Draught of Living Death

Leticia Somnolens’ Draught of Living Death is based on the Harry Potter franchise.  Leticia didn’t invent it, but she’s well known for having used it.  I felt having her name on the label gives it more credibility than “made by Morris the dwarf troll (he has a very interesting lineage) that lives in my basement”.

It’s a little four inch bottle from the craft store.  I painted the inside with acrylics in metallic black, green and glitter.

Originally I had plan to just swirl the paint around the bottom two thirds of the bottle, to give it that partially filled look, but with the tiny narrow neck it just takes too long to dry.  Beside you have to keep rotating it so most of the paint doesn’t wind up at the bottom.

I ended up alternating between setting it upside-down to drain excess paint and right side up to recoat the inside as it dripped back down.  I also added a little purple faux stain glass paint and some clear micro beads just for fun.

Once it was well coated and mostly dry I left it to finish curing in the depths of my secret laboratory where I wouldn’t be tempted to watch paint dry.

After forgetting about it for a sufficient amount of time it was finally completely dry and I was then able to move on to the next phase of filling it with floral water gel.  This was also a bit painful since the already narrow neck was reduced even further by the buildup of paint.  After a few tries in which a bamboo skewer was useful in removing unintentional gel plugs (those can be heated and reused), I was able to get a thin steady stream going, which created little bubbles and filled the bottle. I also shook it up a little with my thumb over the opening for good measure and created a couple larger bubbles.

Overall the contents were a big nuisance, but it was worth it.  Pictures don’t do it justice, but it’s murky and glittery and when you hold it up to the light you can see all the little air bubbles.

The skull on the bottle is a cheap plastic ring painted to match the metal chain, which I raided from my jewelry supplies.

I glued the label to a cereal box for thickness and used a 1/8” hole punch. The fonts used are Vtc-NueTattooScript by Vigilante TypeFaceCorp and Misfits by Ravenous Media. If you look closely there are tiny Jolly Rogers added to the vine circling the frame. Skulls are like glitter, you can never have too much and they look good on everything. I also coated the label with three coats of acrylic varnish to make it shiny.