Cassie: Skin, Face

Today I finished Cassie's skin and her face, including eyes and lips.

I'm thinking red hair with green and purple for the robes. Maybe gold as an accent color.

New Projects: Urbicus, Cassie, Mary Read Bust

Most of last week I worked on prepping my next round of projects. Here they are, finally ready to go.

This is Urbicus, my next Arena Rex gladiator. I think he should be pretty quick to finish. There's not a lot of fiddly bits to him.

This is Cassie. She's next in the 'quick and for gaming' set.

And lastly, a Mary Read bust from Scale 75. I want to keep working through my large scale stuff as well. I went with a darker, redder skin tone on her because...well, she's a pirate. She's on deck all day. I want to give her a more suntanned/burned look to reflect that she'd be out in the sun a lot. I think this might be too pink, but hey, it'll be a fun experiment.

6!

Here's Lenore, base complete.

Lenore: Cloak, bits, base

I finished the rest of the painting on Lenore today - her cloak, belt, and necklace. I almost finished the base as well, but I decided to put on the mushroom and butterfly, and I needed to give the glue time to dry on those. So, I'll finish her tomorrow.

The red and teal isn't a color combination I'd normally choose, but I like it. I was inspired by a fish a friend of mine got recently.

5!

Today I painted Orlando's base and glued him in place. I built the base yesterday, but wasn't going to be able to get pictures without making a big mess. I do need to put some dark paint under his right foot. I don't think I checked to make sure he would sit properly in his base, and...he doesn't. But it's hard to see from most angles. If I cover that bit of white, it should be alright. Not great, but passable.

Orlando: Arms Complete

I finished Orlando's gloves, sword hilt, and the straps for the helmet, then glued his arms on. He's complete as far as paint goes. I need to build his base next, but I'm hoping putting that together and getting it painted should go quick.

Orlando: Arms

Got the steel on Orlando's arms done tonight. All that's left is his gloves, the helmet straps, and the hilt of the sword. I should be able to finish all that next time and glue his arms on. Then it'll just be basing, which I think I'm going to keep simple. I think I'm going to use the base he came with, mount it on a larger base of some sort, and dig out the sandy paste to put the two together.

Lenore: Dress, Boots

I did prep Orlando's other arm tonight, so while it was sitting and letting the glue cure I worked on Lenore. This is shading and highlighting her dress, and base coating the boot and gauntlet. I'm trying a technique of drawing attention to a point on the figure (in this case, it'll be her face) by having brighter highlighting around that area than on the rest of the mini. So, the highlight across her bosom is brighter than the other highlights on the dress.

Orlando: Belts and buckles, arm.

Finished the painting on Orlando's belts, buckles, and so on.

I also started prepping his arm. This involved putting the pin in and attaching that helmet. That was a big pain - the little straps are tiny, and they needed to be carefully sized and fitted in. One of the straps needed to be trimmed and then bent to fit against the palm of the hand and the fingers. The other needed to be cut shorter and tucked under the thumb. One of the straps came unglued from the helmet when I was trying to fit it into the hand, so that's a bit of repair work I'm going to have to do.

I should have pinned and primed the other arm as well so I could paint them at the same time. I didn't do that, so I'll probably do that next.

Orlando: Blue tunic, belts. Lenore: Dress

Continued on with Orlando's tabard, which was fixing the shading on the back so it looked like the same item witht eh same shadows on both sides, and moved on to the highlighting. I think it's done. I also started on the belts and shoes. They need more highlighting, but once that and the various belt buckles and other metal bits are done, the main body will be complete and I'll be on to the other pieces I haven't attached yet. Oh, I did attach the scabbard today.

And I put a base coat on Lenore's dress. Dunno if I love the teal, but I'm going to go with it. Probably.

Lenore: Hair. Orlando: Shading blue.

I started with Lenore's hair. I wasn't sure about blonde for her initially, but I'm feeling it now. I have indeed decided to ignore her eyes, since you can't see them without looking from weird angles.

I'm not sure what other colors will be for her. I like going with colors I don't often use on projects like her. Maybe some teal?

I also started the shading of the blue portions of Orlando's tabard. I have another layer or two of shadow to go.

Hmm. I'm noticing on his back, I've got shadows that are pretty much unrelated between the yellow and blue sides on his mid-back, there. That, of course, doesn't make any sense. I will need to go back and look at that as a whole and see what needs to be changed. Maybe look at the box art for reference. I also noticed  from the box art that I think the lower loop of the belt is supposed to be wider on his right hip than I currently have it painted. I've kind of made myself a line for where I think the edge of the belt is meant to be, and I'm going to use that as a guide for parts that I'm going to re-paint as belt, and so am not going to shade and highlight as part of the tabard.

Orlando: Highlighting yellow. Lenore: Detailing skin.

Continued on with Orlando, putting the highlights on the yellow parts of his tabard and some of the yellow freehand. I'm pretty happy with the result.

And then I put some shading and highlighting on Lenore's skin. I tried using dark green in the shadows, but I think it works much better with olive skin tones. I need to do a little cleanup of the highlight on her lip. Also, while she has eyes sculpted, they're buried under her hood. To see them you have to tip the figure up. So, I'm considering not painting them.

Orlando: Shading Yellow

What time I had tonight got partially taken up with things like fixing my visor after the screws came loose. But I did carry on with shading the yellow parts of Orlando's tunic.

Orlando: Tunic. Lenore.

I've decided to bail on texture on Orlando - I just want to get him finished. So, I've painted over the area that I started texturing, and then started w first round of regular shading. I'm hoping to get him finished off quickly, though I'll probably have to stop for a bit for the commission pieces that are coming (they are delayed a bit).

I also started on Lenore from Hasslefree. This should be a quick, fun paint. She came with a slotted base, so I've put some flock on for texture then glued her to the base. Now I will ignore the base until I'm done with her, then I'll paint it and put some flower tufts on. Maybe a butterfly.

What about making a dent in my Arena Rex guys? Don't worry, I have the next one of those picked out and will start on putting him together soon.

4!

Finished up the giraffe today. Yay!

Giraffe Man: More bits

I'm going to try to finish the giraffe man tomorrow. Today I finished the beads on his necklace, base coated the staff, and did a couple other bits.