Experiments and Struggles

In my last blog post, I wrote about how I started to experiment with ways to try and make the glossy resin notebook covers I make look more like stone... I started by trying to add rocks into the resin itself, and although it looked cool, it didn't give it a rougher texture, but a little bit of dry brush painting was starting to achieve the look I wanted, so I knew I needed to break out the paints and start practicing with them again!

I was also doing a lot of research on other people's dragon notebooks to see what was popular, what would achieve an eye catching look, etc. and the stoney looking dragons were my favorites, so I was getting a little frustrated that I wasn't able to find ways to make mine look more realistic and have a matte finish AND a rough/rocky texture. The comparisons definitely started to get to me, and my confidence decided to disappear on me. I felt like everything I was trying to make turned out horrible. That, mixed with the struggles that come with the first few months-a year of starting a new business... I wasn't feeling great. I took a look at the very first dragon eye notebook I made, and I remember right after I made it I thought it looked so cool. but now after making so many more, the first one just looked horrible to me (everyone is their own worst critic, I know). I was never going to put that one up on my Etsy shop, I didn't like how it looked at all, so I decided I might as well paint over it. If the paint didn't work out, oh well, at least I wasn't wasting resin on a whole new notebook cover.

I know there really isn't anything wrong with it, and as my first one it was all just a kind of random experiment. But there was no depth to it, no intentions behind the colors, and the eye just looked weird to me.

I was completely happy to cover all that up.

I started out by just doing a dry brush layer of black acrylic paint, covering everything except the eye itself. After that I was planning to maybe try some shades of green in there, and I think I added some to the spikes above the eye but wasn't happy with how that was looking so I moved on to some greys. Once I stopped trying so hard, it kind of started coming together! I used maybe three different shades of grey in the scales in order to make them look like stone, and there were a few areas I added in a tiny bit of green and gold. Then I had to go back into the crevices and darken those spots up some more. Every time I looked at it under a different light, it looked completely different to me though.... I think these dragon eyes are starting to play tricks on me! So it was hours of back and forth with the painting until I was happyish with the scales, then it was time for the eye. I made a quick little sped up video of the process...

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/6452d1_4cd13877cdc44559a742142333fc2647/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Almost the entire time I was actually painting it, I still thought it was looking horrible. But as I continued with the process I started to feel a little better about it. It wasn't until I compared it with one of the other glossy dragon eye covers I had made that I really saw the enormous difference! I had to remind myself that convincing myself that I'm not good enough will not help me progress or succeed. Progress, not perfection.

This one has actually become my new favorite, and I think its cool that I was able to take the very first one I ever made and didn't like into something so much more realistic, so much so that it turned into one I no longer wanted to get rid of!

SO after some setbacks and a bout of low self esteem I was ready try another new dragon notebook experiment continuing the pursuit of a rocky look AND texture, beyond what a matte paint can do. Usually with resin, you want to avoid sanding it if you can because you can never get it looking shiny like it was before, but I wanted to get rid of the shine, so I tried sanding it before painting it for this next one!

As far as looks go, its hard to tell if there's much of a difference between the red one and the blue one, but the red one (the one I did sanding on) does feel slightly rougher than the blue one (which was my first experiment getting these to look like stone)

Another step closer to whatever it is I'm trying to achieve.... My sister and I had another plan brewing though.... trying to mix mortar and resin.... can't wait to write a post about that one!