My progression/critique my shizz thread!

Hey hey Melting Pot! My name is Thomas. I live in Oklahoma, and have been on the torch for about a year. Made hothead beads for quite a while, started some small boro, and recently I've been working on pipes. My roommate and I are the only boro lampworkers I know of in my town, so we decided to try to stock our LHS with local glass. Anyhow, I've been lurking on this forum for a while now, so I figured it was about time to show you guys something/introduce myself. Which, hopefully, this would be the right place to post such a thing. I tried to focus on fundamentals, melting everything in well and keeping the walls thick. Here are a couple spoons and chillums I made the other day that I thought came out pretty well. Ignore the massive amounts of fingerprints, please...

Orange/black/white themed spoon for a friend:
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Slyme/black dotted spoon. Tried for dot box but obviously I had no idea what I was doing. :D
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Plain clear chillum with Paparazzi roll stop. Focused only on thickness for this one, dropping didn't break it.
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And these three are of my favorite, another thick chillum but with a tentacle eyeball and some dots. I had little faith in my eyeball as it was my first one, but I actually dig the way it came out! :bouncy:
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Anyway Melting Pot, let me know what you think about these! All comments/critiques are more than welcome!!

-Thomas

Bubbler I made yesterday if anybody would like to see. My weld on the mouthpiece is fairly sketchy, especially at the top near the bowl, but the can turned out okay.

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Thanks for lookin!

Keep it up. Any scene or artists you know in OK? I dig the tentacle eyeball, really creative.

Hey thanks a lot! Glad to get some feedback. There's definitely a scene for functional glass pieces, but there isn't so much of one for the people who make it. Or for torches. Mostly there's furnace shops. There is one dude named Matt that I need to go talk to, his shop wasn't up and running yet when I bought my torch but it surely is by now.

looks good! i also dig that eyeball....if that's your first one you're doing well!

did you puff that weld out at all? that will help.

I think my buddy Matt G moved to Oklahoma if so he is an awsome artist and a good guy. He has a ton of knowledge to drop. Good luck. Stuff is looking great.

Very cool....Nice work!!!

Thanks everybody for the words of encouragement. It really means a lot, especially from people who are involved with glass themselves.
To istandalone: I did not but will definitely try that next time, thanks for the tip!
And to Aaron: I believe it is the same Matt G. I sent him a long-winded email about his glass experience a while ago, which inspired me to buy my torch. Definitely plan to hit him up about some lessons and stuff soon.

You have the right idea on the dot box...just tighten up your dot placement.

Yeah nobody likes a loose box.....

I mean dot box.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aLLsTyLEs541

Yeah nobody likes a loose box.....

I mean dot box.

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I think I made mine too tight last night :-(

SO! It has been a moment since I've put any of my 'progression' on this progression thread. But I have been progressing. I took my first lesson from an actual glass artist, Matt Gilstrap. I asked him to demo a reversal, which the process itself taught me so much more than just twisting up some reballs. We ended up making two-piece sherlocks. He is a friggin boss, I HAVE to get that good at blowing glass now! Made everything look so easy. Color tube he pulled was perfect, no bubbles, just clean tube. He twisted it up and balled it and it was just mindblowing.
Mine came out better than I expected, but was still terrible. We stacked some color tube and the reballs, made mouthpieces, put em together, and bam. Sherlock. The overall shape of mine was okay ish, but there were several things wrong with it, which helped me identify what I need to suck less at! :D It changed my glass game up completely. Best investment I've made in learning glass, for certain. Next step is to get good enough that I can hit him up about blowing some glass, not about teaching me to, haha.
Also, I have been messing around with fuming, which I didn't do at first because I didn't have a very direct ventilation system. Just lots and lots of air. I got a duct fan to directly ventilate my torch space though. My fume is not so good or consistent, but I really dig the effect, and it makes clear pipes interesting easily. Gotta play with my technique and get clean with it. Anyway, this is some prodo/practice type stuff. Spoons, dishes, dabbers/pokers. Check em out, they're a little ugly but surely getting better. Let me know what you think!

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fume implosions on the dabbers, not very good at these yet
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the three most interesting spoons.
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dishes and dabbers in their natural habitat
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nice work keep turning and learning..

Hell ya Matt is a "G" man. tell him Aaron E. what up. Your work is looking good keep rockin it.

Been a little while! I have had an unfortunate series of events happen, nothing terrible but plenty frustrating.
My phone broke, which was my camera. And also my communication device, naturally. Then, my internet went out. Then, my debit card number was somehow stolen and used fraudulently for a few thousand dollars, which were all blocked by my badass bank, thank goodness. Not like I had it anyway... :bummed: But also, my card was shut off. THEN, on the same day that happened, I was out blowing glass and some idiot my roommate had over accidentally kicked over my propane tank and broke my regulator. So no reg, and no card to buy a new one with. He tried to run to his car and jet really fast before I could see who did it, too, which obviously pissed me off wayyy more than just him kicking it over. Needless to say he will be paying me back.
But anyways. Our internet is fixed now, I got a new phone, and I'm going to hopefully go get a new card in the works today and maybe get money for a new reg til dumbass pays me back. I made a bit of new glass. Tried some honeycombs which turned out better than i expected, but my photography skills are lacking.

