Drinking Horn

So, way back when I first mentioned Amon Amarth, I also mentioned that I made a drinking horn with the intent to get it signed and scrimshaw said signatures in. Unfortunately, when I went to their Twilight of the Thunder God tour, a friend I brought had a test the next day and couldn't wait after the show. So, cut to a few years later, and they have a new album out, which means a new tour, and a new opportunity to get my horn signed. On Sunday, I went to Atlanta to see their An Evening With Amon Amarth show, in which they played their latest album, Surtur Rising, in full. Then played an entire second set, which was a "best of" show. (And I FINALLY got to hear Live For the Kill live. Albeit, sans Apocalyptica, but it's still one of my favorite songs.)

So, after 2+ hours waiting in line pre-show, 1.5 hours in the crowd inside waiting for the show to begin, standing through a 4 hour show, and then at least 2 more hours standing outside, I FINALLY got to meet the band and got my horn signed. I've been working on the scrimshawing for the past couple of days, and will say that after I applied the ink, I realized I should have polished the horn before getting it signed. While I sanded/polished it when I first got it, a couple years of use has put a bunch of micro scratches on it, and it's been a bitch and a half to wipe the ink out of them. As such, I'm still not completely content with it, but it's good enough as-is to post here. Oh, and also, due to space issues, I had a choice to make. One signature could have either been on a particularly thin part of horn, or on the black half. I obviously chose the latter, and since I only have india ink, I decided to try red sharpie on that one. It's not perfect, but it'll do until I can find some red ink. Below, are a few pictures. If you want to see more, you can check them out HERE. I had them labeled and sorted in an orderly fashion, but Photobucket decided not to pay very much attention to my order.

Yey! Signatures!

I more or less divided the work into four stages: Getting it signed; carving it; inking it; and polishing it. I took photos at each stage, but what the photos don't show are the 9,001 times I went back to wipe away more ink, then wiped too much and started cleaning the ink out of the carvings, then re-inking and in the process getting ink back in the microscratches, and starting the process all over. So, when a photo says, "polished", and you still see black marks, just know that if I haven't already started getting those out, I will....Anywho, here's the evolution of Johan Hegg's (the singer) signature:

This one's actually not that bad. Nothing like Fredrick's.

And finally, the finished (Well ish...kinda...not really...whatever.) product:

Also pictured: a lot of shit. Peanuts from a Puscifer show,  an oil lamp I made out of a grenade, a few picks, and a bunch more.