And so, what to make it out of, what to make it out of. We created a proof of concept in dark beeswax from ye olde egg painting kit, and decided from there. Some epoxy putty stuff, that'll work (good ol' JB Weld). Never worked with it before, but there's gotta be a first time. I figured to try making a steel wire inner armature for strength, and kinda fill it with this stuff. And so, we mixed up a clump of it, and WOW, but that is gloopy. Like not liquid JB Weld gloopy, but it's certainly too soft to hold a D4 shape without slumping down. I tried working with that wire frame only for a few moments before abandoning the idea, and... attempt 1 was completely unsuccessful, but I learned something. So this stuff, once you mix it, it's soft, soft, soft, so-whup, warming u-CONCRETE! ABSOLUTE CONCRETE! So very difficult to craft with. But it's what I have, so... let's try again anyway! I'm prepared this time! So, we made a generally oversized D4 with it, waited, waited, warmOK NOW, and I cut the three slits into the peak with a box cutter and peeled them back. And even that only partially worked, two of the jaws kinda broke off and needed to be crazy glued on again until I could reinforce them with epoxying round 3. Also extending them, because with that initial cutting, it squished the top corner down a bit still. Before that though, we cut the base down to standard D4 size, so at least we've got that set, and can gauge the rest to that. And so, we mixed up yet another little disc cut off from the stick, and extended the jaws a lil bit, reinforced those cracks on the inside, and by that point my working clump was turning into a rock already. O-kay, it looks like I might be using this entire epoxy stick on this little d4 yet lol. Oh well, I got it specifically for this, if that's the case, so be it (I would end up having like 1/4 of it left by the end).
After this jaw extension, I carved grooves down the center of each of the insides of the jaws, and crazy glued a thin wire into there for some added strength, mixed up another disc, and covered the wires, as well as touching up the jaw tips and anywhere else, more or less finishing the epoxy stage of the process. I figured to make the teeth and smaller details, this stuff wouldn't work too well, it's not gloopy enough to dab tiny little dots on for the teeth, so I opted to use industrial wood glue mixed with epoxy powder sanded and filed from working with this. At first I started to just dab teeth on, but the thought... wait, let's just run a seam of this glue along the edges of all of the jaws, and carve the teeth into THAT when it's dry! Also, in keeping with toomanymimic's awesome design, I added some texture to the inside middles of each of the jaws, adding THOSE by dabbing bits of glue, and **continued after that dries overnight**
Built July xx, 2025
