How I Art Doll - Eyes

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2. Eyes

Glass Cabochons on the left, and painted clay on the right.

    I use glass cabochons whenever I can, but on occasion I have used beads and pre-baked balls of clay.

Cabochons are not to be confused with the “glass gems” used for flower arrangements and the bottom of fish tanks. You may have seen these in craft stores, they are usually not uniform in shape and often have wrinkles in the glass. I also have never seen legit clear glass gems, they always have a slight rainbowy/green sheen coating. Please refer to section 1. Materials for information and examples of sizes 10mm-16mm dome vs half ball.

    I’ve tried three ways to make cabochons, printing, painting on paper, and painting on the backs of the glass.

Printing

    I have found that shrinking a found image of an eye creates a muddied, pixelated look.It becomes even more apparent under the magnifying effect of the cabochon. So if you want some really nice, clear eyes, I suggest you make your own image from scratch. GIMP is a free to use program that supports layers, many tools and effects, I use it myself and love it!

Some of my printed eyes.

    After printing the eyes, add anything else you want on top, like glitter or speckles of metallic paint for extra charm. You may want to add black paint to the pupil if it’s not dark enough. Once the paint is dry, I place the cabochon on top to check how it looks, if it’s good I attach it with Judikins Diamond Glaze(White glue works fine, it just tends to cause bubbles and doesn’t form as strong of a bond). After the glue is good and dry, I’ll cut it out and coat the back and side of the glass with paint sealer. If you don't have a sealer I would use white glue instead. This is just an extra measure to prevent the oils in the clay from seeping into the paper and paint, and if you use a weak glue it helps protect the paper from separating from the glass.

    If you use white glue(PVA/school glue), you may want to make a couple of extra eyes just in case, be sure to give the glass a good press to push air bubbles out.

    Painting on Paper

    Exactly the same as printing the eyes except you paint the eye from scratch on paper. With this method you can get colors a standard printer can’t make.

    Painting on the Back of the Glass

    If you want to be hardcore and make your eyes the difficult way, you can paint directly on the back of the cabochon. This isn't too hard on larger ones, but on 10mm... well, it's a tedious process. My first glass eyes were made this way and I still absolutely love the way they look. I was never able to get such nice results the many times I tried again, sadly.

    You have to paint the layers backwards, starting with the pupil. If you want glitter, you paint or glue that on next. I got my best results by starting with the darkest color of the eye, scraping up bits with a needle, then painting over it with a lighter color. Keep scraping up and adding colors until you're happy with it, just be careful not to scrape away the pupil. Again, I covered the back with paint sealer when I was finished.

        My first pair of glass eyes I made for my kitsune.

    I have had some eyes form air bubbles while baking(see the image below with the one magenta eye). While it came out looking really cool that time, it can be unpredictable. I suspect this is due to the scraping up of the paint, then slapping more paint on top, creating little pockets of air which expand and move in the heat of the oven. It is also a really good idea to let eyes made this way dry FULLY before messing with them. I learned this the hard way when sculpting my wooly dragon’s face, his glass eyes slid right off the paint, ah crap! That’s why I also apply the paint sealer not only on the back, but on the side of the cabochon, to create a full cap around the painted area. If you are making a pendant and glue the cabochon to a back piece, make sure the adhesive is touching the glass and not just the paint, or a bump may pull the glass right off the paint.

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