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 Finished up Drusil today. I admit to phoning it in on the little dragon. 

I also got some work in on the tower today. At this point, the building is finished. Next will be painting.

And another picture, with a Dark Sword figure for scale.

Drusil: Metal, jewelry, globe, etc.

I worked on the various details on Drusil today - the globe, the jewelry and other bits, and the little dragon. I need to finish the little dragon, and then I think she'll be done.

Drusil: Highlights, Bits

 Finished the highlights on Drusil's robe, and got a base coat of metallic gold on her belt and whatever those things on her shoulders are supposed to be.

She's actually pretty close to done. It's not going to be my best piece ever.

Drusil: More Highlights

 I've continued adding highlights to Drusil's robe tonight. I finished one of the sleeves, and then started on the other half of the front. It's going pretty quickly, actually. The more highlights I get on there, the more I like it.

Drusil: Highlights

 I have reached the part of this figure where I'm thinking 'Why, oh why, did I choose red?'. Red, the least cooperative of hues. Anyway, I've got highlights on half of the front of her robe. They don't show up great in the picture but are much more apparent live. I'm not sure I'm going to go any higher with the highlights.

Tower: Roof. Drusil: Shading

I got back to Drusil today, and shaded her gown. I don't have a lot to say about it; I'm reasonably satisfied with the progress.

I also worked more on the tower. Got the roof finished, and added the 'handle' to the bottom of the clock portion.

It is surely flawed, and I might make another just to see if I can improve on some of the mistakes I made. 

Here it the top with the tab that sits in the stone portion of the tower.

Tower: More Roof

 I continued working on the tower's roof. First was putting on some cardboard sheathing to glue the shingles to. I wasn't worried about getting the cardboard to all line up real nice, as it's going to be covered anyway. Even so, there are issues.

I still don't love the height and slope of the roof, but I'm sticking with it. I found that once I had the sheathing on the roof frame, it didn't fit as nice on the top anymore. The sheathing is at such an angle that it gets in the way. of the frame sitting on the top edge of the building. I fixed this by setting the roof in place as straight and even as I could, and then jamming a bunch of hot glue under the edge to hold it in place.

I ended up not putting fake rafters under the edge for the same reason; there's not really enough space under there. But then I moved on the shingles, which I made by cutting s strip off of a cereal box and then cutting in slits to form the shingles. It's a little off in that the 'shingles' are not evenly sized, so they don't all line up the way they should. I need to trim down the edges when the glue has completely dried, and then I can move on to the other sides. I use tacky glue, which is why I have to wait. I might try hot glue for the next set so that I don't have to wait for one side to dry before continuing on to the next, but I don't like how much volume hot glue adds.

I also noticed another issue with the texture on the second set of side - it's got a lot of bubbles. Definitely need to be careful with the mix next time I try to use it for this purpose.

Tower: Roof

 I didn't feel up to working on anything that I wanted to do well with today, so I went back to the clock tower and experimented with how to deal with the roof. I learned an important question: Do Not Do It This Way.

So the pyramid part of the frame went fine. It was putting in the little 'rafters' that was a problem. Getting them to fit right, be at a consistent length on the bottom, hold them in place while dealing with the glue...it was a mess. All that just because I want the ends to show on the underside of the roof. 

So I think what I'm going to do it snip those rafters off, clad the thing with cardboard, and then stick just the end parts of the rafters underneath. They'll just be decorations, not structural as they would be in a real building, but...it's not a real building. 

The roof slope is also maybe steeper than I'd like, but I don't think I'm going to change it.

Drusil: Hand, Nails

Today I painted Drusil's other hand to completion, and then decided to go back and put some color on her finger and toe nails.

Drusil: Arm. Tower: Texture.

 I shaded Drusil's arm as much as I needed to in order to glue it in place. Turns out it wasn't much at all. It's really just the spot where her sleeve hits the robe that's the issue. The rest I can paint with her arm in place. 

