best glass eyes

If you do a search on this subject you will find that everyone has their own preference.

 

You won't lose points for the eyes you use, as long as they have the basic details, because you didn't make them. What you need to worry about is how you set them and the work you do around them and everywhere else.

 

Its how you use the eye in your mount, best eye is just like best form. I've used Eppley, Tohickon, Meder, VanDykes and did very well in competitions with all.

 

I'll narrow it down, I like more than half of them that are out there...

 

I like new Joe Meder eyes.

 

I second that.

 

Some of you guys crack me up. Several noted that there is no such thing as "best" for competition. Though I certainly wouldn't recommentBuck's Black Forest nor the old Van Dyke's Blue Glint, the major manufacturers out there are providing you with all you need. As Michael P. posted some time back, you may as well use black marbles for customers. You set your best mount across the room and tell me if you can see those silly assed little "caribou stripes" that Meder eyes have any more than you can tell the difference between a Tohickon IQ and a Van Dyke's Natural Eye.

 

I like an eye with a correct orbital bulge, and a scalara band. Doesn't matter who's. But having those correct features makes everything else work like it is suppose to. You said competition. That means making everything right for the judge's eye, who will be looking for all the correct details. Rotation, depth, angles, nictating membranes, carnucle, shrinkage, finish work, use of fillers, etc. A judge could care less what brand you use as long as YOUR craftsmanship meets the mark. Using an eye with the correct features makes everything else "only" subject to become more accurate, so take your pick. Tohichon, Van Dyke's, Meder, OTS..........

for MOST of your customers, a marble would work, but a judge isn't your customer. So don't make the mistake of thinking that using a correct eye will increase your score. It is YOUR work around the eye that will determine your score. Not the eye itself.

That's like asking which mannikin is best to use for competition, or which tan is best for competition. The correct answer is the one that YOU can make most accurate. It is all a personal preference in what YOU are capable of doing and what best works for YOU. Some would say that YOU should be making and or painting, your own eyes, as many do.