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).
More detail, both dark and bright, and secondary reflections have been added to the shell casings and the gun barrel. Still, the only thing you really notice in the shot is GREEEN.
Perhaps, this is how it should be.
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.
Well, chalk that one up to experience. I’d finally picked up the paints again after months only to ‘ruin’ (slightly mar, to the point of minor but strongly-held annoyance) a mini while experimenting with masking fluid.
It’s barely visible in the image but there are small patches where it’s either inaccessible to get at and peel, or where it’s adhered in a crevice and stuck. I don’t want overpaint or I’m sure it’ll flake off at an inconvenient time later.
A little bit of a clean-up on the blade, and a first attempt at the dreaded eye lenses. At the most, absolute maximum, only 80% cross-eyed?
It has been weeks since I did any actual painting. I’m really not sure this effect on the pointy bit’s working, or even in keeping with the rest of the model, but it is ultimately more acrylic-on-plastic so I’m calling it a win!
Starting to add some secondary colours now that Tyrion-paralysis has ended.
Sketching in the light placement for Fancy Lad’s eventual Fancy Backside. Very rough sketch. (Please only squint while viewing 😅)
Head, shoulder, knee and toes (knee and toes). It may be a royal pain trying to colour-match freehand mistakes on a stippled shoulder gradient, but here we are. It’s all just a mix of the same two paints. How bad could it get 😬