The Heart of a Soul Crystal: Resin Artists Feature

(Originally published Summer 2021)

When asked “What is your favorite part of resin casting?”, Airicrafts reflected, “The one thing that I love most of all is knowing my job stones will go to new homes, making memories for people to cherish, and overall making FFXIV an even happier place.” Soul crystals, often called job stones within the FFXIV community, are considered deeply personal for players, particularly for their Warrior of Light’s main class. Many resin crafters who related their experiences with casting soul crystals for the XIV community during their interviews emphasized the joy in creating such unique works of art for players who feel so deeply for them. Much like soul crystals that are imbued in-game with the memories of those who use them and are passed down from one bearer to the next, so too do resin crafters pour their skill, excitement, and hope into each crystal they create.

“I love designing, crafting, [and] making things from nothing to something,” Vicbaobao gushed in their interview, “that’s my passion.”

In the past, game-accurate soul crystals were mostly confined to large fan stores on sites like Etsy. Now, new creators trying their hands at resin casting to create both accurate and imaginative designs have erupted over the last year. With so many creators to browse, any XIV player can find a design for their favorite job that speaks personally to them, and if not, they can easily find a crafter willing to create a custom stone.

That community of creators and buyers alike is Justcharmy’s favorite aspect of casting soul crystals: “[The community is] a wonderful space and I’ve gotten wonderful concepts from bouncing ideas off of friends and chatting,” she affirmed. Much like other crafters, she is always looking for the next burst of inspiration to incorporate into her work, which is reflected in the wide array of options she offers in her custom orders: flowers, colored glass, holographic flakes, glitter and foil of all shades, and even glow in the dark resin!

Rather than finding rivalry or intimidation in their fellow job stone creators, all the crafters I reached out to for this article expressed similar appreciation and support for each other’s creativity. Paperpoppy, an illustrator first and foremost, took the leap to learn resin crafting after purchasing some of Vicbaobao’s creations: “I had been wanting to start, like [a] year ago but felt I couldn’t, but the more I saw Vicbaobao and the more I bought from her I felt I could start.”

Appreciators of resin crafts typically see only polished, finished products, leaving the process itself largely a mystery, but resin crafting is not nearly as simple as pouring solution into a mold and letting it set. While these crafters inspire Twitter timelines with their new designs and experiments, resin crafting is a skill that requires persistence, care, and endless trial and error. Nearly endless considerations go through a caster’s mind when casting a stone, from the type of resin to layering the inclusions to the final cure. “You have to have both patience and work quickly,” Jezziepop explained. “Placing the final layer on things—or doming—should be cured ASAP or it could run over the edges,” while “letting inclusions sit too long will allow them to sink.” Balance on top of all that the specific handling resin requires to successfully—and safely—set, and resin casters are truly master jugglers of crafting.

Soul crystals can take anywhere from several hours to several days to complete, depending on the type of resin, dyes, inclusions, and even the type of mold. Zazaa (Zaku709 on Twitter) shared that between her day job and her resin variety (AB resin, which requires twenty-four hours to harden), a single cast typically takes three days from beginning to completion, but that time can increase depending on other considerations: “As most of the stone designs are made with layering of different materials . . . more planning needs to be made so that the elements won’t overwhelm [or] block each other.”

While resin itself can set quickly, the amount of detail and care—or “babysitting,” as Airicrafts put it—drastically increases the amount of time (and stress) that goes into every single piece. “Every step is crucial,” Zazaa explained. In a craft as precise as resin crafting, the difference between success and failure “might be as tiny as spotting a fleck of lint trapped in your stone which you couldn’t remove, or in worse case, some oversight could damage the mold.”

With a wide range of supplies and materials at their disposal, no two casters’ processes are exactly the same. Creating finished pieces exactly as they imagine requires countless hours of practice and experimentation. Alexei (Cookieboi1982 on Twitter), who was casting resin shaker charms and coasters before delving into FFXIV soul crystals, “learned about the beneficial use of rubbing alcohol being spritzed over top of a setting mold that would pop the bubbles.” The technique proved particularly useful for crystals, but like many discoveries while working with resin, Alexei’s innovation was borne from the difficulty of the materials themselves: “The initial mold I had for job stones was pretty dark so it was hard for me to be able to see all the bubbles at the bottom of the mold when I was pouring.” While a heat gun can also pop bubbles, he warned that “it can cause the silicone of the mold to heat up and then the resin will cure to it and that can ruin both the mold and the stone.” MiNah_creates, on the other hand, shared an extra tip from her own experience tackling the question of minimizing bubbles: “If you brush transparent powder (like baby powder) in your mold before pouring resin you rarely have any air bubbles on the bottom! . . . If you’re using dry pigments you can also brush them in your mold.”

Many of the lessons shared by the resin casters came about by happy accidents, or necessity, but some lessons are learned the hard way. Jezziepop was a plethora of knowledge from her extensive work with UV resin—including some of its tricky downfalls. She explained that “mixing too much pigment” into UV resin darkens the resin to a point that it will “never fully cure.” The UV light used to cure UV resin cannot penetrate through the piece fully when mixed with heavy amounts of pigment, “leaving you with a pocket of uncured resin encased in the cured resin,” which could easily pop and allow the uncured resin to ooze out of the piece. She also advised to “stay away from not clear molds if using UV resin,” as the danger of the piece curing unevenly increases the trickiness of the process significantly. “Using the ice tray molds with UV resin is actually really tricky, and props to those who do it so flawlessly,” she added, once more acknowledging the vastness of techniques that casters utilize to create their pieces.

