Lava Texture Experiments and another Paint Party! (more images in the post)

Hi Guys :)

So I've had a few good/better days, and managed to get a hefty chunk of experimenting done! 

Before I get to the Lava I just wanted to mention I'll be running another Discord paint party now I think I'll feel up to it, this Saturday evening at 7pm (GMT, so afternoon for the Americas - Yeti also said he can drop on at 10pm to keep the party going for Aussies in the morning!). 

Last time was great with a bunch of people dropping in and out to get a bit of painting done while chatting with others - video is totally optional, you can join with voice or just listen if you want to!

Back to the project. I've pretty much decided on a finalised lava texture at this point, which actually looks really awesome over lighting, and I think will only look better with painting and possibly adding cracked floating skin (depending on how those experiments go):

*Image is the best I could show right now, its more bright and vivid IRL, like the original lava

It's essentially a variant of the version I used last time (pictured below)

except this time the stippled texture is all across the lava, the goal being to create something that looks closer to this:

or this

I didn't end up liking the raised middle section last time, it was a bit too tall and smooth edged for my liking, so I'm going to try experiments with crackle paste and black oxide pigment - but this really depends on if it'll stain the clay. I'm going to use it over gloss varnish, both for better cracking and hopefully to make the stray pigment easier to just wipe off the clay...then I can matte varnish it back down again...

Luckily, I have a piece to test that on. This is a texture I spent a day and a half working on, trying to get the method right and looking realistic.

The aim was to get a non directional (not curved) flow that looked something like this:

Unfortunately, it has several flaws. not only is it FAR more time consuming and difficult to achieve in a realistic looking way (not great for encouraging people to try it), it also requires a lot more working of the clay, which has a tendency to EAT dirt and dust, dimming the lighting effect. It also looks far worse over lighting than when not, the light shows up every flaw in the sculpting, and just makes the whole thing look kinda...amateur.

Finally, and most egregiously, its not modular enough. Put simply, if this texture was on the edge of a lake, it'd be the wrong way around, and the flow would still not work right for T junctions etc. It'd look like the lake had some kind of ripple/slinky skirt, which I think would probably just look weird.

I wanted to see if I could work around this for a sick flowing lava effect, but honestly now I much prefer the stippled look - it's faster, its more modular, it's got a sick effect all its own and with any luck we can add cracked skin on it, which probably wouldn't have worked as well on the rippled version anyway!

I hope this has been and interesting insight into what I've been working on for you guys :)

In a quick Covid update for those who are interested, I'm mending now, I managed to have two full days on tues/wed, the brain fog and fatigue didn't kick in until the evening, and even then wasn't as bad as before. Feeling a bit touch and go today, but that's probably normal end of week drag that's getting exacerbated by the Covid - We'll see how it goes but it looks promising!

See you all soon!