One Step Back - Again

Well, I'm not sure if it was the size, or the way I cut them, but the larger ocs just plain gave me trouble. I tried imprinting the stamp BEFORE I cut them in half, but then I couldn't cut through the stamp mark, so I tried slicing it a different way, which made it harder to carve out and form the airway...

And then I realized I had completely forgotten something I knew a long time ago from a website that is no longer up and running. Basically you cut out a circle of rolled clay and drape it over half a sphere form, then let it harden a bit. (Two circles, actually, for the two halves of the ocarina)

Then I'll change it up a bit by pressing the space for the necklace cord and also pressing down the space that will become the airway. This way I will not have to carve any clay out, and hopefully they will be basically all the same, so tuning should be so much easier.

But I could kick myself for not thinking of it sooner...so I only did six of my larger ocs last night and today (and took WAY too long to tune...mostly the sound hole just kept giving me trouble.) I recycled the other four I had formed.

So now I have two ocs, one small and one larger, setting up a tad before I do the indentations and hopefully see if I can then tune them up. The stamps took the best in this method as there was a firm backdrop behind the clay, so that's a good sign, as well.