The Sandman's Ruby - Complete! (Dreamstone Pt.4)

Nope, looks like last night's extended experiment resulted in nothing more than the resin hardening in the rough pattern (I'm really not sure what I was expecting, I think I might have been too tired to consider this result)

I achieved nothing more than taking the sharpness away from the edges, and still having the rough pattern. At least it was a tad more shiny now, I'll take that at least.

Well, I don't have pictures of the rest, but it was a simple matter of adding some 'fake highlights' in white around the edges to make them SEEM sharper (and old trick I learned from my miniature modelling days), and assembling the 'glass' and 'mount' around a long gold chain.

In the next iteration, here's what I'll change, having more time:

1) Start with a wooden block, and start a bit smaller.
2) Sand down the edges carefully, get as few imperfections as possible, and if I lose an edge, start again with a new block.
3) Make sure there is an indent or dam to allow more resin to set around the edges, making it stronger.
4) Either add colouring to the resin before pour, are add it to the inside after it has set, this should help the outer layer seem clean and shiny, while the colour is in there deep.
5) Scratch up the INSIDE of the final resin cast, giving the diffuse factor, while maintaining the sharp outer edges.
6) Make my own L.E.D. layout and patterns, while those ones were great, the predictable pattern sometimes put them in sync, and it didn't really look random. Nonetheless, to someone not staring at it, it seemed more than random enough.

That's it, here's a pic from the night, where I was about half way toward getting dressed.