Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

I finished a few new molds today and quickly popped out the first items from them. I have to apologize because I dusted a bit too much graphite into the molds so there are some surface imperfections (like the mottling most obviously). Maybe I’m jumping the gun a bit because this problem will not be in anything else I pull out of the mold, but I’m stepping away from this for a few days and I wanted to post the work before melting down these test casts.

Let me start by showing you the Robocop jewelry, being done in a variety of forms, that I’m doing on commission. Unless I get a C&D from the good folks at Orion Pictures I’d like to do a limited run of ten and put them in my soon to be released webshop (which I guarantee you will be up before the end of this September. Here’s the ring version:

The actual commission was for Robocop pendants, not rings, so here is that same design but for a necklace or keychain. In part to make it lighter and more convenient, and in part as a learning exercise, I made it hollow with a screw-on plug (which you may have noticed has the Omni Consumer Products logo) so it also serves as a mini-stash for cash or recreational medication or whatever. I made it by getting some PVC 1/2″ irrigation pipe fittings and mounting them in the clay master.

Can I just say what a headache it is to try and carve “OCP POLICE 001″ in itsy bitsy 1.5mm high lettering? Yikes!

Finally, there is also a no-helmet version of Officer Murphy (i.e. Peter Weller). Before people compliment me on my portraiture sculpting skills, I should admit that I was provided with a model kit to use as a basis. It had lots of problems and shortcomings and I put in a solid ten to fifteen hours of work on this project. Because the model expects a body, I added a gristly stump.

Gosh, that makes me unable to resist the urge to post “Murphy It’s You” from the sadly fictional Robocop: The Musical.

In addition to those, in my series of “character rings” that you’ve been seeing, I also finished off the mold of the Astrobaby/Cosmobaby sort of guy. Same thing — this is the quickie test cast I made today. The final one has gemstones in the eye of course. This is currently in a size 7 I think, maybe smaller, but I made it small so that it can be fitted for any size from that on up to probably a 12 at the most, meaning it’ll fit most women and essentially all men.

Stay tuned for some more traditional jewelry that I’ll post later tonight.

On the big road trip that we just got back from, whenever I had a spare moment I was carving the masters for various jewelry and sculpture items. There is still loads of stuff in the queue, but I had a chance over the last couple days to make plenty of molds and have run a couple test casts, as well expanding my stock for the store. Clock’s ticking there — should just be a couple weeks now and I’ll have much of this for sale. Apologies for my dirty hands in the pictures… I’ve been working with graphite and other hard to clean stuff since I got back. Anyway… huge entry begins now.

Production Rings

I’ve got a bunch of production rings that are good to go now. By production I mean that I have molds and they don’t use any one-off components (like the meteorite rings do for example) so I can manufacture as many of them as I’d like. One of the new ones is this “ugly ogre” ring, for lack of a better title. I just made it for a goof really, passing the time doing some silly carving, but when it turned out nicely I decided to finish it off. This one has an 8mm lab grown ruby set in the eye socket.

I also made a SUPERHERO RING that I’m pretty thrilled with. It’s based on one of the old plastic Ken Doll rings that I made ages ago. I fabricated a mask for one of them and made a new mold.

Of course I’ve also been making more brainiac skull rings…

…and my “Little Acky” (baby General Ackbar… IT’S A TWAP!) rings as well.

“Littlest Monster Shop” Paper Weights

As you know I have been making sculptures based on Nefarious’s “Littlest Pet Shop” toys in which I edit them to turn them into monsters and characters from various science fiction or horror fantasies. You may remember the “Mad Monkey” steampunk-esque alchemist that I’ve posted before. Stock is expanding on him. As I build up a mold collection, each time I do a casting run my stock grows exponentially.

While on the trip, I had along a chipmunk and I asked Caitlin and Nefarious how I should change it (I’ve been doing one-offs in plastic that I have posted in previous entries… I’m not sure if I’m going to go back and take molds off them or not) and they told me that I should make it out of wood. So wood it is — half faux wood, with leaves for ears, and a patch of mushrooms growing on the top of the head for hair. With that Gaia-vibe, I’ve also put a globe on the back of the head.

