Stamp No. 8: Arashi BLAST in Hawaii logo

Now this was a tough one! The Hawaii BLAST logo had flowers, and loads of intricate details that was difficult to draw on rubber, let alone carve. If you still remember, eraser no. 3 was modelled after the Hawaii BLAST logo, but without all that troublesome flowers. I couldn't get the necklace flower identical to the logo...

If you count, the necklace thing is made up of 7 flowers in their logo. But due to space constrains on the eraser... I only managed 5. (Even then I had a hard time drawing them!)

My drawing of the logo... Yeah yeah. The flowers are NOT of equal size. Or shape. 

Halfway through the carving process. I nearly died doing the flowers.

All carved out! Time for a test ink!

First test ink!

My friend, J, told me that the smile looks more like a smirk... so I tried 'editing' the smile. I think the end result isn't too much better but... Oh wells. Look at how thin it already is! There's nothing much else that I can do! Better luck next time? :P

Stamp No. 7: Practise carve - alphabets

I decided that I should do some sort of a practise carve - practising my carving skills and see how well I can do on more intricate designs. So... what better but to carve the alphabet? Measured and drew lines on the eraser to divide the space equally... because otherwise my letters will be slanted and all over the place :X

I realised that I had space below, so I decided to add in numbers as well, and in an even smaller font this time. Now that was pretty darn hard. The bits of eraser sticking out were so thin, so delicate, I was afraid they'll break! I figured out by my third stamp that undercutting was bad. Still, it was hard to work with so little space in between the letters. All in all, this stamp was a pretty good test of skill, and I feel that my techniques improved after this stamp.

Stamp No. 6: Circuits

So... After the lines and circle.. I looked around my desk and lo and behold! What do I see but my rainbow colored powerlogic mouse and mousepad beside me?

Pretty right? Love the colors!

Anyway, here's the design on my eraser stamp:

I think the effect turned out ok. The lines are not that even, and not straight enough. Some places it's a bit too thin and other places it's too thick. Oh wells! Next time I'll do it better! 

Stamp No. 5: Lines and circles design

I was casting around, looking for something to carve next. After the first few Arashi logos, I decided that I needed a change. Chanced upon a circle and lines design on a tube of cream and found it really nice. Hey! Just the inspiration I needed for my next stamp! Perfect!

Pretty eh?

My design on the eraser, partially carved.

The fairy delicate design meant that it took me (with all my n00b skills) fairly long to finish.

Still, I'm pleased with the final product! Notice the extra lines on the side are gone in the 3rd and 4th inking. After each inking, I look at which parts need improving and work on them. It's also easier when there's some ink on the eraser already, because otherwise it's too hard to see exactly how the surfaces are - everything is all white!

Stamp Nos. 3 &4: Arafes logo stamp

So, for my 3rd stamp, I got my sis to copy a logo for me (cos she draws way better). She copied the Hawai BLAST logo, but then modified it so there's no difficult to carve necklace/flowers bit.

Nice and proportionate eh? That's the difference between someone who can and can't draw ><

Also tried to carve the Arafes logo. Now that was hard! With the letters in the sunglasses. 

And the completed products! 

Stamp No. 2! Arashi Pin Badge logo

Guess what this logo is?

Any guesses?

Well... it's the Saturday Arashi Pin badge logo! 

The completed drawing on the eraser... I drew it free hand this time, while looking at the logo.

After the drawing is done, it's carving time...

And then test inking! 

The "X" on the brim of the pirate hat doesn't show up properly sadly. Too small to be seen clearly when stamped. I tried enlarging the "X", but there's not much room for maneuver on the small eraser... :(

Stamp No. 1: Eraser Stamps - The Digitalian

After hearing about eraser stamp crafting from Arashi ni Shiyagare, I got interested to make my own eraser stamps as well. I headed out to the bookstore to buy the largest erasers I could find the very next day, and got some craft knifes to carve out my designs.

I've done about a dozen or so designs now... and I'll be sharing them all (starting from the very first one!) on this blog.

Since it was an Arashi inspired art project, naturally, I started off with Arashi related designs.

For my very first attempt, I downloaded Arashi logos, flipped them over, resized them to fit my erasers (which are really small), and then printed and cut the pattern out. I sort of traced the outline over the eraser, but ending up drawing much of it free hand.

Here's the erasers I got from Popular bookstore. There's no big erasers around... this is like... one of the biggest, and it's cheap too.

Flag erasers! Nostalgic huh? We used to play with these a lot as a kid. Well in Singapore that is. We'd use this as some sort of token. Each player has one eraser, the eraser is placed on a table/flat surface. Each player then takes turn pushing the eraser with just one finger. The goal is to stack your eraser on top of the other player's. The person whose eraser is on top wins (sometimes we bet erasers). Guess this isn't played elsewhere huh? This is the closest I could find on Amazon. 

Just that these ones are worst in quality... esp the print quality... red is actually pink color -.-

But well, at 48 erasers in a box for just over 3 SGD, it's the cheapest erasers I could find. It's not at all that big too. 2.5 cm by 3 cm. As such, I've had a little problem with the small size. Then again, I probably can't draw well if it's too big too. Problem with craving stamps though, is that you can't make the designs too small/intricate because it won't show up on the stamped design. Coupled with the fact that these erasers are pretty soft... Yeah. It's not that easy....

Anyway. I felt kinda cheated after I opened the box of erasers.... Because...

There are so many repeats!!! I thought I'd get 48 different erasers... Well ok, at least not so many Singapore flags! 

I wasn't kidding when I said there was a lot.  (And see how pink the printing is? After staring at these for so long, I'm starting to think that the Singapore flag is PINK and white already....)

Fun fact about that particular box of erasers I got. There's no Malaysia flag in it. When it's made in Malaysia. (Yet there's a ton of Singapore flags.) Hmm....

Anyway, here's my very first carving!

My flipped logos print out.

I literally cut out the printed logo to use as a guide.

The *more of less* completed product.

Test inking! One inking, one stamp. Since it's rubber and doesn't absorb the ink, the eraser is pretty much dry after one stamp.

More stamping. I tried to fine tune some parts after the test inking - like carving away more of the sides. 

Also tried to stamp a colorful logo, by coloring parts of the eraser with markers, to no avail. The ink dried out too fast. 

And that's all for my very first post here! More eraser stamps to come!