Anodized Titanium - Tumblr Posts
Finally decided to list anodized titanium as available. It’s probably the metal I find most beautiful out of everything I’ve worked with. The color comes from an oxide layer on the surface, where the layer’s thickness determines the wavelength of light that can get through it. Similar to how the colors of a soap bubble or oil film come about.
Currently this green is the only color I have stock of. (My last material order, I got green and a bag of mixed scales.) Next time I’m ordering more materials I’ll definitely get another couple of colors.
You can get one over on my Etsy page!
Some materials I’ve been toying with. I was vending at a small convention over the weekend, and I made a few new things for it.
The first is titanium scales. I’ve been making flame-colored bracelets for a while, which are the three on the left. (The darker one I tried heating from the back, to see if I could get or liked a more even coloration. It was pretty consistent, but it wasn’t a very interesting color. Oh well.) Recently I got anodized titanium scales, which are absolutely beautiful. These ones were made with a random assortment of colors, which I rather enjoyed. I need to get some more photos of them, then they’ll go up on my Etsy page. So far I’ve just got green anodized listed.
Below is two bronze necklaces. The pattern is a very tight spiral weave configuration referred to as Jens Pind Linkage. Bronze is fun to me because it oxidizes so nicely. The shiny one is brand new, freshly woven, and the dark one is after 2 weeks of continual wear. I think it’s mostly reached a steady color now? It darkened most of the way within a few days.
And the last dragon tail to upload today! It’s made primarily of blackened stainless steel. This one was a short one, only 24 inches long (though coming in at 3 lbs 2 oz, because steel is heavier than aluminum).
I think I need to edit the tip, though. The commissioner’s character had a specific pattern of blue on the tip. I didn’t want to use anodized aluminum there because it tends to get scratched by the steel. Also the commissioner wanted a light blue/teal, where the normal anodized aluminum blue is a deeper royal blue. So I suggested anodized titanium, which I had just enough of left over from a previous project. But the titanium turned out to have rather less contrast with the steel than I’d expected.
I had an idea for how to pad between the steel and the aluminum, so I think I’m going to build an alternate tip, see how it looks, check with the commissioner, and maybe swap it out.
On the upside, this may have been my fasted tail constructed ever. I started it after an early dinner yesterday, and I’d gotten it finished by about 1AM. The short size helped, of course, but man. This was the 5th tail I’d made in a month. I wonder if my speed has improved since the last time I carefully timed myself.
Did I never post this? It looks like I never posted this.
These are the Tiny sized scales from The Ring Lord. I got a pack or two to experiment with. And man they’re pretty, but man they’re not for me. They take forever. Where the typical bracelets I make take about 2 dozen scales, the same length of tiny scales takes about a hundred scales. And the tiny rings were super tedious to work with.
Basically, for the amount of time it takes to make something with these tiny scales, I don’t think I can sell them at a price that I think someone would pay. Though if I ever end up starting to work with precious metals, I’d use these.
These ones are “frost” colored anodized aluminum. The size comparison is green anodized titanium.
Anodized titanium dragon tail! Wooooo! I love the almost iridescent quality these scales have.
It’s been quite a while since the last time I got to work with these scales. For this commission I custom ordered a batch of them from the manufacturer. This tail uses purple, violet and dark blue anodized titanium scales, plus “Bright” anodized aluminum scales on the underbelly (in red and bronze color). It also uses gold-colored cat claw-shaped spikes. (I had to track down a random amazon supplier for those, since the place I normally get spikes from only does chrome. But nowhere but them seems to have large sizes, so these are all just the small 1-inch ones.)
I ordered enough extra titanium scales that I’ll probably make another tail with it. Probably leaning towards green tones since I got green too. Probably just go for stainless steel on the underbelly though. While these bright aluminum scales are super reflective and pretty, I don’t think they’re pretty enough to justify ten times the price as normal aluminum. Especially on the underside where you don’t seen them all that much. But, the commissioner was wanting to match their character, and they were happy to pay for the premium materials.
I had two dragon tail commissions in a row that involved non-standard spade tips. Normally I do them horizontal/flat, in whale-fluke orientation. For this tail though the client wanted a vertical shark-fin orientation. I turned out to rather like it!
The other sort of funky thing about this tail is thankfully impossible to see. The purple scales scattered throughout are anodized titanium, which is a harder metal than the aluminum. I usually try to avoid mixing metals of different hardnesses, because the softer one will tend to get scratched up relatively faster. So to mitigate this problem, I cut a little scale out of suede to weave in beneath each titanium scale, as padding to prevent it from touching the aluminum scales below it. Maaaybe overkill, maaaybe more time consumptive than it was worth, but hey, it won’t scratch itself now.
Primarily made of anodized aluminum, red on top with an orange underbelly. Speckled through the red are some purple anodized titanium scales. It measures 29 inches from tip to belt line without the spade tip, 34 inches with it on. It weighs in at 2 pounds 14 ounces.
