New Miniature Orrery N40

Here's just a quick note to introduce this orrery piece that I posted on Etsy this week. It has a lower profile, but features a steampunk-like geared look set into a black polymer clay section atop a modified found brass item. I made the wooden lower base a bit taller than usual for this one for a more of a woody feel. As I write this it is available at my Etsy store.

Favorite Miniature Orrery Pieces of 2016

While we're about a month into the new year it occurs to me that it might be nice to look back at some of the more interesting pieces I've sold in my Etsy store in 2016. I'm actually working in some new areas of miniature sculpture and will probably produce fewer of these orrery pieces in the next year. Art is one of those things by which you have to follow your heart to a considerable extent, so I'll see where it leads me.

Should I Try Selling My Digital Art as a Kindle Ebook?

I manage a WordPress blog site for professional couple who enjoys creating their own blog illustration art. They do psychotherapy, blog and write how-to books. The blog has featured dozens of these drawings over the past few years. I recently received this idea from them in an email:

Let’s talk about an idea we’ve had that might bring in some more money – hope hope!  We are wondering if we could do a little book called “Heart Art” and put it on Amazon where it might attract people looking for gifts for Valentine’s Day, Anniversaries, Birthdays, Love Gifts for special occasions, etc.

This was my reply:

Hi, folks.
That's a very cute idea. I like your creative thinking, but I'm going to trim it back a bit. One of the unfortunate downsides of the Internet age has been the considerable devaluation of photography and the graphic arts-- at least as a digital commodity in itself. Digital images of every sort are widely available at everyone's fingertips. Also, while the Kindle ebook medium can include graphics, it is designed such that it really works best with works that are primarily text oriented. Most of the reader devices are monotone and, also, graphics tend to create excessively large downloads.

But, while graphics may not have great direct value they do have considerable indirect value. We see one of the best uses in your blog, of course. The use of an eye-catching graphic illustration can make a big difference in the reading of a blog post.

Some very interesting new ways to use graphic artwork have emerged on the Internet in the last few years. If you've not heard the term, do a search of "infographic". An infographic is usually an entirely graphic creation consisting of both drawings and text with the purpose of making some difficult subject more easily understood. The entire graphic tends to be the full width of a blog column and is often very long vertically. The infographic typically makes it's debut as a blog post, but then is (hopefully) spread around the web as a social media "meme". It generally includes a website name and sometimes is accompanied by a link to the source website. These make for very valuable indirect promotional tools.

So the irony of digital art is that while there is little to be earned by it in it's direct form, there is an ever growing demand for it. New uses are constantly being conceived, so keep thinking. Anyway, this reply is going long, as usual, but I hope it gives you food for thought. We live in a rapidly changing time and even artists must adjust to these changes.

Wade

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Infographic: "Creative Commons - What does it mean?" is copyright (c) 2014 Martin Missfeldt / Bildersuche.org and made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Putty Compounds for Model Making and Miniatures

I employ a variety of materials in making my miniature sculptures. For me the most reliable adhesives and fillers seem to be the two part epoxy types. Today I did a little checking around of what many artists and model makers seem to prefer. I came up with list and thought it might be useful to readers of this blog.

Aves Apoxie Sculpt - This one's the most common putty recommended by modelers for smooth figure

model work and such. Some say it hardens very hard such as to be difficult to sand once fully cured, though. It's a bit pricier than some of the other options, though.

UPDATE: Aves is the best sculpting two part putty I've used for capturing fine detail, but it's not the strongest. Thin or narrow parts can be a bit too fragile.

Magic Sculpt - Lately I've been using one called "Magic Sculpt by Wesco", which I bought economically on eBay in a small quantity. It's worked very well for me. When mixed well in equal parts, it solidifies very solidly in an hour or two and is reasonably sandable. It's also very strong. I've based my brass rods in it in making my orreries and it holds quite well.

Bondo - Award winning modeler Lou Dalmaso seems to prefer Bondo much of the time in his weekly modeling videos. From scanning the forums, I think most guys buy the small 4.5 oz tube of premixed called "Bondo 907 Glazing and Spot Putty". It's intended for auto body work and may not be great for use on some plastics. Some guys say they prime before using it. Some quotes found: "The best way to apply the Bondo is with toothpicks." "The best way to shape the Bondo is to use small pieces of 220 sandpaper. I find that working with small pieces about 1"x1"."

UPDATE: I've used this one part Bondo product several times now. It is a nice hard putty, but can be quite runny out of the tube. It also has a pretty strong odor, so I only use it in the garage.

