Steam duck

A lot of work went into this card. I may not be making large numbers of cards but I am definitely putting the effort in on the ones I do make; especially this one. These time-consuming cards always start with an idea, in this case, the idea came from my other half in response to the simple question “any thoughts on what to do for a card for Chris?” Combine his love of puns with the fact that Chris had recently goaded him into buying a Steam Deck gaming console and the answer was “steam duck”.

Unsurprisingly, there isn’t a readily available digi stamp of a steampunk duck — the nearest thing I found was an embroidery pattern but that wasn’t what I wanted — so I had to make my own. From rough sketch to finished printable (I’m definitely getting the hang of the pen tool in Affinity Designer now) took a few days before I had something I was happy with.

Then I had to decide how to colour it. After contemplating and discarding various metallic finishes, I stuck with the traditional yellow of a rubber duck but as though it was made of metal panels in various states of distress. After bit of experimenting, I had a selection of Copic markers that would create the effect I was after.

Rather than try to make the cogs look metallic using Copics (hard in small spaces), I got out my metallic paints and mixed up a reddish-brown. For the cog around the eye I used my Molotow liquid chrome marker, or rather, I used a tiny brush with some paint from the marker; it doesn’t give the same high mirror finish on paper as on non-porous material, but a couple of layers give quite a nice shine. The finishing touch on the duck was to add some glossy accents over the black of the eye.

After I’d found a suitable piece of patterned paper to layer it with onto the card base and added a die-cut sentiment, I handed it over to my other half to fill with duck puns.

Copic markers:

• duck – Y06, G21, YG95, Y17, Y15, Y08, E41, 0
• eye – T1, T4, T6, T9
• shading – T3, T4

Other colouring:

• Stuart Semple metallics: gold, copper, black gold
• Molotow liquid chrome pen

Supplies:

• digital stamps:
  Steamduck created by me
• dies:
  Just Cutz – happy birthday
• paper and card:
  Hunkydory Adorable Scorable Matt-tastic – pebble grey
  Neenah solar white 216gsm