I clearly need to get out more. I mean, crochet? It's what my grannie did, and she ne'er did make anything like tha'. The octopus is too cute for words. The Pikachu (I checked to make sure I spelled that right. I am a Phillistine when it come to anime) was hard-done-by the light bulb. If you want to use a light bulb again, use a real one. Full instruction on how to take it apart. The most expensive thing you'll need is a diamond glass-cutter (like $5). They're dead easy to take apart and SuperGlue makes 'em even easier to put back together.
Okay, onto your current project. Let's start with the bottle and why it's being badly behaved. That bottom bit has wings, and as the wax cooled, it contracted, and pulled into the wings. I mentioned air bubbles: when you heat the existing wax, or pour in new hot wax, those bubbles collapse and make MOAR room in the wings. Hence very rude sinkhole. Now that I've seen the pics, I'm gonna advise you to start with a new bottle.
Reason: base material to that level needs to be all one substance. You're hoping to mount your figures sturdily on that base material. Two different substances, with two different consistencies is guaranteed to result in friction. It might be a small amount, hard to notice, but you'll end up with a gap between the malleable wax and the hard apoxie = not good.
Apoxie is a very good idea, given the shape of your bottle. It hardens at room temp without shrinking (ergo, no rude sinkholes!). Get some and roll it into little balls, and drop them one by one into the bottle. Use a chopstick to pummel them into submission. If you have trouble working around corners, get a cheap sundae spoon (long handle) and use pliers, a hammer, whatever, to bend the end of the handle in a way that'll help you out (yes, yes. You read me right: you must also become a smith. For it is written, crafting knoweth no boundaries, and likewise all crafters obey no laws... or something like that).
Once you've got those pesky corners filled in, the rest will be easy. BUT! don't fill your base all the way up to your preferred level. You need to plan where your figures are gonna be placed. Their feet are going to have pins which will be glued into the base. So you need to poke holes in that last layer of apoxie.
Fun idea? Apoxie comes in a wide range of colors, and there's a 12-color sample pack here. You could make the base up in layers of color if you'd like to.
Gonna leave it here for now. Zap any questions my way, any time.
Re: The Latest Things page totally rocks
Okay, onto your current project. Let's start with the bottle and why it's being badly behaved. That bottom bit has wings, and as the wax cooled, it contracted, and pulled into the wings. I mentioned air bubbles: when you heat the existing wax, or pour in new hot wax, those bubbles collapse and make MOAR room in the wings. Hence very rude sinkhole. Now that I've seen the pics, I'm gonna advise you to start with a new bottle.
Reason: base material to that level needs to be all one substance. You're hoping to mount your figures sturdily on that base material. Two different substances, with two different consistencies is guaranteed to result in friction. It might be a small amount, hard to notice, but you'll end up with a gap between the malleable wax and the hard apoxie = not good.
Apoxie is a very good idea, given the shape of your bottle. It hardens at room temp without shrinking (ergo, no rude sinkholes!). Get some and roll it into little balls, and drop them one by one into the bottle. Use a chopstick to pummel them into submission. If you have trouble working around corners, get a cheap sundae spoon (long handle) and use pliers, a hammer, whatever, to bend the end of the handle in a way that'll help you out (yes, yes. You read me right: you must also become a smith. For it is written, crafting knoweth no boundaries, and likewise all crafters obey no laws... or something like that).
Once you've got those pesky corners filled in, the rest will be easy. BUT! don't fill your base all the way up to your preferred level. You need to plan where your figures are gonna be placed. Their feet are going to have pins which will be glued into the base. So you need to poke holes in that last layer of apoxie.
Fun idea? Apoxie comes in a wide range of colors, and there's a 12-color sample pack here. You could make the base up in layers of color if you'd like to.
Gonna leave it here for now. Zap any questions my way, any time.
–N