Resin crafters’ understanding of their methods and materials is even more impressive considering that the craft itself is fairly new; there are no clear how-to manuals when it comes to handling the combinations of materials these creators use in their works. Vicbaobao warned in her interview that “resin is unstable, and [since] no one ever taught us how to play with resin, we can only search some tutorials online, and learn all of these ourselves.”

That gap of knowledge has the potential to endanger an artist’s health. Much like cleaning products with toxic properties that are often taken for granted, resin requires the following of strict safety guidelines that can be easily overlooked when a curious artist is first getting started. “I always thought it’s just like every other art material, like acrylic, clay, crayon,” Vicbaobao wrote, “but nope, resin is [a] chemical material that will actually hurt you if you did not follow the instructions carefully. Every few hours after making job stones I [got] dizzy and nausea [sic], I had to go and lay down to feel better.”

Vicbaobao’s sentiment was echoed by her peers, several of whom also experienced similar ill side effects after casting until learning of the toxicity of resin fumes. Justcharmy emphasized that, along with casting in a well-ventilated area, “anything N95 grade for mask will do, and nitrile, latex, or plastic gloves will protect hands. Resin in general is considered non-toxic depending on the brand, but there is a common practice of using a flame with resin to reduce air pockets. This creates harmful fumes and it’s important to protect yourself when working with chemicals.” Airicrafts, who recommended similar safety starting points in her interview, even recently published a Twitter thread detailing safety tips and advice for handling resin, a must-read for any crafter looking to work with the material.

Besides its potentially toxic properties, resin is also notoriously fussy to work with, and many casters emphasized the trial and error process of learning which type of resin and casting equipment works for them. The choice of AB or UV resin was split fairly evenly amongst the artists interviewed, as both have their own unique pros and cons when it comes to how they work with materials, their curing time, and the cost of equipment. Sorin (casting_adlo on Twitter) shared their experience with both AB and UV resin, explaining that while UV resin can be highly desirable and advantageous for multilayered projects given its quick curing time—minutes, compared to AB’s twenty-four hours—it is also much more expensive. And “not all UV brands are created equal,” Sorin warned, “This goes for AB as well!”

Sorin also emphasized the importance of proper equipment, or risk having a stone fail. AB resin requires a 1:1 ratio, and “warmed before it’s mixed, because then it just becomes a thick, bubbly mess.” UV resin, however, is no less finicky: “The mold you’re using MUST be platinum-cure silicone or you’re going to have a lot of struggles getting it to cure at all. It also doesn’t like liquid dye much and can do anything from just wind up being soup and never curing properly to curing a very strange color.”

Despite the danger and trickiness of working with resin, job stone crafters are driven by the excitement of creating new designs, often pleasantly surprising even themselves in the process when they see the final results. When divinesoulseer—or Hyth, as she goes by online—was brainstorming two of her themes, one inspired by Ishgard and one by starry constellations, she “never thought” that the “designs could work out as well as they do.” Even though the designs took her several tries to get right, she said, “Now that I have, they’re both some of my more popular designs!” She even shared her secret to the eye-popping sparkles of color that feature heavily in many of her designs: “I think realizing that holographic flakes actually work extremely well in making colors pop, especially colors that are already semi-vibrant on their own!. . . I’d definitely recommend trying it out if you’re needing more vibrancy!”

Hyth was not the only crafter happily willing to share the tips and tricks they’ve picked up along their journeys. The community that has grown around job stone casting is just as vibrant as the pieces they create, with artists excitedly showing new materials they’ve picked up to experiment with for a design, even sharing their failures as well as their successes—and, above all, their inspirations for their next projects. “Since working with job stones has been my first experience with resin, it has broadened my ideas a lot in terms of what else I might want to make,” Aspectedlove wrote. “It’s given me a lot of ideas to work on for the future such as some FFXIV-inspired jewelry maybe and lots of keycaps designs as well!” Her unique work sparkles with pastel pinks and golds, and she is excited about her upcoming plans to create a cherry blossom jewelry set inspired by in-game cherry blossom accessories.

There are always new ideas, new materials, and new creators for the resin crafting community to celebrate—a community that, for many, is essential to the positive experience of being a crafter. MiNah_creates wrote, “Very important to me is also the community; the resin community supports and helps each other,” and her sentiments were echoed many times over. Resin crafters’ Twitters are filled with retweets gushing over each other’s work.

Sorin, along with several other crafters, recently created a Discord server for all FFXIV crafters, from resin to sewing to woodworking and everything in between. Check out the FFXIV Crafter Hangout Discord if you’re an artist looking for a supportive group of fellow creators, or even a fan wanting to follow what FFXIV’s most inspiring crafters are creating! As Aspectedlove pointed out in her interview, many resin artists create pieces other than soul crystals. Sorin, one of the Crafter Hangout moderators and an experienced resin caster, also specializes in dice, brooches, charms, and jewelry, giving FFXIV players a variety of ways to express their love for their Warriors of Light and the game they enjoy.

For many, that joy is what pushes them to keep imagining and creating. “Your imagination is the limit when it comes to resin work!” Sorin wrote in their interview. Hyth echoed Sorin’s drive, writing, “It’s a fun process that allows me to push the boundaries of what I can create,” and that “giving others a memorable trinket that represents who I am as a creator and who they are as a fan and Warrior of Light is what makes me the happiest!” Indeed, the joy of all the pieces of a soul crystal coming together—each layer of resin carefully poured and cured with the inclusions of sparkles or fabric or ink just so to create an intricate design just as the crafter or the commissioner imagined—is supplanted only by the happiness of sending off the finished piece to the buyer. As Paperpoppy shared, “I then can be happy after 5 hours and think, ‘I hope this makes someone’s day.’”