13!

 Finally, Druanti is done!

Druanti: More Base, More Wings

 I finished up Druanti's base by painting the rim and some of the foliage. There's still glue showing. I'm going to hope that when I spray seal him later it'll take care of that. If not...so be it. 

I finished the front side of the wings and got them attached. I'm pretty happy with the outcome. Now I just have to finish the back.

Druanti: Base, Wings

 I spent most of tonight working on the base. I went through my leaf and flower basing bits, picked out ones with colors I wanted to use and shapes I liked, and then just kinda piled stuff on however I felt looked good. I'm reasonably happy with the results, but there are a couple issues. One is that the CA glue I used to attach the stuff dries shiny. I'll have to decide what to do to dull that down. Also, it's generally best to paint basing bits, just as you do the figure. Otherwise the basing stuff will also lack contrast. However, there's so much different stuff on there I'm not sure how to do that reasonably. 

I did get a little work in on the wings, but not much. I just got the final yellow base on the wing tips, and went back over some of the other areas that didn't have a solid enough base coat. Still need to do all the transitions, and to decide that I'm going to do about the veining

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Druanti: Shield, Bits, Wings

 Finished up the shield and the bits on Druanti's main body and started the base coat on his wings. That needs a lot of work. I roughed in colors, but the tips are not at the final yellow yet. What's there is an undercoat with better coverage than the yellow I want to use. The 'real' yellow will go on next. Then there will be a lot of blending to do to smooth those transitions. I did some between the red and the red/orange, but it all still needs work. I also re-covered the base. I might and the grass and flowers on the base next.

Druanti: Arm, Shield, Chest Plate

 Painted up his arm and the chest plate, and got the chest plate and shield glued on. I've got the base coat on his shield, but it needs a bunch more work still. Next time I'll probably do that and the little hanging talismans he's got. Then, all that will be left is the wings and the basing. I think it'll take more than one session to finish...maybe 2 or 3.

It was pointed out to me that the colors come across as a little disjointed. I think that's true, particularly the hair now that most of the torso is covered with armor, and with the spots of green on the leaves. I knew that was a risk when I added the purple. I'm not sure I'm going to do anything about it at this point. If I were doing more with this guy I might, but...he's just going to sit on my shelf.

I might try making the gems in the talismans teal, and see if that helps.

Druanti: Leg, Arm

 Today I finished highlights on Druanti's leg, and then attached and base coated his arm. Should have painted the arm, at least the inside of it, before attaching it. It's going to be tricky to get in there. I also primed and base coated the front piece of his armor, which will go on next. The back side of it needs to be painted first, though.

Druanti: Leg

 Moved on to Druanti's leg. Added some shadows and a couple rounds of highlights.It needs another level of highlights to match the rest. After I finish the leg, I'll put his arm on next.

Druanti: Skull, Leg

I got enough of the skull painted that I could glue his other leg on. Unsurprisingly, when I glued his main body to the base, I didn't get the positioning quite right. So, he's twisted a bit, and the leg doesn't quite line up. I have tried to force the issue by using a little extra glue and twisting him on the base. It might hold, but more likely I'll be putting enough dark paint in the joint to hide that it doesn't quite line up.

Next will be finishing the paint on his leg, the wood parts of the back piece, and the vines on the skull.

Druanti: Back

 Managed to get Druanti's back piece glued on today, and got the bottom part painted. Not pictured is his other leg, which will go on next. I have to get the skull painted first, though, so you can see I also started on that.

I like the colors, but am wishing they were a bit more saturated. I was imagining those colors being so saturated they almost glowed. I might tweak it some more.

What's that weird purple streak in the middle of the back? That's where his wings attached. It'll be in shadow, so that's the shadow.

Druanti: Leg, back piece

I got back to Druanti today. I was hoping to get far enough to glue the back piece in place. Didn't quite make it, sadly. I got highlights on his leg armor and started coloring the inside of the leaf mail skirt.

Here's the mail skirt interior. I also have a picture with it just friction fit against the rest of him, just to show what it will look like. I need to do some shading and highlighting on it first, though.

It took me a few tries to get a set of colors I liked. At first I had some green at the top, but decided that wasn't working, so shifted everything to just yellow, orange, and red. Then I fought with which yellows and oranges to use, as the first ones I'd picked out where frustratingly transparent. I also tried both putting the different colors just in bands across, then picking out specific leaves, before finally getting to a look I was happy with. So, there was a lot of experimentation before I finally settled on something. I like it, though. I think it'll work out. 

Oh, I also painted the base while I was waiting for paint on the other pieces to dry. 

Adriana: Jacket

 Continuing on with Adri's jacket today. I'm texturing it, and did all of that section on her right - shadows and highlights. The shadow areas were initially too much, so I knocked them back fairly aggressively, and now I'm not sure if I pulled it back too much. 

Druanti: Hair, Helmet, Weapon

 Still bummed about Adri's jacket, so I went back to the Dryad today. I actually looked up his name and remembered it, and it's 'Druanti', so I'll use that from now on. When I remember. 

Anyway, I'm finishing up everything on the main part of the figure so I can glue the next bit on. Today that meant working on his hair, helmet, and spear. The official color scheme has his helmet in basically the same color as his body. I didn't want to do that. I was debating what I could use that would go with the rest, and I went with purple.

I'm really happy with the helmet, less so with the blade. I'd originally wanted to keep it all light colored, to try to keep the sort of ghostly, ephemeral look the studio model has. I don't think I got that, but since I like what I did get, I'm not too unhappy about it.

Next will be highlights on the leg, and then switching to priming and painting the parts of the next piece to get attached that I won't be able to do once it is attached.

Adriana: Shirt, Jacket

 So I might be done with her shirt. I looked at it today and decided I didn't really want to go darker in the shadows. I fought with the highlights some, particularly on her shoulder, to get placement that I thought looked OK.  They looked lighter when I was working on them than they do in the pictures. I'll have to wait and see what I think of it next time I work on her.

I moved on to her jacket. I decided to go with a sheepskin kind of look, even though I had originally wanted to stay away from more browns. Looking at it in the pictures, I'm not sure if I love the color or not, though when I was working on it I thought it was OK.

There is definitely bad news, though. As I started on the jacket I realized that I've been rubbing off bits of primer from along the bottom of the figure this whole time. Spots that are bare of primer were easily fixed, but the bigger issue is it led to little chunks of primer getting all over the surface of the jacket. I tried brushing then off and lifting them off with a sharp knife, but it was generally making things worse. I had planned to try giving the jacket some suede texture anyway, so hopefully that will help disguise the uneven surface. Either way, by some standards the figure is ruined because of that - for instance, it wouldn't be something to enter in competition. 

So I'll finish her out, but probably more quickly and with a little less care than I otherwise would. Sigh. Frustrating.

Adriana: Hair Highlights, Shirt Shadows

I finished smoothing the highlights I added last night, and then added a last round. I tried something different with the highest highlights this time, just adding in little dashes of the last highlight color. I'm not sure if I like it or not. There's also some spots where I could probably smooth more/better. I'm not sure if I'm going to fuss with it more or not.

After that, I started shading her shirt. Still a lot of work to do there.I'm not sure I'm happy with all the shadow placement yet, and there's some blending that needs to happen, I think. Still, it's a start.

Adriana: Hair Highlights

Did another round of highlights on Adriana's hair. I got it about 2/3 smoothed in, but I still have some more work to do. There's going to be at least one more round of highlights, and then maybe a dark brown glaze. I'm hoping between those two things it'll help differentiate her hair from her skin. Right now the colors are a bit more same-y than I'd like.