Fill bottle with resin, adding pigments or accessories depending of the potion you’re “targeting” (so for the Sovereign Specific, it would be clear resin with a bit of glitter)
Dip lid in molten wax to look like a seal
Put an IC label on the front - get creative with design and wording
On the back, stick a paper “envelope” you can slip the lammie in, with just the tip peaking out
Result - a reusable, safe (if a bit heavy) phys-rep that looks like the potion in question and keeps the potion and lammie in the same place
So here’s my issue:
Epoxy resin would be prohibitively expensive - 250mm is a lot of epoxy
Polyester resin is a possibility, but I’m concerned that it might react badly with the PET - is there a materials scientist in the house?
Candle wax is an alternative, but I was really looking for something more translucent. On the other hand gel wax is looks like Sovereign Specific… and it can be tinted
Have I just solved my own problem?
Of course, I could side-step all of this by using PET bottles with the brown smoked-glass effect finish (like old medicine bottles) - perhaps filling them with water (for the weight) before corking and dipping the top in wax. But that just seems a bit easy. And it seems surprisingly difficult to get rectangular brown PET bottles. Unless I’m using the wrong terms when googling
i think the poluyester will get too hot in a PET bottle and distort it, you could probably do a few passes to make a thin shell, and that would hols the shell and work on
That… is a really nice idea.
You could maybe look at UV resin. Mix it in with your required colour, pour it in. Hit it with a UV light and… done!
(Also if you colour it, the yellowing won’t show as clear resin is want to do over time)
All bottles are these (https://www.world-of-bottles.co.uk/…/250ml-oval-Pet…) apart from the Sovereign Specific which is a sample from a manufacturer (and if l could find a wholesaler for that particular bottle I’d have used it because I think it’s a better fit for the lammies. All bottles are PET so can’t shatter
The Sovereign Specific is transparent candle gel - I think it looks too much like Elixir of Empyrean Art. If I did it again I’d probably use mineral or vegetable oil or even water with a pinch of mica
The contents of the others are from the back of my drinks cabinet - creme de menthe, blue curacao and grenadine that haven’t been opened in ten years. There’s black food colouring in the Anodyne Analgesic and toast crumbs in the Mageblood for the “tiny white particles”
Make sure that the caps isn’t cross-threaded before applying the wax, otherwise you will be scaping creme de menthe out of your bain marie (a phrase that is unlikely to have appeared in the English language before now). Dipping the caps into the molten wax isn’t an effective way of applying the wax (or perhaps I’m too impatient). I found it better to take the wax off the heat and sculpt it by hand as it cooled
Typefaces are Shipley Rough and Shipley Rough SC. Typos are accidental and only found after I’d taken the photos
Lammies are stuck on using “sticky glue dots” from a roll Iiberated from my daughter’s craft supplies
But now, yes, if I did it again, I’d probably use much smaller bottles and attach “lammie bags”
Those are lovely!
Although there’s no such thing as a patent in the laws of the Empire.
If you’re an Imperial citizen and you want to stop other people using your formula, the only way is to keep it secret.
Perhaps “Doctor Umbero Echo’s Improved Secret Formula”
(What nation has names like Umbero Echo?)
You’re absolutely right. I can do better than this. As soon as I’ve finished my latest project, I’ll pull these out of the garage, strip off the labels and replace with ones with the typo in “Umberto” fixed and an “highly esteemed new formula”. I’m considering “Umberto Thynne’s Highly Esteemed New Formula”, though that might too obvious a reference (if you don’t get it ask you … grandparents, frankly)
In a sort of tying in with this way - I’m wanting to make drinkable, non-alcoholic liquid potions and wondering if anyone has good ideas [apart from food colouring] for making any particular potions - the clear stuff, water: orange is orange juice etc.
But smells and flavours - tips and tried-out things on field that work would be appreciated!
This comes up occasionally - here’s one thread (Potion physreps: salve, liquid, oil, or infusion - #16 by LauraH). Honestly, I wouldn’t. You don’t know what people are allergic to and, if you forget about something when you store your kit away, you can end up with moldy potion gunk and decomposing cork all over your kit. There are a couple of exceptions (a big pot of herbal tea for Tranquil Nostrum, re-potted Snazaroo for Bronze Spider Balsam or Chiaroscuran Balsam)
You can TRY to stop LARPers from actually drinking your physreps…
Lemonade with a drop of food colouring and maybe some edible glitter has the bonus of being cheap and lasting for ages.
As a non-potion, I found a good phys-rep for prepared Cereluan Mazzarine (as a salve, rubbed on to treat CLEAVE)… Boots cucumber moisteriser. Cheap, smells herbal, and is actually made to be rubbed on to people. Also works on sunburn. Dries to a dense green paste that isn’t too horrible when you find it in April next year
