I never understood it properly.
As always, the time I could have spent getting better at something (drawing in this case), which I didn’t use for this purpose.
Sure, and I keep dreaming about it - bronze casting. The reasons I think are clear: expensive, hard, and I lack the space/tools/experience to do it.