Two Ayreton Stars

The lightbox, at the moment

The muse sang so I danced. I've cut two Ayreton Populace Badges to whip out in a hurry and give to the new TE Ayreton. They aren't actually done, but I think the lessons portion is done, and there are a few lessons learned! I'm writing this up early and will follow-up with a completed picture in a day or two.

I was originally going to do one "swirl" and one "straight" but cut them both swirled, and I have no regrets. As soon as I finished cutting the first I thought those straight lines would be SO BORING and amateurish (not that anything with 12 pieces is particularly fancy!) unless I found the perfect bevels.

I cut the pieces for the first one out (the one laid out, top right corner), and set them on the pattern. And then I freaked out. They weren't fitting. AT ALL. Not even close. For a change of pace, and a bit of experiment, I decided to do these by cutting out the pattern with shears and tracing them onto the glass. How could it be that wrong?! I had a mini-meltdown via PM to Roana. THIS IS NOT WHAT I NEEDED when I am trying to rebuild a basic amount of confidence in my ability to make glass art.

After a few minutes of panicked thinking, I had an idea. It's a round pattern, right? When I began cutting it with shears, the first thing I did was cut out the circle. Maaaybe I had just rotated it in relation to the reference (unsheared) pattern. After frantic comparison, I discover it's off 30°. "4" is actually "5', and so on. WHEEEW.

So, I had to recut a blue and a green piece, since rotating them offset them by one of each color. I knocked those pieces out. Then I realized I could have just rotated my reference pattern to match the cut up one. At least I was able to laugh...

With this second one, I plan to use etching acid either in the center of the star, and drybrush it out toward the tips, or at the tips and drybrush it toward the center. If I can make it match what's in my head, it will be beautiful.

[Edit later this week with completed pictures]

The first one, completed: