I wanted to give this its own post, because I'm super happy with how it has turned out. This is the holy symbol of Kord, the Stormlord, which Yasha Nydoorin wears as a clasp on her cloak. The piece started out as a free 3D model on Thingiverse, but I modified that heavily to cut out some of the negative space, and open up settings for gem stones.
I had a lot of analysis paralysis over how I wanted to do the gems. I was originally using some cut pieces of clear acrylic, but they lacked the proper color and there was not way to really fake that. So I ended up modelling some gems in Sketchup and printed those out. But I felt it would be wasteful to run a silicone mold just for a one-shot casting. So I ended up trying this insta-mold stuff that I bought years ago for use with gaming miniature stuff. You put it in hot water for a few minutes of make it super soft and pliable, then press the object into it and let it stiffen as it cools. My fear with that was that if the resin was exothermic, meaning it gives off heat as it cures, it would soften the mold and lose the shape of the gems. But fortunately, that wasn't the case with this clear epoxy and they turned out great.
Then came a lot of sanding from 150 grit, to 500, to 1500, to 2000, followed by additional wet sanding for extra smoothness, I gave them a spray of gloss clear coat. Except my spray can was nearly empty and the spray was more of a mist. So it ended up frosting them instead of glossing them. Grrr.
After repeating the sanding process to remove the bad clear coat, I tried an experiment. I have a bottle of Pledge floor polish in my supplies, which - it turns out - is essentially glossy clear acrylic paint medium. I brushed a few coats of that on, and it worked awesomely!
And the gems fit into their respective fittings perfectly. This really gave me a good boost of morale for this whole cosplay.
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