Hardware store epoxy putty (like Rectorseal EP-200) - Lou Dalmaseo doesn't use these for filler as much as an adhesive in building resin models. He finds regular 2-part epoxy too runny for some use, so he uses this in it's place. For instance, he used this type of putty in attaching starship nacelles because it seems to hold the part pretty firmly in place. He does try to scrape off excess, then sand it later and uses other fillers for final smoothing. In my own use of this type of putty, I found it super hard and strong, but set too fast and was very hard to sand or work once hardened. Perhaps hardness varies by brand.

UPDATE: I've had a lot of shelf life problems with this product. You really need to use it fairly soon after opening or at least one part seems to turn hard before you know it.

 Squadron Green Putty - Single part putty in a small tube that many modelers like a lot. One guy said

it can be thinned and smoothed with Testor's liquid model glue.

Milliput - This is another 2-part putty some modelers prefer.

Sikkens Kombi Putty - One modeler called this "the best spot putty on the planet". He sometimes uses Evercoat body filler for large areas, then then skims the top with Sikkens. He says he buys the smallest size and you have to get it from an automotive paint jobber that sells Sikkens products. I found a product sold online called Pronto Kombi Spot Putty that may be the same thing, but we'll have to try it out sometime.


Tamiya putty - One modeler says this "buries" Bondo, though he uses both.

UPDATE:

Pratley Steel Putty - I needed as strong a putty as I could find for use on a model car axle and this filled the bill well. It's a two part putty that comes in a fairly small package, but it's the strongest putty I've used.

How to Display Your Miniature Orrery

I recently received a nice inquiry from someone who had received one of my miniature orrery pieces as a Christmas gift. She was wondering what would be the best way to display her "small treasure". It struck me that I had never been asked that question and it would be worthwhile to discuss it here in my blog.

When I began making miniature orreries (back in 2011!) I posted them in the "OOAK dollhouse miniatures" section of eBay, where adult dollhouse collectors would find unique 1/12 scale miniatures for decoration of their dollhouses and roombox displays (I currently sell them through Etsy most of them time, BTW). I

believe most of my purchasers to date have been dollhouse enthusiasts, but I have heard from others who simply display them as interesting art pieces in their own right.

I'll admit when making them I usually envision it sitting on a tiny table or desk in a woody Victorian dollhouse library, perhaps amidst delicate lamps and tomes about steamships or Sherlock Holmes.

One reseller on Etsy placed one of my pieces inside jar-shaped rotating music box that perfectly fit the piece. I've actually considered selling some of them inside a glass "snowglobe" without the water, of course. You can purchase empty snowglobes (or "waterglobes") at this website, National Artcraft, if you wish. I've not tried this yet, but I think the one with a 3 inch interior diameter (#B) or the next one larger would be the right size for most of my pieces. It might require a bit of crafting to make one look good that way, though. I think the bases for those might be discarded, too.

Another option would be to place it in one of those glass display bells available at Hobby Lobby and Michael's. You can also buy them on Amazon. Those come in a couple of sizes. You usually need to buy the glass and the wooden base separately, but they look nice. One of those might be a bit short for your piece, though.

craft stores like

If you look around a store like Hobby Lobby, though, you can often find lovely glass boxes with soldered metal frames in various sizes. I think one of those would work very well with a piece like yours. Be sure to take a short ruler or measuring tape to the store after measuring your orrery piece.

In the next weeks I will try to post some pictures of interesting ways to display my pieces. If you have one I would love to see a picture of your way of displaying it-- or you could just use the comment section below to let me know how you show of our orrery piece.

Wade

Wade Watson Miniature Orrery N27

 

This is a new piece I just completed and posted yesterday. The base has some features I have not done with many of my pieces. The brass is a cut section of a larger found finial. It was necessary to keep the top of the wooden base flat, so I did a concave shape around the bottom to give it more visual balance. The trickiest part of this piece were the gears between the base area and the planet supports. Because of the narrow space there I could only use the smallest watch gears I could find. Securing the gears there was a longer story than I'll relate here, but I'll say it required a few tries and retries before I got it the way I wanted.

New Miniature Orrery Piece With a Low Profile

It's been awhile since I posted a new miniature orrery piece in my Etsy Store, but I think this one will be well received. I've done a couple of them similar to this and people seem to like the low profile base of this type. This one incorporates the last brass piece I have of this shape, so I probably won't be making any more like it.

I'm also finishing up three other new miniature orreries, but they will look fairly different from this one. With two of them I'm incorporating tiny gear assemblies that are quite challenging to finish. I hope to have them posted sometime next week. Do remember to check in at my store from time to time. I soon will also begin posting some altogether different (and, I think, very interesting) sculptural pieces that are not astronomical miniatures.