Drusil: Skin

 I spent some time working on a commission today, but got some time in on Drusil afterward. I got a base coat on her skin, decided part way through that I needed to putty one of the seams by her front leg, did that, and then finished the base coat. There's a couple other places where that leg joins that I'm debating if I should putty or not. I think I can get away with leaving them, but there are a couple of wacky angles where it is possible to see the separation between the pieces, and a bit of primer deep in there that I can't get to. But...to see it, you have to pick it up and look at it from just the right angle.

Drusil, Phone Booth

 I have been working on things in dribs and drabs, but have been slacking on blog updates. In some cases, I didn't think to get work-in-progress shots like I should have. So, consider this sort of a sum-up of the last week of activity.

For starters, Drusil. She goes on the base I was working on lately. I put her partly together, primed her, then shaded parts that would be unreachable once I had more parts glued on. It'll make more sense after you see the pictures, so here they are:

So. I glued her arm on. Her front leg is also a separate piece, but I knew I was going to have to paint the stuff behind it before I attached it, and also determined I'd have to get her leg on before I could attach her to the base. Otherwise, I'd run the risk of not gluing her to the base correctly, so that the front leg wouldn't line up with its spot on the base.

So I primed her, and then painted the area that would be behind her leg. I made a mistake here - I should have just primed the area I was going to work on instead of the whole thing. As it is, I got some rub-off of the primer in a couple spots. I'm hoping I can fix it; I'd really rather not have little bumps from primer chunks on her like I did on the Adriana bust. You'd think I'd learn. :p

I ended up painting the area behind her leg fairly roughly, as it's not super visible. The parts that are more visible, around the edges of that area, I can clean up later. With that painted, I glued on her leg and then attached her to the base.

I kind of want to make her dress sheer. Not sure I'm going to do it.

I also worked on building a phone booth:

This was my reference photo:

The proportions are different in that I made mine wider. That was on purpose, I wanted the option of being able to fit a mini on a 30mm base in there, if I made an open one to go with it. 

This is the one where I should have gotten in-progress pictures so I could describe the process. I'm going to make another one soon, as there's definitely room for improvement. I'll try to remember to get in progress shots of that one. Short version: there's a wooden frame on the inside that I glued all the plasticard to. It provides support, rigidity, and some weight, as I used some hardwood scraps I got from my husband.

16!

 Finished up Frigge today. Amazingly, the feathers stayed put.

Frigge: Dress, Gluing Bits. Base.

 I finished off Frigge's dress, and then glued on the remaining bits.

She also comes with feathers that are supposed to go along the bottom edge of the shield, but I think they look kinda weird so I'm not going to use them. I also have doubts about how sturdy the feathers on her head will be. I give it a 50/50 chance that at least one of them comes off while I'm painting them. 

Either way, I'm hopeful that I'll be able to finish her tomorrow.

Since once I glued those things on I couldn't work on her anymore today, I got back to the base:

The nice thing about painting things like stone is that if you do something and you're not happy with it, you can just keep futzing. I first did a wash of off-black, blue, and purple, but I wasn't loving where it was going. So I came back with desaturated green and blue, and a darker brown, and then a couple lighter greys, and stippled those colors all over the place. I was a lot happier with that. Then I hit it with a wash again to kind of make all the stippling look more like part of the rock rather than just sitting on the surface. Then, I painted a dark color in the sculpted cracks and corners. I was so happy with the cracks that I painted on a few extra. Then I went back to the light gray to pick out the edges, line the edges of the cracks, and highlight the sculpted bits on the front of each step. They don't show up well in the pictures, but look better live. I might put some dark around them to make them show up better.

I think I'm pretty content with it, but I'm going to wait and see what I think tomorrow before actually gluing it to the plinth.

Frigge: Dress. New Project: Base

 Shading and highlights on Frigge's dress. Also did the leather straps. Once I do the beaded sections, I'll look at putting her shield and other remaining bits that aren't attached in place. I'm happier with the dress now than I was when I started working on it earlier tonight. It definitely went through an ugly phase, and is better now than it was. Still, this is never going to be one of my best. 

I've also started putting together my next project. It's a 75mm figure of some kind of sorceress person. I've washed it, cleaned up a bunch, and started gluing her together. I've got to do some puttying and more gluing. I've also decided to use her built in base. I'm starting on that, because I think what I want to do is get the built-in base attached to a display platform, and then start attaching her to the base, piece by piece. I think this'll give me something to hold on working on her, but also let me build up the pieces as I go as I have to to be able to paint everything as easily as possible. That'll make more sense once I start posting pictures of the figure.

Anyway, so here's her base with just the base coat on. Next I'll be finishing the stone steps, and once they are all painted, I'll attach it to the black plinth. Right now it's just sitting on there.

Normally I paint a figure, then do the base afterward. Part of that is just habit, but one of the things it lets me do it add some of the colors on the figure into the base. Since I'm starting with the base here, I'll have to either decide on my palette now, keep the steps very neutral, or plan on adding in colors from the figure later, very carefully. Probably I'll end up adding in colors later, as I haven't the slightest idea how I'm going to paint the figure.

Frigge: Leather, Dress

 Got highlights on Frigge's boots and sleeve. Then I debated for a long time about what to do with her dress. That's part of the reason it's taken me so long to get back to her, I had no idea what colors I wanted. I have been kind of giving the different factions in here similar coloring, so I kinda wanted to stick to that. It wasn't any help, though, as the other figure from this faction was just in leather, and I didn't want to give her an all leather outfit. I went through a couple options and settled on this light blue, which I think I like pretty well with the rest of her colors.

Her outfit is weird. The plates over the arm seem like they should be on a leather sleeve. So, I thought about switching the top of her dress to leather, but decided I still didn't want to do that. Some of those straps will be leather. The others are beaded, and they'll be darker blue and red. That'll match with the other character.

Frigge: Leather

 I had a little bit of time left after finishing some commission work today, so I got back to Frigge. All I did was start shadows on the leather bits, including her sandal that I had overlooked before.