Mary: Belt, Jewelry

Put some texture in the highlights on the belt, finished up the buckles, and started the base coat on the jewelry that is going to be gold.

The jewelry needs another coat or two to finish out the base coat, but I'm still hoping to finish it next session. The band on her right arm, I'm thinking I'll make red like the bodice and bandana. The other straps on her wrist I'm thinking I'll do in the leather color of the belt.

Mary: Belt

Shading and highlights on the belt.

I tried putting some texture on the belt and was a bit stymied in that effort. I think the thing that was giving me trouble was the ridges on either side of the belt, which are things belts do not really have, certainly not to that depth. I was trying to put cracks in the leather along the edges like I have on other figures. It didn't carry on just the edges; too narrow, I think. So I tried taking it a little farther in, but that didn't look quite right either. So I went with doing the texture across the whole width, but just in a couple areas that would be particularly worn, like where the buckle sits.

Still, I think the highlight areas with the texture look better that those without, so I may add it to other highlight spots. It'd probably be better to have it over the whole belt than just part of it, but I think this is all it's going to get.

Mary: Bodice, Belt

Finished the straps on her bodice by adding some highlighting, and then went on to the base coat of the belt across her shoulder.

I initially tried doing the buckles and loops on the bodice as silver, but it didn't stand out enough against the highlighting on the straps. I switched them to gold to get some hue contrast going in there. It helped.

For the belt, I wanted a cool brown, or at least not a warm one, to play off against the warm tones I've used for her skin, hair, and the bodice. I think it'll work. After the belt, what's going to be left is the details - her various jewelry bits and so on. I expect that to take...well, longer than you might think. So maybe next weekend she'll be done.

I also started working on this guy:

This is from by box of pre-primed minis, and has some issues with poor clean-up and fuzzy primer. It's okay. I'm painting him because I want something that's going to be simple and fast and not require a lot of thinking and working to make it super awesome. He's got very little detail, so he should fit the bill nicely. Once I'm done with what skin he has showing, I'll do the tunic next.

I could swear that I've painted this guy before but I can't find the painted one, so...apparently not.

The name of this figure in the store is 'Kneeling Assassin'. I suppose it makes sense that he doesn't have a name; you don't exactly walk up to the guy you are trying to stab and say 'Hi, I'm Gerry, and I'll be assassinating you today'. Anyway, expect to see more of Gerry the Assassin in the next few days.

Mary: Bodice, Bandana, Part 3

Continued on with Mary's bandana and bodice today. I added highlights to both, and base coated the straps on the bodice.

The bandana is done. The bodice still needs work on the straps; they need highlights if not also shadows. I may not do much for shadows because they are already awfully dark. Also, I need to decide what to do on the scroll work on the bodice. At the moment I'm thinking about just ignoring it. From a distance, the pattern hardly shows. It will be difficult to follow because it's not that deeply sculpted in the first place, so I'm concerned about making a mess of it.

Also, I kinda just don't feel like doing it.

The color I used on the straps is a new one from ReaperCon called Black Indigo. It's another super dark purple, with a little more purple to it that Nightshade Purple. So far, I like it!

Mary: Bodice, Bandana

More shading. Went darker and into purple. Realized that if I'm going to do purple for the pattern on the bodice, I shouldn't have used it for a shadow color, so I will have to reconsider that. Also, one of my purples is going chalky. I think it's just because it's an older paint. Still, inconvenient. I think
I lost most of my first round of shadow, but I may be OK with that.

Mary: Bodice, Bandana

I started shading the red cloth today. There's not much of a visible difference, but this is only the first round of shadow color. I'm going to do at least one more round of shadow, and then move on to highlights. I'm also thinking about what to do with the sculpted pattern on her bodice. I might go with purple for that.

ReaperCon! And, Mary's Hair.

ReaperCon was last weekend. I taught four classes (Freehand for the 2D Challenged, Intro to OSL (twice), and Survey of NMM and TMM), and they all seemed to go well. I also ran an RPG and was one of the judges for the MSP Open painting competition. Busy weekend!

I came away with these medals:

That's a gold for the Hasslefree Lenore and a bronze for Charlie there. Not too shabby!

I also got a bronze Sophie for another piece I brought. It was a figure of a dwarf I painted for Reaper, so sadly I don't have it to show here. Here's the Sophie, anyway:

This is my second bronze Sophie. The first I won for a piece I worked very, very hard on and struggled with for weeks. This one I got for a piece that I worked to do a good job on, but did not put anywhere near the same level of time and effort into as the first one. I suppose that's a form of improvement - I can now paint something to a similar level of quality as that first Sophie winner from a few years ago in much less time and with much less of a struggle.

In the couple days leading up to ReaperCon and while I was there, I worked on Mary's hair. I decided to see if I could make her look bleach blonde, and if that would work on a figure. So I got a reference photo off of Google and tried to match it, and this is what I have:

It matches the reference photo pretty well and I think it does work for this figure, but probably wouldn't on a smaller scale. The hair is still a bit rough in a couple spots, but I want to get Mary here finished up so I can move on to the next thing, so I may futz with the hair a bit more, but probably not much (and maybe not at all).