For my amulet I made sure to complete my planning, so I have an idea on what I want my design to look like. I carefully sketched many sketches in my visual diary and searched the internet for ideas. When I had a rough idea of how I wanted my amulet to look, I sculpted it out of soap, made moulds, and applied resin, which allowed me to play around with colours and make adjustments. I made sure to be organised and use my time well while constructing my amulet, ensuring that I stayed on task and completed my design.
When creating my amulet, it was difficult to settle on a design as I wasn’t so sure what I wanted to create, so I found inspiration online and sketched some ways on how to draw Saturn, which was my major influence. To make it my own I added detail onto my Saturn and carved a wavy design onto it. I made many sketches to figure out which angle I wanted my Saturn ring to sit.
There were many errors when producing my amulet. To start off I began by carving my design in soap, and once I was satisfied with my carving, I constructed a wall around the soap, which was then hot glued to a wooden base and clay was built along the edges to prevent silicon from leaking. But a difficulty I encountered was that the clay slid off as I was making a mould for it since the water caused it to slip off, so I had to put additional clay on to correct this I poured my silicon in, waited for it to cure, and then removed it. Then I poured my first resin casting but the issue with my casting was that after I poured it and let it dry, the ring snapped when I tried to remove it because I didn’t cut through the inside to allow it to come out. I made sure to cut the sides of the amulet so it could pop out on my second pour. But there was an air bubble in the second pour, and the side of one of the rings was gone, so when I went for my third and final pour, I made sure to tap the sides lightly of the silicon to ensure that there were no air bubbles. I kept the two failed amulets as a test piece to work out what colours and material I wanted to use. I intended to use a grey paint throughout with silver paint in the dents for my painting design, but I ended up using a light blue throughout with a white ring topped with holographic glitter specks on the top and gold paint in the dents.
My final design was successful, as it was similar my sketch. I believe the colours I used worked well together as they didn’t cancel each other out. Overall, I think I did a good job designing and making my amulet. So that my final sculpture worked out nicely, I followed all of the required processes when preparing my moulds and casting the resin.