Today I carved a zombie pig while I waited for Nefarious at the swimming pool.

Froggy-Man Loves His Dino-Tooth

I made a little keychain or amulet that is holding (lovingly I think) a genuine fossil of a spinosaurus (think raptor meets sailfish) tooth. Right now it’s on a keyring but there’s no reason it can’t go on a chain instead. This was another idle carving. I’d coiled a piece of clay around the tooth (heavily lubricated so it wouldn’t stick) and never really thought about what I would make out of it. I think originally I got mixed up and thought it was a different tooth, one from a sea monster, and was going to do tentacles, but when I came to my senses and lost that plan, I just spent a minute staring at it with an empty mind, saw a silly character within the clay, and did my best to free him.

One-Off Custom Rings

Finally, I’m working on a wide variety of custom rings… Custom as in there will only be one made, because the ring is designed to fit a specific special item (like a fossil or a pretty rock) that I only have one of. For example, I had a bag of assorted semi-precious stones, and inside was this red-brown stone with sort of an “eyeball” on one side. Nefarious fell in love with it and asked me to make her a ring to hold it, so carved a gnarly “witch socket” with gross warty eyelids, a ridged “stalk” for the circumference of the ring, and then a monster mouth hiding on the inside part. Surprisingly it actually looks quite classic and formal when worn!

I also had a really cool little fossil of a sea urchin, with lots of detail, that I wanted to do something with. I guess I didn’t feel terribly inspired, and I thought that the item was so nice on its own anyway, so I carved a simple vertebrae/backbone design and mounted the urchin inside this curved spine.

Finally — I know, I know, this has been a monster of a bandwidth-killing entry — I made a ring built around a fossil of a seashell. I get that these shell fossils, even one as detailed and perfect as this one, are very common, so I wanted to go above-and-beyond. I carved a pair of merpeople, a mermaid and a merman holding a trident, with a shark swimming between them. I had to sculpt this whole thing under a magnifying glass!!! It’s interesting — my hands shake quite a lot, but the shaking largely stops when I work under a magnifying glass the shaking all but stops. Maybe it’s some sort of feedback loop?

Now I just need to find the perfect host for the store, because I have a looooong list of reasons why Etsy is a big turn-off.

First I wanted to say that my online store will finally open in September and a good percentage of the things I’ve been posting recently, especially in the jewelry realm, will be up for sale after so many years of people asking. Thanks for everyone who’s been supportive and patient. I’m pretty self-motivated, but I might not have been as enthusiastic were it not for the kind words of both friends and strangers on the internet.

Now here is something that I’m quite excited about!

I am doing a series of one-off rings (as in each one is unique and different) built around meteorites. Real ones. As in these bits of metal and rock floated around in space and eventually fell to Earth as shooting stars. For space nerds like me the idea of walking around with something that dropped from beyond our atmosphere is profound. The small iron meteorite in this ring is from a witnessed fall in May 1516 (collected about fifty years ago — the fall was gigantic and quite a lot of pieces of the Nantan meteorite are around) in Nantan, China. As these things go it’s a pretty “common” meteorite, but it still feels amazing to me. I actually also have a small Martian meteorite that’s mindblowing. That is, long ago Mars suffered a massive impact, huge, and bits of Mars got blasted into space. Eventually some of those bits intersected Earth’s orbit and fell to the surface of our planet where they were found and identified. Wow. A piece of Mars. I’m saving it until my skills are better though.

For this first piece I mounted the meteorite, which is completely unaltered, in a cast lead-free and body-safe pewter ring that I have carved into the shape of an asteroid field with a Haunebu II Nazi-era UFO flying through the middle of it (the part of the ring that sits over the palm). Here are a few pictures of it on my little finger. I think it’s about a size 12 but I’m not sure exactly because I’ve done the sizing a little oval to make the meteorite sit nicely.

And a couple off my finger too.

I can’t wait to create more in this series. I’m doing some broaches and amulets and trinkets in addition to the rings, but the rings are the main focus. This is just the first and I’m really excited to build up the experience to create pieces that do the centerpieces justice.