Starting the carving today.
Here I’ve set the trilobite (right side up this time) in Thermolock™ and drawn in the exoskeleton. I’ve also used a tiny carbide bur to do a “scribble” texture on the gears and the surface they sit on.
Those huge rivets for the eyes have been bothering me, so I trimmed them down a great deal, above.
Here I’ve engraved all the exoskeleton lines in. I’ve done this three times in order to achieve the depth I need. The first pass was with a Lindsay Universal graver
, the second with a 90 degree (also called a square graver) and the last pass with an onglette graver. I couldn’t just go straight to the onglette at this kind of depth – it’s very thin and isn’t the most manly of gravers and would have broken.
Above I’ve used a flat graver and cut angled facets to “round” the exoskeleton elements. You can still see some areas I haven’t rounded yet.
Above I’ve detailed some around the eyes and added a quick patina to visualize what needs to be done next. Tomorrow I’ll attack the ‘bite with a punch to smooth out all the rounded exoskeleton elements, and leaving a nice texture.
Thanks for looking!