These are a little egg shaped thing I made, it has a silver fume honeycomb on the inside and is backed with obtainium which is hard to see in the pictures.
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These two are a silver fume honeycomb pendant I made for a friend. This was the best honeycomb I had made, with the sweetest colors and ghostly blues and everything, but I had flame struck it and after kiln striking it again, it reverted to just the orangey color with a tiny bit of blue. Probably a noob mistake. It also cracked in the backing, however, because of the air bubble. All my honeycomb marbs have a very small air bubble in the back where it trapped an air line against the blank tube it came from, and they don't crack on me, but the flatter pendant had a big wide one, which caved in a little upon cooling and did all kinds of bad things I'm sure. But it seems when I condense them to the point of having a flat back against the blank, I lose the depth of the honeycomb within the clear and it won't grow the blues right. So if anybody has some tips on how to more safely back a honeycomb pendant, I would love to hear them. Or if I just need to practice more and this is a noob question, that is also acceptable! :D
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here's a bubbler I made for my friend in exchange for driving me to get oxygen all the time, since I don't have a truck. It's from a while ago, the weld is not perfect but it's not awful, right around the time I learned to quarter weld things like that. Mostly I like the AP obtainium tentacle kickstand deal, and the squid eye. The pull on the mouthpiece sucks too actually, haha.
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And more honeycombs, this time on a slide. I stayed away from these until my welds didn't suck, and this one came out very solid. Big fat marble needed more heat or melting in for sure unfortunately.
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This turned out to be a very long post, hopefully some of you made it all the way to the end! Let me know if you like it. I've got a long way to go, but I learn something every time I go out to the garage. Loving it! Thanks for lookin!

new stuff:

tried some donuts:
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stash jar:
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some tube implosions which I just recently figured out:
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and this is a prototype sherlock with affixed stash jar, quickly became my prized personal creation:
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did a bad job with the fuming on the bowl though, having trouble getting the unencased fume to burn back off.

thanks for lookin!

I like to jar fixed on the sherly makes for easy :chilling:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by willy47

I like to jar fixed on the sherly makes for easy :chilling:

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So easy, I had to clean it for pictures after extensive testing, lols. Next time the bridges will be much shorter I think.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by samoth890

So easy, I had to clean it for pictures after extensive testing, lols. Next time the bridges will be much shorter I think.

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Still looks cool! Great work man. Especially the honey comb on that slide. Looks great!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Landyatchz420

Still looks cool! Great work man. Especially the honey comb on that slide. Looks great!

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Hey thanks, I appreciate the kind words! I love watching all the colors kinda magically show up when you flame strike em, can't wait to try some gold.

Back again with a few pictures, I think I have improved quite a bit since my last wave. I made some bigger bubbler things and some more scientific looking bubs, and practiced adding honeycomb cap things to the ends of my spoons, stacking sections I guess is the term! Anyway, here are some pictures of my jankness that is slowly but surely becoming less jank.

prodo shizz:
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A few spoons with honeycombs on the bowl ends:
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Natural perc vapor bubbler with a dome and a nail:
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showercap type bubbler thing, it's pretty functionally janky but the welds are pretty good, a little lumpy but no creases at all. Next time it needs a longer perc:
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Anyway, gotta go to work. Makin sandwiches for THE MAN. Let me know what you think!

Those last few spoons really pop! I dig em!
Keep them coming!! :)

Stuff I made yesterday/this morning:

14mm fumey slide with a silver honeycomb on it:
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please excuse my photography skills. the honeycomb is pretty cool looking in real life. :P

and this one is a triple disc I tried to make, I really like how it came out. Sits very stable, even with a hitman outie on it. the discs are all welded nice and smooth. Amateur scientific-looking shizz is fun every now and then.
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Anyway, if you like em or hate em let me know please! :)

nice. i like the slide and the triple disc doesnt look too shabby

Sick progression dude. That triple disc is Poppin.

Aww, frit!

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and a little dichro, lols:
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A friend wanted a quote "cock 'n balls" pipe, so I tried my best. Sculpting is fun. I tried to make it ugly and zombie looking with reduced amazon night frit for the skin color. Turned out okay for a first try at a dick..

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And this is a bubbler, I hadn't made one in a while. Gave my hand torch a shot for the weld too, which was helpful. This one came out pretty well. I should have bent the mouthpiece but it's far enough from the bowl it's okay.
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