Another olive....

[ctom]

Here's another olive whipped up using brown watermelon.



The brown watermelon is MF, 7 drops to 3 ounces of plastic. The gold glitter is .015. There is a good splash of green hi lite in this. I wanted the green without making the plastic any greener.

The belly is hand poured of course and is the pearl with fire opal glitter in it. The glitter in the belly really comes out, almost as micro-bubbles, in the strong natural light. There is no sun today but the light comes along quite bright. And on this one the smoke has been hand poured as well for a change.

The end result here is very natural looking.

[DF]

 Is that 7 drops to 30oz or 3oz?  If it is 3 do you have any tips on small batches? 

[ctom]

Thanks for catching that DF. It is 3 ounces.

Plenty of thoughts on small batches since that is what I generally do.

*Use a smaller bowl. 8 and 6 ounce custard cups made of Pyrex are what I use.
*Use lots of stabilizer to start with and at each re-heat. If you are going to let the plastic set up and cool to re-melt later, add more stabilizer before it cools and stir it in well.
Until you know the heating lengths and resultant temperatures that your microwave will cook the plastic at, use that thermometer and cook at 80% for shorter times.
*Small batches of colors can be deceptive in appearance. If you are shooting smaller baits, squirt a sample of your color on the back of a mold and let it set up enough to handle. Often the color as it appears in the cup will be very thin looking in a bait. As a rule you'll want what's in the cup darker than what you think you'll want in the bait. This is especially true in transparent colors and/or colors used in laminates.
* The biggest issue with small batches is heat control. Take time to learn all of the aspects that you use to make your smaller batches and make it almost a religion to follow those things that work well for you consistently.

[DF]

 Thank you for the tips. I may try the custard cups. Heat has been my biggest issue, no problems yet, but its a fine line between the right temp and lava.

 Real nice baits by the way. I keep waiting for them to breathe.

[Hammy19]

Ctom very nice looking color!! is it green highlight or olive? Thanks

[kms64]

Very nice ... look almost good enough to eat!

[ctom]

Its a regular green hi lite Hammy.

[jmatheny9]

Ctom, how you said the smoke was hand poured unlike usual, do you normally hand pour belly then use a lam plate?


                   -Jeremiah

[ctom]

On most baits that I do three colors in I will hand pour the belly color, then add the plate to shoot the smoke line, trim and shoot the top color. Once in a while I'll pour the belly cavity color a little short on volume then I just hand pour the smoke before injecting the top color. The difference is in how the bait looks. The plate makes a straight line between the smoke and top color. Hand pouring the smoke actually results in that color being slightly humped so that when the top color gets injected that slight rise in the smoke creates the illusion that the top color is darker where it and the smoke merge. It erases that blatant line and makes the colors seem to blend into each other more naturally. This is the ultimate play on color in my opinion. While there are three distinctly different colors in the bodies where they meet their neighboring color becomes oblique.

In some baits and in some instances I don't mind the stark lines that plates create but in the end I really prefer to have the colors wash together naturally when I am looking for a natural looking bait. That Pro Blue I did in the 1.75" fry is an example of where the plate helps define the smoke and blue  since both are fairly transparent. The distinct line of color separation helps to stop light moving thru each color and really makes that particular color combination just jump. I haven't put a picture up of one identical in every way except when I poured the belly color I hand-poured the smoke line color too. Nothing changed in any of the colors but the pro-blue top color appears lighter at the top and denser at the sides because the smoke is still reflecting its dark light outward [thru the pro blue which is thinner at that point] and makes the blue appear darker. Its all in how light gets bent and reflected that we see what's in front of us. In essense you loose the definition of the lateral line but you gain a natural darkening in the center of the bait that resembles live fish coloration.   

[Hammy19]

Thank You