I am still feeling rotten so this will be a bit briefer than I wanted it to be. I didn’t get the pens finished that I wanted to but I have a bit of a backup. I tried something new so I shall talk about that.

* Pen making

So I tried to make a demonstrator. Boy, was that a bad idea. I used one of my more basic designs to start off with, the Titan, which is a cylinder with straight edges. Pretty simple and lets the blank speak for itself. The blank I chose was one I made which was a mix of translucent resin dyed with an alcohol based dye.

The process of making something like this was long and drawn out. Just to give you a brief breakdown it probably took me about an hour and an hour and a half to drill out, shape, thread sand and polish the pen in full. It then took about 3 hours to polish up the inside of the cap and the barrel. Why so long? Well what you need to do is get a stick of some sort, and attach a flag of sand paper to it. You poke this into what you want to sand make sure it has a lot of water in it and sand the all living hell out of it. Once it was sanded up to about 3000 grit, then the polishing began, I tried all sorts of stuff. Finally managed it looking like [this](https://i.imgur.com/B67atbo.jpg) here is the obligatory [cap off picture](https://i.imgur.com/qzeMRdp.jpg) and a close up of the [barrel](https://i.imgur.com/9qpzWV4.jpg).

As I mentioned I had a [bunch of pens](https://i.imgur.com/d5ZLmEn.jpg) I wanted to get ready, unfortunately I ran out of time. I did manage to at least get them [partially finished](https://i.imgur.com/qMTZocP.jpg).

* Blank making

I am doing a giveaway over on instagram as I am close to reaching 1000 followers (only 74 to go) and at the moment I am taking pictures from people who want to see them made into pen blanks. The plan is that out of the pictures I am sent I am going to pick 6 and make some blanks based upon those images and then I will put the blanks up for a vote. I will make the winner into a pen and then it will be put up for the pen that will be given away. I like to make my giveaways a bit interesting.

In preparation for this giveaway I have been getting some images together which I can practise with. I made some blanks and some of them I am quite happy with and I think work well but I think I still need more practise. Here are the ones I have so far:

* [Golden Apple](https://i.imgur.com/8I9bQwh.jpg) – I Don’t think this is a very good match.

* [English Fairy Tales and Legends](https://i.imgur.com/Quq4NED.jpg) – I mad to mix the colours for this myself, could have done with more purple in the grey.

* [Greek Mythology](https://i.imgur.com/vxD62QS.jpg) – I had to mix the orange for this one myself, this is one of the ones I am very happy with how it turned out.

* [Who’s who in mythology](https://i.imgur.com/6HUeFb6.jpg) – this is the other one I am very happy with.

So the next stage is to find more complex images to do this with. I am choosing a theme for the next bunch and if any of you could help me that would be great. I am looking for Cyberpunk images and HP Lovecraft themed images. Post them in the comments if you have them. Of course if you want to enter the instagram contest too check that out too.

As usual feel free to give feedback or suggestions in the comments. Please take care of yourselves and your loved ones and stay safe.