Behind the Mud: Going Tall with a Glaze-Driven Tumbler
When you spend a lot of time at the wheel, your hands eventually want to push upward. I had been practicing throwing taller pieces, which naturally got me thinking about what I could do with a larger vertical canvas. I didn’t want to jump straight to a massive vase or a flat tile—I wanted to keep that intimate, everyday connection you only get with a functional beverage piece.
The answer was a sleek, tall tumbler. The objective for this project was a new studio challenge: How do I make a pair of good-looking, unmistakable Gundam tumblers with less effort, but with just enough features to instantly stand out? The result was a brand-new process, shifting away from heavy subtraction and letting a few choice, iconic details do all the talking.
A Streamlined Process: Scoring and Focused Building
With my previous mecha pieces, the style was all about meticulous relief carving—spending hours digging away at the clay walls to find the shapes. For this pair of tumblers, I wanted a much smarter, more efficient workflow.
Instead of carving down the entire surface, I focused on a clean, additive process:
- Scoring the Blueprint: I started by drawing the composition directly onto the leather-hard clay, scoring crisp, clear lines into the surface to establish the layout. No deep digging required—just a clean, confident roadmap for the eyes.
- Building the Iconic Anchors: To save time without sacrificing the soul of the designs, I didn’t try to replicate every single mechanical panel. Instead, I focused entirely on the most legendary, high-impact features of each mecha’s head. I built up the clay just enough to make the Gundam’s classic V-fins, chin plate, and face shield physically pop, while giving the Zaku its signature heavy brow and curved snout line.
By anchoring the tumblers with just those essential, recognizable features, the characters immediately jump out at you, even on a cleaner canvas.
Letting the Glaze Run the Show
The real secret to making this a “less effort, high impact” project happened in the glaze room. Instead of painstakingly painting inside the lines with detailed underglazes, I decided to trust the natural flow of the kiln.
I selected a fluid glaze combination that naturally moves and thins as it hits peak temperature. As the glaze liquefied and pulled downward during the fire, it broke beautifully over the crisp, scored lines and pooled deeply around the edges of the built-up features.
The result is incredibly organic. The glaze itself creates the shadows and highlights, catching the ridge of the Gundam’s crest and running dark into the recessed panels of the Zaku. It creates a rich, shifting look that makes the structure pop entirely on its own, without any tedious brushwork.
The Joy of Efficiency
What I enjoyed most about making this tumbler set was finding the sweet spot between simplicity and impact. Moving away from heavy carving to a process of scored blueprints and targeted building was incredibly freeing.
It’s a wonderful reminder that in the studio, you don’t always have to overwork the clay to get a striking result. Sometimes, just mastering a taller throw on the wheel, scoring the right lines, and letting the glaze do the heavy lifting is the most satisfying way to bring a classic clash to life.