30!

A tale of success, and failure.

So, yesterday I showed some water effects as I'd mixed it, but before it dried. Just as a reminder, here's what it looked like.

Here's the same stuff, dried:

Note how much darker it is. (Nice color, though!) What's not as apparent is the amount of shrinkage, which is a fair bit. Keep that in mind...

Alright, now, I had some of that stuff on the base of the ghost. Here she is, with the base finished.

It did not exactly come out the way I wanted. I think my two biggest errors were these: I failed to account for how much the stuff would shrink, so texture that I meant to be really choppy seas ended up being a breezy day on the lake. So, the take away there is, when working with this paste, REALLY over exaggerate the texture. My other problem is that with the dark paint under it, the color doesn't really show at all. I should have put a lighter color under there. That would have shown off the water color better. As it is, it's just...dark. Anyway, I did a cursory job of painting some sea foam on the peaks and called it good. It's not fixable.

But hey, that's what happens when you try new stuff. It often doesn't work out the first time. Or the second. Or the third. But that's how you learn, and that's how you improve.

So, with the ghost done, I'm continuing on to finishing other partially done stuff. Today, the VOID mini - mostly because she'll be quicker to finish than Azumi. I expect to start work back up on Azumi within the next few days too.

Sticking with using non-flesh colors for her skin, I highlighted her flesh with RMS Golden Blonde. The tone looked a little funny, though, so I did a couple of glazes of Tanned Shadow, her flesh base color, to adjust the hue a bit and also smooth the blends. I may have taken that too far and made the highlights too dark. We'll see after it's had a while to sit. I also put in the white of her eye with Linen White.