Auberon Finally Starts Painting One of His Garage Kits

[Auberon]

Sometime last year I showed off a garage kit that I picked up.  It has been gathering dust since, but recently I did a little more prep work on it and primed the head.  Now I know a lot of times you'll see these kits given a sold coat of paint and not much else, but I've decided to approach it much like a smaller scale figure. 

 

First, some skin.  I just blocked things in and then did a little smoothing on the upper right.

 

 

I"m not too worried about the sides of her face because once she has the rest of her hair it won't really be visible.  Still, while it's off I'll go ahead and give myself some practice working at this scale.

 

 

Then tonight I spent more time fighting my wet pallet than actually painting.  The consistency got off and now I need to go back a fix some blends.  In the meantime I used my well pallet and blocked in her eyes.  Next paint session I'll clean them up and decide what direction she's looking.

 

[Clearman]

Awesome.  Following with much interest. This is something that I would like to try eventually.  I have a couple ships and mechs, but really want to do models like this. 

[Glitterwolf]

Cool!

[Clearman]

Also, would you mention the manufacturer.

[Auberon]

The manufacturer is actually kind of tricky.  I picked this up during one of e2046's sales as "Evil Fox", but this kit is pretty obviously a recast.  Some searching led me to a site Resin-kit dot com where they had a "Dark Fox" for sale.  The good news is that the kit is appropriately priced and the cast appears to be correct.  The bad news is that I've dropped by a few times and it is always listed as out of stock, inquire about pre-order.  Which is to say, the time between order and arrival could be long.  I also have no idea about the actual quality of their cast, just that the pictures look right.

 

[Note, this is not a thread for discussing recasting. Such threads already exist elsewhere.]

[Auberon]

I spent a very short session today to work on the eyes.  Before I worry about details like white dots though, I want to make sure I haven't made her cross-eyed or something. The eyes appear to be looking is slightly different directions, but I believe that is due to one iris being slightly smaller than the other.  Anime says make the slightly smaller iris larger.    I'm getting hungry though, so any more painting will have to wait until after food.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Clearman]

It's had to tell in picture #1 and #3, but in the center pic, her left eye appears to be rotated more to the outside.

[Auberon]

1 hour ago, Clearman said:

It's had to tell in picture #1 and #3, but in the center pic, her left eye appears to be rotated more to the outside.

 

Yes.  The white area is larger because the blue circle is smaller, making it appear as if the eyes are different.  I made the smaller iris larger and decreased the white space, thus making it look less rotated.  I didn't touch the other eye and no matter how unforgiving the camera is, any difference is now nearly impossible to see in hand.

 

 

At any rate, I have some cleaning up to do around the eyes. 

 

[Clearman]

Yep. Much better.

[Auberon]

A little more painting, this time smoothing out some of the transitions.  Not done yet, but better. Stopping to take pictures let you find all of the mistakes.   My light source is not at high-noon zenith, but actually over her left shoulder.  This lets my paint one side of the face in heavier shadows than the other.  Will it work well at this scale?  One way to find out.

 

Also, that hair is definitely in the way. Getting at the neck or jawline is a PITA.

 

 

All for tonight.

 

[Auberon]

It's often said that when painting large miniatures, you should finish an area so you can get that feeling of completing something and keep you motivated.  While this is true, I also find nothing takes away the motivation quite like making a mistake and getting paint on your finished area.  As such, my finished area is simply "the head" rather than her face so I plan to block in her hair before I finish the face.  Much less chance of an accident once that is done.

 

Now I had two ideas for her hair.  One was to make her a foxy redhead.  The other was to go with a natural dark Asian look.  As we all know how paints cover, we'll see how the redhead idea looks first.  If it comes off odd it'll be easy enough to go darker.  Mostly this is just a first coat, but I decided to use one part of her hair as the full test spot.  That has a darker wash to start the process, but no placed shadows or highlights yet.

 

[Gargs]

Excellent work here, will follow with much interest!

[Clearman]

Have you tried using a sealer on the "finished" areas.  Makes it easier to wipe away the accidents.

[Auberon]

The way her hair is styled is a bit different than what you tend to run into when you are out and about.  At least around here women don't twirl their hair into horns that are capable of not only supporting their own weight but that of a pointy metal end cap.  So instead of giving her a natural highlight where the light diffuses to both sides of the area of highest reflection, I decided to go with a NMM style of highlighting.  After all, it's apparently special super strong hair. The side I was using as my test piece has been blocked in though not blended.  I think foxy works well enough that I'll continue for the rest of her hair and then come back fix the blending, restore some shadows, and move a few highlights around.

 

 

6 minutes ago, Clearman said:

Have you tried using a sealer on the "finished" areas.  Makes it easier to wipe away the accidents.

 

While that is something that I will do for gaming pieces that will be sealed in the end, pretty much all sealers cause some degree of visual shift in the paint.  As such a lot of "display" pieces that you see are not actually sealed.  I've seen some cases where a mini has been selectively sealed in order to give a sense of certain areas are different than others, such as glossing the eyes because eyes are moist but not sealing the skin.  At any rate, given her final destination is a shelf rather than on the table, I don't have any plans to seal her after painting.

[Auberon]

And some work on the other side. Next is the separate piece, though I'm not sure if it would look best in the same style or if it should be highlighted like normal hair.  Fortunately these paints have decent coverage so it won't be too hard to alter the look if it doesn't fit.