More details on the prototype runes

It's a bit brighter today so some slightly clearer shots ahead!

First was playing with a couple of ideas. While I dislike the overall effect on this runestone the two ideas have potential;

1) Glitter in the carved runestone. This one has 2 shades of green glitter as I was inspired by the Empire wiki's entry on Tempest Jade. The glitter is glued with PVA and then sealed in with clear varnish. Other colours of glitter could be used to represent fragments of something else, perhaps gemstones or I did briefly consider a mix of paint and gold glitter as a showing of wealth kind of thing.

2) Rougher texture. This really didn't work so well with the black clay but I wanted to try to make a stone that hadn't been smoothed out entirely, keeping its natural roughness. Dents, scratches and texture to the clay itself was done by adding green tea to the polymer clay while working it.

Embedding one kind of clay in another was another experiment I did and while this stone is looking a little messy and the colours don't quite work together the idea has potential. I'd potentailly be tempted to use this method to put glow in the dark clay into the stones. I also experimented with a more round shape to the stone on this one.

Not much to say on this one besides I tried a more rounded shape again. I played with mixing some grey & glitter into my black clay to give the stone more depth.I tried embedding a different colour clay into this one as well but there wasn't enough contrast so I painted over it, though the paint isn't popping as much as I'd like either (I need more colours of paint)

I wanted to make at least one utterly basic stone. I've been going a little crazy with various designs and added materials I though it'd be nice to try to look at simple ideas too. This is two similar colours blended together and the rune carved straight into it.

Another play with my 'bloodsoaked' idea. Though this time from certain angles it looks more like jam! (or maybe that's just me and my oddities) I also played with making a different kind of stone, I kind of like the colours on this one even if the rune itself could be a little better, I was playing with effects over getting the rune carved in exactly right.

 Sculpting up rather than carving down! This was way more time consuming and carving is time consuming enough! That said I like that it's got a different look and feel to it.

More sculpting the rune. My hubby thinks the gold doesn't stand out enough from the stone but I kind of like it, if I was making a set of these I'd probably get a slightly shinier gold paint rather than this with is gold ink from an ink pad which sulked when I tried to varnish it. I'm kinda fond of the stone itself too if only because this was the first stone I made out of the batch of prototypes and I used some methods I wasn't sure would work and when they did it meant I could try applying them to other stones. Also the colours are warm and slightly autumny..

Oh and fun random factoid, some of the depth/texture in colour comes from adding cinnamon to the clay. I'd kind of hoped it's leave a faint scent but it didn't at all.. though it has made me ponder on potentially scenting some future clay creations, because I could mostly.

This one was a nightmare to photograph as it needs to be picked up and played with to show it's full potential. This is clay wrapped over a glass pebble, so when the light hits it right you get a flash of (in this particular case) red. I'm not sure on the clay colour, I both like and dislike it, I think maybe it's because it looks a bit more like a biscuit or similar baked yummy treat than something clay/stone/rock/similar. I did make another in this style that failed quite badly as the glass didn't show through well.

I'd had a feeling that would happen which is why on this one I carved a small window of sorts onto the back of the stone. This really adds something by letting the light through. Even my hubby who doesn't like the colour of the clay on this one picked it up with an 'Eh..' attitude, until the light caught it, the ensuing surprised sound and him looking more closely at it makes me think I'm on to at least a partial win on this one!

Speaking of glass pebbles I also made this! Originally the rune itself was modeled out of clay but it was just too fragile and in the post-bake cleanup of its shape it decided to pop off of the pebble. After gluing myself to myself in an attempt to fix it I realised it was all too delicate and fiddly to be used for a runestone which should be handled a fair bit. Instead I have the glass wrapped in clay around the edge which gives it a sturdier feel than just a simple glass pebble and the rune I painted on in acrylic before applying a coat of varnish to get it to stay. Sorry the photo isn't great, but taking pics of glass is a nightmare!

This was an experiment in a couple of things. I thought I'd try a different shape again for variety, going with a slightly more rectangular vibe. I also wanted to play with colour in the carving, more specifically subtle dying if the clay is a pale colour. The blue specks in the clay are a blue glitter so overall this rune feels very wintery.

Fauxpal! Or at least that was what I was roughly aiming for. I wanted to try to make something opal-ish for an interesting depth of colour. The process used to make this stone meant that if I carved into it it would no longer look like an opal (though in hindsight may have looked cool in other ways). I didn't want to scuplt the rune onto it either as I wanted to aim for something sleek, so in the end I just went with painting the rune on in acrylic and sealing it with varnish.

Last one! This one I've been calling 'Storm Jade', again because of Tempest Jade, lots of swirly green and a tiny bit of glitter. Nothing overly fancy really I just came to an end effect I like.