Tea Mechanica, the Glazing

I had a hard time with all this.
No.3, I already had an idea of what I was going to do, but since I had already used the glazes in a previous piece I was hesitant to used them again.
The thing is, the piece just called for it:



What I saw was something art decoish and I wanted an antiqued look, not the primary colors I usually use.
I needed the metallic glazes.
This time I went and got an antiqued brass glaze, which is discontinued by the way for it contains lead, and used that for the spout and the leg attachments and the lid.
I used the antique silver for the rest.
The thing is, these glazes fire two cones hotter than the rest of the glazes, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
The first firing:



I liked it.
Now I had to do the treads, which was done in flat black.
Two cones cooler so I fired it a second time, but what I didn't anticipate was that the metallics would change.
Second firing:



I lost all the gloss of the antique silver, which turned a dry mat black.
The brass also lost some lustre, but that was okay cause it ended up looking distressed, and I liked that.
I contemplated refiring, but decided to just go with it as I'd heard that the brass glaze did not like to be fired with other glazes.
Now the other thingy.
The plan was to do what is called a dazzle camouflage pattern using either an analogous or complimentary color scheme.
After thinking about, I thought it too bold and I chickened out.
It also would have been a major pain to do and I just didn't have the time.
So I looked at more basic color themes and discarded all of them.
I just couldn't see this in basic colors so I went with the tried and true: black and nasty.
With some red highlights.
To break up the black don't you know.
The hardest part was doing the wheels as I had to do both interior and exteriors:



Not only did I have to do the black, but the red also:



I played with doing something different with the springy part, but decided using one of the metallic glazes would detract and not add to the piece.
So instead I used flat black on the springy thing like the tires.
I think it turned out okay:



I added some white gold lustre to the portholes on the lid but unfortunately forgot to take pictures.
Critique?
I like the art deco thingy, but I wish I had done it a bit larger.
I may make another and make some subtle changes.
It's sort of missing something, I'm not sure what.
I feel the same way about the springy one.
Sort of like I should have added something but I'm not sure what else I could have done without over doing it.
Something about both compositions feel lacking, or unbalanced, but I'm not sure why.
Not goofy enough or something.
I mean they were going someplace, but didn't quite get there.
Where they were going I'm dunno and that's the problem.
I like animating these teapot forms, but I need to think them through a bit more.
Maybe something will come to me.

Tea Mechanica

Okay, here's the rest of the how I did it.
Finishing up the second thingy, the first won't get done as I've decided that I don't like the form, I fooled around with connecting the bottom track section to the top.
My original idea wasn't going to fly, not this time anyways, so I sort of had to improvise.
That didn't work out either but I start fooling around with this:



Basically a coil wrapped around a wooden dowel.
Hmmm.
Okay, looks better that what I had so I took everything apart and added a springy section instead:



I had to prop it up a bit until it set up and stiffened up a bit.
Actually I had it propped up like that all way until it was fired.
Using the kiln posts worked out well as it allowed the top portion to sort of slide down as the clay dried and shrank.
Okay, out of the bisque:



Now the glazing.
Which I sort of dislike, especially when I have no idea what to do.
So I left it and went to work on No.3:



I was going to add some strap looking things, but when I took out my mini extruder thingy, I found a triangular die and tried that out instead.
I liked it.
So I began to add the triangular strips to the sides:



I used the end of a brush to add the indentations for some detail.
I liked the look so I decided to do four strips.
I was going to add some horizontal lengths, but decided against it in order for the strips to sort of enhance the piece by "stretching" it and making it look taller.
Then I added the spout:



I threw two different looking spouts, one was a bit pointier than the one I used. I also ringed it with the triangular strips, but you can't really tell as they look flat, and I added the details pukas with the end of the brush.
Okay, now for the feets.
Or treads.
Or whatever you call them.
I sat and I looked at this piece for some time before decided what exactly I was going to do.
I had done some sketches, but I wasn't sure I wasn going in that direction for the chucks I had sitting around weren't going to let me do what I wanted.
As luck would have it, I found a piece of green ware sitting around from a left over lid project and it fit the bottom of the piece perfectly.
Okay, not perfect as I had to cut some grooves in it to clear the triangular strips:



Now I could do the tracked gear I had planned.
I put the gear together much like I did the ones above, only I needed two sets.
I then attached them with some extruded and flattened coils.
They didn't turn out exactly how I imagined, something was missing.
I used more of the triangular strips to match the rest of the body and it looked a bit better:



I had some trouble with this piece as it dried for I attached the triangular strips when the body was sort of dried out. I had numerous cracks that I had to patch, one on the top where the lid sat gave me the most worry.
In the end, it all turned out okay:



Now comes the glazing.
What to do?