A Toast to Steven Universe

The following two things are true.

  1. I paint pottery at Color Me Mine.
  2. I really love Steven Universe.

If you don’t know what Steven Universe is, it’s this great cartoon show. It’s entertaining for kids, but also exists on a level for adults in which it is more sophisticated and intelligent than almost anything else on TV. If queer anthropomorphic alien superhero gems appeal to you, watch it. What else can I say?

Clearly, I need lots of Steven Universe pottery, mostly various kinds of cups. Clearly. Here are my designs.

Pottery contains spoilers. Do not peruse if you haven’t seen to the end of season 2, and want to do so unspoiled.

A Steven Mug with Feet

Steven Universe mug my ipadSteven Universe mug MH's ipad

I think this was Mike’s idea to start with. I painted a mug in this shape last year for my father, using the Hawaiian shirts he wears as inspiration. All of a sudden, Mike, in the car driving to or from Los Angelos, exclaimed, “You should do a Steven mug with Feet!”

It’s pretty simple to paint. A Steven-flesh color on the stomach and feet, with red for the shirt and sandals. A star marked out on the chest in yellow. A pink gem on the belly–I can either paint one to be shiny or use a gem, but that will affect whether it’s dishwasher safe.

I put in two pictures just to show the difference between the way I was using the drawing program without the stylus (left) and what becomes more possible with a fancy one on the new ipad (right). (I borrowed the latter, alas.)

NOM NOM Amethyst Mug

Amethyst mug

There’s an excellent mug at Color Me Mine that has a big slot in it where you can store a cookie. The paintings I’ve seen other people on it are really cute–monsters, muppets, zombies. I’ve always wanted to make one, but never had quite the right match.

Now? Amethyst. Definitely.

Pearl Wine Glass

Pearl WineWine pearl squiggle smile

Mike picked this one out, too — I kept trying to look for things that were simply tall and narrow, while Mike figured out that Pearl would look adorable as a big funnel-shaped head.

Plan to just paint it white. I’ll likely do the gem with paint, not with a 3D gem — that works better with something like Steven’s quartz than it would with a pearl. (And I’ll probably paint Steven’s too, really.)

I’m not sure whether to use the curve smile, or the wicked wrinkly smile. I *could* do one face on each side, but I think that would be creepy. Mike is a wholehearted fan of the wrinkly smile. I like it, too, although I also like the idea of having a wine glass that just shows Pearl being Pearl.

Garnetini
Garnet Margarita

Something else Mike picked out. I love using the shape of the pottery to influence the designs, and he’s really good at spotting those shapes. Should be pretty easy to do with masking to keep the lines crisp, except for the glasses, which I hope I can make look as shiny and cool as they should.

She Is Made of Love

Sapphire plus Ruby mug

Color Me Mine ALSO has a pair of mugs that fit together like the divided pieces of one of those heart lockets that features in a hundred farces. One side: Ruby and Sapphire. The other: Garnet.

I made this before I was using a stylus or the zoom function on my ipad, so doing a rough line sketch was all I felt able to attempt. I’ll do the cartoons in the colors from the show, but I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the background yet.

NOM NOM Lion

lion mugI’m not sure I’ll make this because I’m not sure I want to have two NOM NOM mugs in the set, but so far this is the best idea I’ve had for Lion.

She Is REALLY Made of Love

Garnet heart plate

While I’m including ones I’m not sure I’ll do, there’s this heart plate.

I’ll post updates when I have some painted!

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2 Responses to A Toast to Steven Universe

  1. 1
    Max G. says:

    Not sure about the wrinkly smile. Doesn’t really read as happy. Maybe if it were less V-shaped?

  2. 2
    Ampersand says:

    I myself prefer the wrinkly smile. I agree it doesn’t read as happy – it reads as someone trying to smile because they feel they ought to be happy. Which seems like a very Pearl thing to me.