Have you given up on the pebbles?

Hi, I’m just wondering if you gave up on making more pebble animals or are you still trying to come up with a way to paint them for production?

I want to make more, and I want to find a way to paint them. I think If I do more sculptures, they will need to be big enough hold their ground in a spray booth, so they don’t blow down the exhaust vent!
These CAN be painted, but they are not as easy to produce as I had hoped. (An understatement)

Well, the Tad Poads seem to fair okay. Maybe it’s just as simple as flattening out their bases a bit…. I doubt it could be that simple, but maybe…LOL!

Yeah that’s right! Tads have a flat bottom and low center of gravity, whereas the fennec( it is mostly that one that is causing the heartburn) will happily take off in a light breeze.

Since they’ve been doing insanely well on eBay lately, can some more special ones be painted for eBay or the special section while a solution can be figured out? There currently seems to be a huge demand for the little guys!!

Spitballing a crazy idea here: would it work to temporarily affix each Pebble to a dop stick, like a gemworker does? The stick provides a means for holding the stone while it’s being worked. With the Pebbles, a modified dop might be used, say a section of dowel with a small square or round of wood on top (to give larger surface area for the sticking putty) and sticky the underside of the Pebble onto that platform. Then the stick end slips down into a heavy holder, like a block of wood with a hole drilled in the center, and keeps the carving in place while it’s painted. When the painting is done and the piece is dry, unstick the putty or whatever was used to keep the Pebble on the stick, and attach the felt pad. It wouldn’t matter if there was a little stickum residue left, since the pad would cover it up.

Meanwhile I am giggling hysterically at the image of little Pebble foxes bolting for the exhaust vent: “Aaagh! That airbrush tickles! Run away!”

Yup, that is pretty close to what we are doing. A little suction cup on a handle that holds each one.It works, but it still leaves a mark on the bottom. The idea was to have a nice smooth ,perfect bottom without a pad. Can’t do that. I re-sculpted the fennec to have a more squarish flat bottom,so we can stick a pad on them, but we still have a BUNCH of fennec castings with the round bottom. I guess we’ll have some goof-up editions in the future.

I’m sure the flat bottoms would look great as well. I hope it works for all the pebbles – I’d love to have a set of foxes some day.

Spitballing a crazy idea here: would it work to temporarily affix each Pebble to a dop stick, like a gemworker does? The stick provides a means for holding the stone while it’s being worked. With the Pebbles, a modified dop might be used, say a section of dowel with a small square or round of wood on top (to give larger surface area for the sticking putty) and sticky the underside of the Pebble onto that platform. Then the stick end slips down into a heavy holder, like a block of wood with a hole drilled in the center, and keeps the carving in place while it’s painted. When the painting is done and the piece is dry, unstick the putty or whatever was used to keep the Pebble on the stick, and attach the felt pad. It wouldn’t matter if there was a little stickum residue left, since the pad would cover it up.

Meanwhile I am giggling hysterically at the image of little Pebble foxes bolting for the exhaust vent: “Aaagh! That airbrush tickles! Run away!”

Yup, that is pretty close to what we are doing. A little suction cup on a handle that holds each one, works, but it still leaves a mark on the bottom. The idea was to have a nice smooth ,perfect bottom without a pad. Can’t do that. I re-sculpted the fennec to have a more squarish flat bottom,so we can stick a pad on them, but we still have a BUNCH of fennec castings with the round bottom. I guess we’ll have some goof-up editions in the future.

I am still DYING for pebbles that look like Netsuke… ivory colored or dipped in tea… I’d love that. I don’t give a floof what the bottom looks like!

I am still DYING for pebbles that look like Netsuke… ivory colored or dipped in tea… I’d love that. I don’t give a floof what the bottom looks like!

YEAH!

Same here!!!!

tdm 😀