Other places to purchase windstone glass eyes?

Fun story time!

I started using Tohickon’s glass eyes several years ago because I wanted an alternative place to get glass eyes for the PYOs. I’m just not a fan of the Dreaming Tree eyes because they have a lower profile than glass-made eyes, likely because the back is completely flat rather than mostly flat like glass eyes.

ANYWAY – I noticed that Tohickon had an option to inquire about custom colored eyes, so I asked them if they could make metallic eyes in different colors (at the time they had only gold and silver available). They asked me for swatches of colors that I was looking for and told me they’d see what they could do. At the time, I asked for Emerald green, Teal, and Purple, because I thought those would look great as metallics and I’m a huge fan of Metallic Teal eyes.

In the end, they were able to make the two other blue metallic eyes that they have available now – one is slightly more blue, and the other a bit more teal – and also a metallic green color. I was so excited! They even added them to their permanent inventory, which was fantastic. However, when I inquired about the purple they told me for over a year that they were still working on it (I’d check back every few months) and eventually just stopped getting back to me about them altogether.

I hesitate to say this because I can’t say that I know it’s true, but I have a feeling that since I am a relatively low-volume buyer of theirs, that they kind of lost the time to work on a new eye color for me. I have purchased LOTS of eye colors from them in the past, but I just get a feeling that them putting their time and effort into developing a new color wasn’t really “worth” it to them. And I totally understand that, I do! I get how business works, and I have no hard feelings about it and I continue to purchase from them. They actually did end up filling a second request that I had – Zombie eyes! They came out beautiful, and I still have a few pairs of them because I bought a bunch of them when I requested them XD

Anyway – after all that, I just wanted to say that it MAY be worth your while to contact Tohickon about having them do some custom metallic eyes in other colors. For all I know it was just a bad year for me to be asking about the colors that I did, and if I bugged them about it again I may get results. In any case, it might be worth it to send them a message to see if it’s something they could experiment with again 🙂 If they CAN do it, it’s something that they can almost always repeat the process of, and their products are beautiful and great quality!

Sorry for the ramble! XD

Painting your own is fun! I had to do that for the glow foos, since I wanted glow in the dark eyes. Though be aware, they’re not 100% archival, since it’s possible for the paint to peel away from the glass in the long term. We’re talking years, though, and even then it’s not likely unless you’re in a humid environment or have something else go wrong, but the actual tohickon eyes are baked on enamel, which is more permanent than paint could be.

I’ve used the oven enamels on them before, aren’t there glow in the dark enamels out there?

Well “enamel” paints and the kind you bake aren’t going to be the same thing. I haven’t used enamels much so I am hardly an expert, but they are two different kinds of paint. You might have good luck with something like stained glass paint that’s meant to go on glass? I’ve seen that at Michaels before!

I’ve got to look for this and maybe try it too – I’ve never heard of Stained Glass paint.
I assumed those artists just used colored glasses.
Two friends of mine long long ago in the early ’80’s dabbled in stained glass as a hobby. Too expense for me to try though, with the cost of the glass and leading strips, and of course the other equipment to cut and weld. 🙂

well i have a bottle of bake on enamel. ill try to get a pic for you

edit:

these are made for glass and to be baked on to it, they are dishwasher safe when baked.

http://www.plaidonline.com/enamels/brand/detail.htm