Post Covid Jab update!

Hi Guys!

Sorry for the no update on Friday, I got my second jab at 2pm and was basically floored for the rest of the day - barely managed a few messages on discord, there was no way I could crawl up the stairs and get these photos taken/edited 😂

Anyway, that aside here are some previews of my test tile - as you can see the polymer clay is working well as a material, and I've developed some texturing methods to make it look less cheap, flat and basic :) I'll be using grey clay in the final run, to make it less obvious if it did get damaged at some point, and to make painting easier!

I am tempted at some point to make a diorama piece with a cobblestone road made from real tiny pebbles....but that would be far too much to mass produce 😄

The tile also has a gutter, which is tilted at an angle to make it look 'just right'. There are also some methods to undulate the cobbles to make areas where puddles would form. More on that later 😉

You can also see my first painting experiments - which are obviously very WIP! Don't judge them they're a quick mock up 😄

On the left is a section with brighter, desaturated colours meant to imitate sun bleached stones (where they go pale in the light, basically), and on the left was normal saturation with wash. In the centre is no desaturation, no wash. I'm liking the middle best, the wash leaves it too dark, and the light just doesn't look right...

Which do you guys like best? And why?

I also tried blending the colours with a layer of drybrushing, which was terrible. The cobbles are too smooth for that technique to work...

Luckily, the dirt effects I added for the cracks worked perfectly to blend the colours together and fill the weirdly smooth cracks. I also intend to go back with another method to add some light texture to the cobbles, I feel they are a bit TOO smooth 😄

I also got started on the mass production, cutting dozens of chipboard tiles as a base layer for the foam. Next is the foam underlayer and magnets! And more experiments...because I can't help it 😄