Mermaid, Bust

 New projects! I started off another mermaid today. I wasn't feeling up to working on Ronso and wanted something simple, so...base coat!

I've also prepped a bust for painting, though I'm going to try to finish off Ronso before starting her.

Ronso: Mane & Body Highlights, Face, Armor

 I finished highlights on Ronso's mane, and then decided the body highlights needed to go higher and did that. Then I finished his eyes and mouth, and put a base coat on his armor and jewelry. I feel like he's coming together.

Sphiranx: Now Calling It 'Ronso'.

I started highlights on the Sphiranx's mane. I've also decided to start calling it Ronso, in honor of an internet cat. That's one round of highlights on the mane; I need to do another. I also painted the straps on his armor bits and painted his nose black. After I've finished the fur, I'm probably going to do the armor, because having it unpainted is bugging be more than his horns/braids.

I spent the night before last trying out some ProAcryl paints I just bought. Here's the test figure:

That's probably as far as I'm going to take the figure. I learned what I wanted to about the paint. It was perfectly serviceable paint. Flows nice, pretty highly pigmented in that I had to add a LOT of water to do any kind of glazing. That may have been exacerbated by how the bottles work - they're very stiff, so I had to work hard to get paint to come out, and so ended up getting more paint out that I usually would. The major downside is that a couple of the paints, particularly a light green, dried kinda glossy when the rest of them are pretty matte. The different sheen when they dry is a problem for me. Other than that, I found them to be just fine. I didn't love them immediately, but I wouldn't recommend against them, either. They're worth a try.

Lastly, here's the statues from a few weeks ago, with a bunch of verdigris applied. Apparently, with that stuff, moderation is not your friend. Some special effects you don't want to overdo. This one, apparently you are best off if you just go ahead and slap it everywhere. I came back with a clean, dry, stiff brush to rub it off places where I wanted the metal to show through but I'd put too much on.

Sphiranx: Mane

I got some shading in on the mane today. Also a bit of fur texture on his feet, but it wasn't doing it for me so I stopped that pretty quickly.

I also made some progress on the angel statues, but forgot to get pictures of them again. Next time.

Sphiranx: Body

I got back to the sphiranx today. I did the line highlights on the main body. So far, so good. I think next I'll go back and do the texture on the feet.

Side Tracked!

 I did paint last night and tonight, but I didn't feel up to working on something I was trying to do well with. So...scenery! These are some figures I 3D printed. The angels are going to be statues on a cathedral, and the other thing is a spike trap I'll use (maybe) in a gladiator minis game...Arena Rex, which is the game for the gladiator figures I painted a few of a while back.

Anyway, the statues:

I may have hit them a bit too hard with the gold on top. I also started a verdigris glaze on one, and waved off pretty quickly. Need to go back and fix that. Anyway, I have maybe a bit of tweaking to do on them, but they're essentially done.

Then, the spike trap:

I need to do the shading and highlighting yet, and the spikes themselves.

Sphiranx: Neck, Body

 Tonight I blended the mane with the rest of the body, and then started on shading and highlighting the main part of the body.

Looking at other painted versions of this figure, I saw people highlighting with painted on fur texture, and I liked that. So, that's what I'm doing here. It's just a start, but it's not taking that long. 

Sphiranx: Mane, Head

 Got the teal base on the sphiranx's head and mane/shoulders. Next will be blending it with the blue body. 

Sphiranx: Feet

 I've been working on his feet - shading and highlights. It's still hard to tell the purple (cool purple) of the feet from the blue (warm blue) of the body. Poor choices on my part, there. But I'm painting this guy just for grins and not worrying too much about the details, so I'm just going to move forward. That's also why some most of the blending isn't as smooth as it could be. Whatever, this piece is just to relax and get back into it. Oh, I also base coated the claws black because having them unpainted was bugging me.

Next will be added the base coat to the next body section and then blending it with the blue.

I'm back!

 Yes, it's been a very long time. Suffice it to say, I had some serious family issues come up suddenly. Things are just now getting back to normal enough for me to pick up a brush again.

I'll get back to the projects I had in progress, but I'm starting with some easy things that I don't need to put a lot of effort into, just to get my feet wet. So, here I am, a couple sessions in on a Mindstealer Sphiranx.