#uv resin is a paint to use ngl

[kkaeero]

Added UV resin! now Calcifier is complete, its a gift for my best friend :)

I did some mistakes here and there but im pretty proud of how it turned out

[tiffyfoundsomething]

So I like to make doll eyes. But I don’t like to make the blanks. The only resin I have on hand is UV, and you can’t fill a mold with white-tinted UV resin and expect it to set all the way through. A thin, thin crust will set, leaving the insides liquid. It’s like a fruit gushers candy.

So to make ONE pair of eye blanks takes me about an hour because I have to put a thin layer of white resin, spread it carefully, remove any bubbles, and fully cure it. Wash, rinse, repeat. UV resin shrinks, so often the parts I’d already cured would come loose from the mold and more resin would get down in there and blah blah blah that set of blanks is ruined.

I do have these molds:

which are pretty great, ngl. But they’re also all for more normally-proportioned round irises (except one pair of the 14mm have teeny tiny irises), which doesn’t work so well with the more cartoony styled designs.

I bought these cheap “PandaHall” eyes not expecting anything amazing and thought I might try using them to make printed eyes.

Popping out the lenses was easy with a glue stick. Unfortunately....

All of the ones outside of the bin? Cracked or have dark spots embedded in the plastic. Those went in the trash.

I have some standards.

The ones that aren’t damaged out of the box work well enough as eye bases, except for a few small issues:

there is a sprue connect point that has to be shaved off, though that’s not a huge problem, it just leaves an ugly spot on the back of the eye

they’re not opaque

lenses pop right out

So I’m going to have to change up how I make them a little bit. I’d rather not put any sort of glue behind the paper print outs for the irises because a wettish glue will wrinkle the paper and a dryer glue won’t adhere to the plastic. I also worry about the glue reacting with the resin that’s used to dome them.

So here are a variety of eyes that I’ve made with different tools and materials:

The top are Pupa Paradise D. Eye. Y. kits with colored UV resin pupils and iris, and UV resin domes. These domed VERY well, and don’t seem to want to pop out. The whites are decent, if not fully opaque.

Next down are UV resin blanks made with those molds I liked above, done thin layer by thin layer for way longer than I’d like, paint irises, UV resin pupils, and UV resin domes. Again, domed very well, and has a nice opacity.

Third are these new, cheap blanks. You can see the darkness of the desk through them pretty badly, which makes the white areas around the printed pupil stand out too much. I have a difficult time doming these, though I suspect that has as much to do with my resin being a bit thin as anything else. (This set was also cracked, so I’ve thrown it out.)

And the lowest set are also with these blanks, but covered all over with UV resin (because the whites were cracked) and with the backs painted with white paint. The white paint helps.

This is the resin I’ve been using, and I’ve liked it pretty well so far:

Not too difficult to use, though probably a little thinner than someone who knows what they’re doing would try to use for doming doll eyes.

I’ve made lots of stuff with this resin, including some of my very first resin projects. They were terrible, but it wasn’t because of the resin. And I’ve had exactly two items made with this turn yellow. I can’t say what caused it. One is in a spot with a good deal of UV light, and the other isn’t.