Pics of the other tail I’m finishing will be up tomorrow.
And here’s the anodized titanium dragon tail I was working on! I was super happy to get a chance to work with this metal again. Getting these takes putting in a special order to the manufacturer, and there’s always variability between batches, but it’s totally worth it. (There was a bit of a snafu getting started with this one because paying taxes had drained my bank account, and I didn’t have the cash to be able to put in the order for the scales until I had finished another commission... Anyway, it eventually worked out.)
This one also has a funky tip, which took rather a while to work out the specific dimensions on. The upper part goes clear through the tail, and the tail is slitted to provide the space for it. Like my normal spade tips, it attaches in to the tail with lobster clasps, so it’s removable. I’m pretty adamant about doing it like that, because I know that the materials I use for the tips will wear down more easily than the metal of the tail, so I want to make sure they can be easily replaced by the owner without needing to ship the whole thing back to me to take apart the chainmail.
Oh right, this tail also used a different style of spikes than I normally use. These are shaped like eagle claws. I rather like the side view of them, but for some reason they’ve got a strong twist to the side, which I was not a big fan of. The client liked it, though, so that’s fine.
The scales are all anodized titanium, primarily a mix of light blue and dark blue, with a pattern of violet diamonds down the spine and a scattering of teal and green on the top side. Spade tip is Baltic birch plywood with black acrylic paint. It measures in at 35 inches long with the spade tip, 33 inches without. It weighs 3 pounds 11 ounces.
This dragon tail is made of anodized titanium, and it’s got a couple new details!
First is the spade tip. The client wanted this more complicated shape, so I worked out how to get the upper piece to attach through a slit in the pattern of the tail. Like my normal spade tips, it also attaches in with lobster clasps, so it’s removable and swappable for different colors/materials. In this instance the client went for black painted plywood, and I threw in a plain un-painted birch plywood one as a spare.
The second new thing the client requested was the type of spikes used down the spine. The manufacturer refers to these as an eagle claw shape. I do like their profile, but instead of being symmetrical like the rest of the spikes I use, they curve to the side pretty dramatically. I could see it working really well on a big leather collar or super-spiked-out jacket, but for this application I was not super fond of them. But the client liked them, so that’s what matters.
The tail itself is made with a bunch of different colors of anodized titanium: violet diamonds beneath each spike down the spine, a mix of dark and light blue for the background, and a scattering of teal and green. I clustered the teal and green scales towards the top surface, and faded the blues darker on the underside. I got photos of it in a bunch of lighting conditions because the colors can really vary depending on the type of light they’re in.
Scale mail dragon tail commission I just finished. One of the prettiest patterns of colors I’ve had the pleasure of working with.
It’s got a custom pattern of anodized titanium scales in purple, violet, dark blue and teal, and it’s got a stainless steel underbelly. The anodized titanium has to be special-ordered from the manufacturer, and it’s pretty pricey, but it’s worth it. The spade tip’s shape was based on a reference from the commissioner, and it’s 1/8″ birch plywood that I laser-cut and painted with acrylic paint.
It measures in at 34 inches long without the spade tip, and the spade tip adds 4 inches, bringing it to 38 inches total. It weighs 3 pounds 13 ounces.
I’m currently open for more tail commissions like this! Info here: https://armoreddragon.tumblr.com/tails
A new dragon tail made in anodized titanium and blackened stainless steel. It uses teal, purple and violet titanium, in a pattern that gives an image of larger scales overlapping down its length. It’s got a full line of metal spikes along the spine, and a lobster clasp at the tip to attach things onto.
The anodized titanium is a rare treat to work with. It’s expensive and I need to custom-order it from the manufacturer and I’m always low-key worried they’ll tell me to go away one of these times, but damn if it isn’t just stunningly beautiful when it’s good. I really love the variation and texture on every scale, and I like putting together patterns to mix the colors in with each other and try to enhance that effect. In this batch the teal scales shifted on the edge of sea green and blue with hints of purple, the purple was a more muted maroon-ish tone with a blue base, and the violet was a great vibrant tone with occasional shifts towards rose-gold. The colors aren’t quite iridescent, but they definitely look like they were pulled out of the swirling colors of a soap bubble and pumped up to full saturation.
The blackened stainless steel is fun too. I guess I just really enjoy coloring processes that don’t rely on dyes like anodized aluminum does.
This tail is a medium length, measuring in at 31 inches from the tip to the top of the belt line, and it weighs 3 pounds 11 ounces.
Was sort of burned out this month after finishing up the big armor project, but had a bunch of small orders to work through. Here’s a bunch of scale chainmail pieces that I shipped out over the last couple weeks. A pair of randomized anodized titanium bracelets, bronze and stainless steel, trans pride bracelet and black choker, and a bi pride for good measure (but bad lighting).