Back To School

The back to school season is upon us, and with it an opportunity to get some great sculpting tools.  Just head over to the eraser section of the school supplies.  You'll more than likely find novelty erasers depicting all sorts of odd items featuring some amazing textures.  Last night I picked up a package of sushi themed erasers that are going to be re-purposed into texture stamps.

Here's a closeup of the sushi erasers showing their surface textures.

The erasers are molded as separate parts. The rice cakes have a nice grainy texture.

The "salmon roll" bit has a very subtle folded texture.  Click through to see the larger version where it's a bit clearer.

The "roe" stamp produces a pitted or hammered texture.

Combining stamps can produce some really neat effects. This was a rough ridge of clay stamped with the rice cake and then indented with the cap of a Sharpie highlighter. On the right I used the tail of the fish stampt to open it up a bit.  The result is very Giger-ish.

Keep in mind that this was just a quick and dirty effort to demonstrate some of the possibilities.  The bottom picture required the most effort, and it only took 30 seconds to bang out.  Taking an appropriate amount of care would produce a much more consistent finish than these admittedly rough examples.