I'm glad she's looking a little less lop-sided now.

I'll probably paint her other hand and then go back to the robe.

I also put some texture on the clock tower. This ended up being a little disappointing. One of the sides I did last night, and it looked great. The rest I did this afternoon, but I mixed my paste to a different consistency, and it didn't go on the same, or as nicely. Very disappointing, but now I know.

Tower: Clock Faces

 Today I worked on the clock tower. This is the top part of the building, with the clock faces and beams in place. Next will be to get some texture on the stucco parts, and then decide how to do the roof.

Drusil: Shading Robe

Today I started shading Drusil's robe, on the side where her other arm will attach. I think I'm going to need to decide what to do with the scalloped edge as well, so I can do that part before attaching the other arm. 

I'm starting to think about going over that red with a more saturated color - definitely second guessing some of my creative choices here. 

Drusil: Metal Highlights, Robe Basing. Tower.

 I got highlights onto the metal bits on Drusil today, cleaned it up a bit more, was still not entirely pleased with it, but decided to move on. Perhaps once more of it is done, I'll have a better sense for what else, if anything I want to do with the metal.

I got a full base coat on to her robe. I have to start thinking about when to attach her other arm. I think I'll probably shade and highlight the area under it, then prime and paint up the underside of the arm, then finish the rest of the robe.

This is not going to be a figure that photographs well. The red is more saturated in person, and the metals have more shine.

Yesterday I was working on my clock tower. I finished applying bricks to the central form, and then put some paste I have over them to fill in the gaps between and look like grout/caulk. Then I cut the top of the central form off, built the top chunk out of the building out of foam core and hot glue, and started adding the wooden framing on the outside.

Here it is with all the bricks.

And here's the top part of the building laid in place. It's not attached yet. I'll talk later about how I'm going to attach it. 

The wider 'boards' around the outside edge of the building are glued in place. The smaller inner boards are not yet glued; I've been playing with layouts to see what will look good. I think I'm going to go with what I've got there. The clock will go in the square in the middle.

Drusil: Shading Metal

 I have found the part of this figure that is going to vex me, and it is the metal.

I had to go over the gold with a different gold - the original kept drying funny, looking chalky and not as reflective as I should. I think this other gold was doing it as well, just less. Good enough, I moved on.

So then I started shading it. I've put down one round of shading, and then cleaned up a bunch of edging. It's still kind of a mess. I might need another round of shadow, but I might not. We'll see next time.

Clock Tower

 I've started another building project. I'm making a clock tower. The bottom will be stone, the top wood and plaster. I started by cutting a bunch of bricks out of foam.

Even with the rig, I had a really hard time getting the bricks to be a consistent size. Getting a constant thickness was the hardest bit, and not having a constant thickness is the biggest flaw as I build the tower.

I made a central frame out of foam core; this is to give me something solid and square to attach the bricks to. Without it, the tower would end up an inch narrower at the top with a 20 degree lean.

Straight lines and square corners are not things that come naturally to me.

Anyway, once I had the bricks cut, I knocked off the sharp edges by tumbling them with some rocks. I think I need more rocks to make that work better.

Then I started gluing them on to the central frame.

That's maybe half way done, maybe two thirds. I'll build the brick up father, then start on the top part where the clock face will live.

Drusil: Hair, Shiny Bits

 Got highlights on Drusil's hair today. I hate doing hair. 

I also base coated the greaves and her armored bikini. I wonder about her clothing choices...I mean, I'd have wanted an armored gauntlet under that dragon, too. 

I'm not in love with the gold, now that it's on there. I'm debating between sticking with it and seeing if it's better when the shading and highlighting is in place, or switching to make those pieces maybe black or dark purple with gold highlights instead. I also was having a problem where the gold would go on nice and rich and saturated, and then when it dried it would get chalky. I'm not sure what the deal is there. I've used this paint before - even on this figure - and did not have that problem. I'll probably try going over it again next time, making sure to shake it well beforehand.