How to Make Resin Art with Incredible Special Effects?
Resin Art is about the freedom of creating with abundant colors, designs, and, most importantly, special effects. For example, by mixing Meyspring pigments into epoxy resin, you can add color to that medium and create two incredible special effects resin artists love: Cells and 3D Effects.
Cells add distinctive and exciting patterns that make any resin art piece vibrant, stimulating, and eye-catching. 3D special effects, on the other hand, provide exquisite texture, excellent depth, and a sense of profoundness to any artwork.
So if you’re wondering how to create Stunning Cells or 3D Special Effects in your resin art projects, this article is for you. You’ll learn two striking techniques using your MEYSPRING pigments to effortlessly add remarkable textures to your resin project!
Let’s get started. You’ll soon see that obtaining exceptional results in resin art is easier than you think!
How to create Cells in Resin Art pieces with MEYSPRING Pigments?
Understanding the science behind the cells’ formation in resin art pieces is essential to achieve extraordinary results in your artwork. The secret to beautifully textured resin pieces is quite simple: the pigmented resin(s) and clear resin used in your project or painting have different densities and weights. Since clear resin is lighter and less dense, throughout the pouring, heat-application, and curing processes, it will break through the heavier colored resin that’s been poured on top of it, magically creating cells!
MEYSPRING pigments are specially formulated to create compelling movements and interesting cells most resin artists love. Fine-tuning each pigment’s composition, density, and particle size is what makes our pigment selection so unique and high-quality allowing you to achieve those special effects easily.
Watch Resin Artist @pourgirlart creating Cells
Resin Artist Susan Day (@pourgirlart) perfectly captures in the following video how a flood coat (clear resin) creates cells through the pigmented resins poured on top.
Here is a simple step by step in @pourgirlart's video:
- Pour a flood coat (clear resin)
- On top, pour the pigmented resins creating a pattern. In this video: MEYSPRING’s Olive Gold, Pacific Blue, and White Pearl
- Right after pouring the pigmented resins, use a small torch to pop any bubbles
- Then, blow the resins to blend the colors and soften the lines with a heat gun
During both of these heat application styles, you can see the cells begin to develop like magic! Of course, the longer the resin rests, you’ll see even more cells appear until it hardens. That's about everything you need to do in order to create cells special effects in resin art: know your densities and follow the process.
Pro Tip: With this technique, the higher percentage of mica pigment used, the more cells will develop
To see more of Susan's real-time experiments with helpful explanations and tips on creating cells with various pigments click here.
Watch Resin Artist @valeriesadiki creating cells
Resin Artist Valerie Sadiki (@valeriesadiki) shows in this video how cells quickly form by playing with a heat gun to spread some colors on top of the others with different pigment-to-resin ratios. Some resins in this video are more pigmented and heavier than others, allowing the less dense resins to break through the heavier-colored resins and create prominent cells.
The epoxy pigments used in this piece are MEYSPRING's Pacific Blue, Tropical Blue, Turquoise Blue, and Olive Gold.
Shop all of our pigments here.
How to create 3D Special Effects in Resin Art with MEYSPRING Pigments?
Special effects are another way to set your piece apart! The beloved so-called “3D Effects” usually result from using a significantly higher concentration of MEYSPRING mica pigments in your resin and delicately placing the pigmented resins in a transparent resin layer.
For prominent cells to develop in this technique, you’ll need to use more pigment-to-resin than you regularly would. For example, we usually recommend using 0.5g of pigment per 1oz of epoxy resin for opaque results. But for 3D cells, you can double or even triple this amount, depending on how big you want your cells to be.
Pro Tip: For larger/thicker molds, we recommend using a resin with a longer working time. This will allow more cells to evolve. If you use a resin designed to cure quickly, the cell formation can be “frozen” before getting a chance to develop fully. Also, keep in mind that the more pigment added into a resin with a short work time means the resin will cure even faster, so you may need to work quickly.
Watch Resin Artist @ellafuldeco creating 3D Special Effects
Slide left on the post below to watch how Ella (@ellafuldeco) creates these jaw-dropping textures in this set of resin coasters using MEYSPRING pigments. She demonstrates how to place the colored resin in a beautiful pattern to create this incredible 3D special effect.
Here is Ella's tutorial, step by step:
- When all the resin needed is mixed with the selected MEYSPRING pigment, it’s time to pour!
- With the mold of your choice ready and leveled start by pouring a crystalline resin layer first blowing any bubbles away with a heat gun.
- Pour glitter of your choice in the center of the molds.
- Using a stir stick carefully place the pigmented resin - a high concentration of MEYSPRING Pure Copper and resin in a petal-like pattern.
- Finally go over the whole set with a heat gun, lightly blowing the design and eliminating any bubbles.
- Now the magical part begins!
You can see below similar special effects created with different MEYSPRING colors by other resin artists in our creative community on Instagram.
Summary
As you can see, creating special effects in resin art - be it cells or 3D effects, is much easier than you imagined. It's just a matter of knowing the densities you need to work with, and have an idea of what type of effect you want to create. But don't worry - not everything is following a recipe! The fun part of this process can be letting the art surprise you. Get mixing and see what beautiful piece comes out!
We love to see what you create
Have you tried any of these techniques? Let us know in the comments how they worked for you and share the results with us on Social Media, tagging us @meyspring or using our hashtag #MeyspringPigments on Instagram!
2 comments
Darn…. Unable to see the videos because I do not use Instagram as I’m sure there are many others who do not have an account.
Have you considered using a video format that all customers can view?
Thank you,
Brigitte
Creative Resin-ations
Very good! I learned a lot!