Test Results :: Hippo

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - w/ Silver Leaf, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 5 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 6 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 7 - w/ Copper Green, 8 - w/ Tuxedo, 9 - w/ Opal Yellow, 10 - w/ Ivory, 11 - w/ White

General Impressions
Both in the rod, and in some of these beads, CiM Hippo is a little reminiscent of Tamarind Unique #2, but there are a few key differences, which I'll go through when I talk about the reactions.

I found my Hippo rods to be a little shocky -- not so shocky that I wanted to throw them or anything, but shocky enough that I lost some bits off the end every time I picked up the rod and reintroduced it to the flame.

On the whole, I really, really like this colour.  It's a great, neutral base colour, and the way the surface can be brought to a rich brown is particularly neat.  The way the silver turns blue on it under encasement also makes me really happy, and I think I'd really like it in organics with reduction frit, Silvered Ivory and Intense Black.

Reactions

On top of Hippo, Silver Leaf attractively scars the surface and turns yellowish, and fumes all of the surrounding Hippo area a dark chocolate brown colour. This fuming is very reminiscent of what I experienced with Tamarind Unique #2.

When you reduce and encase the silver (I used Effetre Clear here), the silver turns back to its natural colour... mostly. It also develops some really interesting blue tones.  The dark fuming of the Hippo is decreased a little by encasing it.

On Hippo, my TerraNova2 frit only sort of struck.  Hippo doesn't seem to be one of those 'magic' bases for striking silver glasses where no matter how badly you suck at it, it still works, but it seems like someone with more skill could have done better than I did.  (For examples of a couple of 'Magic' bases, see my results for Light Brown Transparent and Dark Grass Green Transparent)

I got great reflectivity and some really interesting fuming in the reduced silver glass frit bead on the right.

When used with Copper Green, the Hippo seemed to force the Copper Green to develop a fuzzy grey line around the Hippo stringer lines and dots I put on it.  This a little different from what I got with the Tamarind Unique #2, because with that colour the lines were much thinner and subtly shiny.

There is a little bleeding in the middle of my Tuxedo/Hippo test bead, but this is at least partially because of my beadroller incompetence. I kind've mushed this bead and had to reheat and reshape it, so this reaction is somewhat exaggerated. The Hippo lines over Tuxedo look sort of crackly and mottled.  I got a very similar effect from putting Canyon de Chelly over Vetrofond Black, although it looks different because of the colour of the Canyon.

On top of Opal Yellow, Hippo dots and lines develop a faintly pinkish-brown outline.  I wasn't testing with Opal Yellow yet when I did my tests for Tamarind Unique #2, so I can't really make any comparison here.

Hippo holds its own with Ivory, and seems to float just slightly on top of it, but there's not much else here in the way of interesting reactions.  It seems as though Hippo might be a slightly softer colour than the Tamarind Unique #2, because it didn't sink into the Ivory quite as much as that one did, and the Ivory didn't spread on it as much.

Hippo sinks into the softer white, as you can see on the left-hand side of this bead, and White spreads out a little on top of Hippo.  I wasn't testing with White either when I did my tests for Tamarind Unique #2, so I'm not sure how this is similar or different.

I managed to make a couple of other things with Hippo. Hopefully I'll find some more when I go to Frantz Art Glass for the Bash in August and can play some more.