Mystic-Tree-Grande

My brother had a Heritage grande go full on wax separation crazy. He boxed it and put it in his basement for a year. For his birthday my wife unearthed it and sculpted this crazy mystic tree and I brought his wax back to life. Full sculpted base in the form of a huge tree. Various mushrooms dot the bark as well as a few little flowers, vines and moss.

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Comment by BeanDrop on October 14, 2015 at 12:26pm: It would also be cool to do a heritage and fill in the holes with faux gems!!

Comment by BeanDrop on October 14, 2015 at 12:23pm: Oh my goodness!!! Thanks you all for the kind words!! I'm so happy you like it!! Your comments made my week. I would love to quit day job and sculpt full-time!! Ha! Nick's (Vox's) brother will need to test out for a while to make sure no cracking happends. Not sure with the foil and heat, it it will hold up. Fingers crossed. HAHA YES Nick, I will totally do a galazy for you!! Good excuse to load up on glitter and get out of cat box duties, ha!! We will need to try without foil and check base heat to see if it cracks. If any one uses this clay for mods, use acrylic paint or any water based paint, not enamels, nail polish or spray paint. I might need to redo the krampus Nick.. :( Also, w grande do not up set upright in oven it will need to lay flat to avoid extream temps while baking. <3 Thanks agin!!!!!

Comment by Aladdin 2 Lava on October 14, 2015 at 11:28am: I can't think of anything to say Nick that's not been said already... Organic !

I love it.

Comment by Erin on October 14, 2015 at 10:23am: Wow. That's impressive as well. You tell your wife she's one talented lady!

Comment by VOXul on October 14, 2015 at 10:04am: It started out as a standard silver grande base. A smooth coating of polymer clay went over the entire thing...about 2x as she was unhappy with the adhesion. After that she formed the craggy roots and bark roughly with foil and embedded it around the clay coating. She then formed the twists and turns, crags and roots with more coats of polymer clay until all foil was covered. Then going in with hands and various scrape/poke tools she started to etch the clay with all the detail. I believe it took almost 4lbs of clay!

Once satisfied with all clay surfaces it is baked. After it bakes it is porous and ready for paint. She used enamel glass paints, multiple rounds to add the high and low tones. Once paint dried she sculpted little mushrooms, added live moss, plastic vines and flowers.

Things learned in this build: avoid foil as a wireframe... The lamp runs great but its startup time has increased. The base always feels warm, not hot, like a typical grande. Using our heads, after the full bake process of course, we said that foil is stealing most of the heat and of course foil does not retain it well at all. This does have a positive though as extreme temperatures can crack the clay, we believe this foil will help keep the base temp down to a very safe level to avoid damage. My brother is harnessing his pillow case prowess on lamp startups now.

Comment by Erin on October 14, 2015 at 9:40am: What is that tree made out of? I can't get over the level of detail.

Comment by VOXul on October 14, 2015 at 9:30am: Many thank yous!

Your comments make it all worth it! Thank you for the feature as well. I am thinking of commissioning her for a strange galaxy treatment for this glitter grande project I have going, take on cat box duties and other tasks to help cover it