First beard(s) highlight pass sketched in.
Right. Let’s get started on that hair then. All of which is entirely composed of additional beards.
In contrast, the first ‘real’ (fake) highlight placement.
Tiny eye dots, tiny teef dots, and a patchy first couple of base layers for the skin, over black. The fool’s not even using a zenithal.
Okay. Now hear me out. Have I abandoned yet another 80%* complete mini because every part of my flesh and skin and soul rebels at the thought of ever even looking at it again? Yes. Technically, yes.
But! I’ve now picked up a vastly larger, more fine-detailed display figure that will need exponentially more patience and skill and time to complete. I see this as a clear win.
*~40-80%
Did I choose a sane, easily-accessible area in which to attempt the obligatory checkerboard pattern? No.
But will I at least finally learn from this experience? Also no.
First ‘contrast’ pass, what do we reckon? Better? Worse? Legally indistinguishable?
I think one of my problems is that I’ve pushed the skin so bright in the highlight (no regrets).
Two painting sessions in a single day, purely to appease @erikcats ‘s relentless whip-cracking! My knees won’t last. My ‘painting knees’*
I have though, quite literally, turned a corner.
*What?
At some point I’m going to have to actually paint the front of this thing…
A few more tippy-taps at lunch and I think we’ve veered into Accidental Hulk territory.
Absurdly small forward steps, but this is now a full-on hobby streak: two consecutive human calendar days of tiny, tentative brush-pokery.
Trying to bring back a little saturation while keeping the contrast by applying yellow and purple glazes.
It is, of course, essential to choose the mini with the greatest number of back lumps when practicing skin.
Okay HobbyPals, let’s see if I can top last year’s record of one (1) completed mini. I’m semi-confident I may be able to match that same pace again in 2026 if the knees hold out.
Not a great start tbf - even with my red-green deficiency I can tell that the yellow-red and black-purple here are nails-on-blackboard clashing. Maybe I can do an oil filter when I see how bad the rest of my colour choices turn out to be?
So while my yellows were mainly just reds, it turns out my reds need a suspicious amount of yellow and blue.
My genuine colourblindness cannot possibly be at fault.
Starts to read a little better with a strong highlight placed and a little bit of secondary colour replacing the surrounding primer.
Looking significantly less yellow the more yellow is attempted. Lo, such is the path of yellow.
Remember everyone—if anyone asks, this is definitely yellow. Not ‘mainly reds’. Ignore the wet palette.
Infinitesimal onward progress. The accidental boop of white paint on the forehead is making me think I may as well give skin mottling a try. Happy little accidents etc.
Speaking of ‘yellow’ (so-called), let’s see if we can work out how to invoke that imposter again… (🥰 to @andrewroycroft for the beautiful birthday gift of a light box!)
A quick blast of Ultra Matte seems to fix the mask layers well enough to paint over (h/t @Thebratdragon). It definitely leaves some unintentional texture at the boundaries but… it’s an Ork. It’s 90% unintentional texture. As long as the face detail isn’t obscured it’ll probably be grand.