Goddess beads

[stacievan]

I absolutely love 'goddess beads' - the type that have the ample breasts, large backside and swollen belly.

I have seen the tutorial about making goddess beads, but I want to know how to make a more curvy, ample goddesses.

I want to make gifts for all the women in my family to show them that all women are beautiful, and all women are unique.

Am I missing something?

Does anybody else make goddess beads regularly?

Here is a pic of the style I am interested in - sorry I don't know who the artisit is. If you can tell me that would be great.



Stacie

[Peach Blossom Beads]

Those are made by Theresa Lalibert (sp??) Lavender Creek Glass. She's amazing.

As far as how? I don't make goddesses, sorry!

[Kevan]

Teresa's goddess ARE amazing. I make goddesses, just not the chubbies.

[kramdas]

Stacie-The Lavender Creek beads are amazing, and you should check out Kevan's goddess beads too. They are ample in all the right places (the kind you'd take with you to the plastic surgeons for a make over!)

I make them also, but mine are smaller than most. I'm on a Hot Head, so I can't keep huge amounts of glass warm all at once. I would think that along with the right torch, it would be a matter of adding glass and using gravity to your advantage to build up to the size you wanted, same as you'd build up the breasts and tush of a more slender goddess.....

but....I've been wrong before!

[Just Nancy]

Kevan, your goddess you posted recently inspired me to finally try one. About 5 years ago at a class Jim S demoed one and it was a stretch to remember any instructions. It is obvious I didn't know what I was doing. It wasn't so much curvy or ample as shall we say, lumpy? I don't think they are supposed to have love handles. But I stepped out of my box because of you.

[stacievan]

Chubbies - I like that! I have had some luck with making them, but I want larger beads. I think I need more tools for shaping as I am very limited (basic marver, tungsten pic - sad, I know). I will post my most recent once it comes out of the kiln.

[Kevan]

Oh you guys are nice.

I used to think they were dumb and why would anyone make them, but then I tried one and realized I can make the kind of goddesses I like, they don't have to fit anyone's preconceived idea of what a goddess is.

I started by using the tutorial by Sarah Shalken.

http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/sh...hlight=goddess

[Kevan]

Oh, my two most vital tools are my hand held marver and a butterknife. That's all I use. Other than a graphite poker for the bellybutton.

[earthandsky]

I went on a quest to make more "Willendorf" style goddesses, rather than the busty, hippy, but-small-waisted goddesses I had been making.

I had best results if I built up the initial form as a bicone instead of a tube. From there, extra glass can be added for the buttocks, belly, and breasts, and the glass moved around with your sculpting tool.

The only tools I use are maybe a marver to balance the bicone, a cheap paring knife to sculpt, and a poker for the navel.

Here one I've made with this technique:



Just play and have fun!

[beadstillmyheart]

You'll see some samples of mine here:

http://host.pappapak4.com/~beadstil/...php?category=5

I really try to stay away from applying big dallops of glass for the butt and boobs. I prefer to shape the glass with "heat and flow" to get it to do what I want it to do. For me and my personal style of glassworking, it seems to give me a more "natural" look. I have always had this aversion to "Rocket Boobs" so I really like my goddesses to sag a bit. I think it goes back to living with my grandmother and seeing things like THIS in her dresser

Those things aren't really for human use are they?

[Heather/Ericaceae]

The most important tool for making a goddess is a good knife-edge, like Kevan said. (I use a little metal art scalpel.) And gravity, of course!



You pretty much just make a vague bicone with good puckered ends, then add glass wrapped around for the head and hips. Melt it smoothish, then add bigger dollops on the belly and backside. Melt in and add more as needed. If the body is centred and nice, you can add breasts... Hold your mandrel horizontal, goddess face-up, and heat her chest area red-hot while you melt a gather. Add the gather to her chest area - if you had it hot enough there shouldn't be much of a seam. The add another beside it. Start them higher up than you want them to end up, and further apart - you'll do the final positioning with gravity but for now you want to make sure they don't stick together! They'll look like tenticles at first, but melt them fairly round but still excessively raised while holding the goddess horizintal. Once you've got them under control and you've melted in any attachment seam, bring your goddess back vertical and flash your whole bead in the flame for a second. Then warm just the tips of the breasts and let them flow downwards a little. If you overdo it and lose the underbosom crease, you can always add it again with your knife! And if you start to over-melt the breasts, you can do a cold-fuse (just barely touch a hot breast to a warm rod-point) and use the rod to pull the breast out again a bit.

Once the bosoms are there, I like to add Willendorf-style arms. I heat the shoulder-area red-hot, hot-connect a gather, and stretch it out a little. Then I zig it down and connect the "elbow" to her side and then pull the stretched gather up onto her breast and flame cut, leaving a little extra for a hand. I always need to use my knife to undercut the elbow, and a cold-fuse punty to give a bit more elbow-point. I melt and squish the hand down on the breast. The I repeat on the other side.

At this point I might add hair-dots, maybe a bit more chin, add a spine-channel, belly undercut, a bottom undercut and crease, bottom dimples, and finally crease the legs into two parts (this is the area that cracks the easiest for me, so I leave it close to the end). Then I add tiny nipples and a belly button. If I'm going to fume like I did with this one, I'd do it now.

That's how I do my on-mandrel goddess. I also have an off-mandrel style that looks the same except she has a big bun on the back of her head which is the hanging loop. Cheers - Heather

[glassactcc]

Kendra. That's a goddess bodice! I think maybe we all should be wearin' one, after all we ARE goddesses......aren't we? Well.......AREN'T WE....oh please tell me we are.

I am no help though in the technical department. I have made two and to tell you the truth, I don't like making them. Of course that's probably because the didn't turn out looking like Kevan's, or Teresa's.

[stacievan]

Your comments have all been great. I tried one that turned out okay but at the last minute before she went in the kiln, I had the dreaded thermal shock!! the bottom part of the butt fell off. So I remelted and rounded it out. I'm not happy, but I will keep trying.

[Kevan]

The hardest part of keeping it from cracking is the legs. Took me a long time before I didn't have it happen often and it does every once in a while depending on the glass. Stiffer glass tends to crack while I'm making it if I don't keep heating the legs up. You can get a crack in the seam between the legs and not see it. Then when you go to clean her one of her legs will fall off.

Sometimes they crack at the top, but usually at the bottom.

I use a butterknife to make the whole thing. I have a really thin cheap stainless butterknife that has a smooth edge. I found it at Goodwill for .59.

What I do to make the butt is first I flatten the front legs with my marver. Then I use my marver on the back legs by flattening them below where I want the butt and sliding it up towards the butt to make it plump out.

I use my butterknife to make the seam between the legs and the push the tip up into the butt just like I was trying to shove it up there. That kind of rounds out the bottom of the cheeks.

Then I divide the cheeks and run the knife under each one where they join the legs. If I want a bigger tush I add a dollop of glass to each cheek and melt it in using gravity to get it to "hang" right.

This was my first one. I made it about a year and a half ago.



This is one I made last week.