New and Improved Tomato Cane

Not perfect. Not by a long shot...but...better! And that's what all us mini-blogsters are always striving for, am I right? :) Better! I can't take credit for this technique. All the kudos go to a Flickr favorite, Shay Aaron's flickr Photostream: The New Tomato Cane, whose latest interpretation of the tomato cane completely nails it!

After soooooo many hours work, and it is a LOT of work (with lots of breaks in between for my arthritic hands), I finally achieved something much more similar to a real tomato slice than say....the "old" tomato slices I made last year after my first attempt with tomato canes...

Old tomato slices on the bottom of the photo - yuck! NEW and improved tomato slices on top of the photo -  much better! The green seeds, meh, I'm not too happy with those colors. Will work on muting the brightness of the green the next time I attempt these. 

Tomatoes in progress - hard to believe that massive cylinder can be rolled all the waaaaaay down to 1:12 scale size for dollhouse size slices. 

I think using Kato clay made a LOT of difference this time. It's a much harder clay. It takes much longer to condition but the end results are worth it. Premo and Sculpey are easy on the hands for conditioning, but too soft for the cane to keep its shape as you roll it (in my experience anyway). Even the end piece pictured here still maintains the integrity and structure of the cane design. I have to give props to Polymer Clay Express for always stocking loads of fresh clay in all the niftiest brands and colors! :)

Out with those old tomato slices, and IN with the NEW! Yay!!