Day of the Dead

A few weeks ago I started work on a hologram inpired by Pirates of the Caribbean and began carving a medallion that I wanted to look like the medallion featured in the movie. Unfortunately my sculpting skills aren’t yet up to that task but I was able to produce a medallion that is more appropriate for a Day of the Dead celebration and set about making a hologram of that.

I started out with a flattened disk of Super Sculpey as the base and another sphere of the same which I carved into a skull shape. I cut the skull in half and stuck it onto the disk and then built up a bit more clay so the skull would appear to sit in a depression.

I then set about adding the ring and other details. Perhaps in the next version I’ll be able to add more detail but I’ll need much more practice.

I found some faux gold paint at the hobby store that turned out to have a good deal of shininess to it once dry. I wanted some reflection so that the final hologram would appear shiny since it wouldn’t look gold.

Once the medallion was dry it was a simple matter to put it on the table, lit from one side with diffuse light and from the other side with undiffused light, and shoot the master.

The final hologram looks like this

The master was on PFG-01 presensitized with TEA mounted to glass with Kapco. Exposure was with a 23mW HeNe for 18 seconds and developed with JD2 and bleached with EDTA.

The copy was on PFG-01 treated with 4% TEA sandwiched between glass. Exposure time was 6 seconds and developed with JD2 bleached with EDTA and given a post-treatment with 2% Ascorbic acid.

If you’re interested in purchasing the hologram you can do so at our store.

Published by

Michael Harrison

Husband, Programmer, Irish dancer, tinkerer, astronomer, layabout (as much as possible)

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