See [[Northern Wind]] for the final version. I'm still always bad at WIP and I'm not going to clean this up too much. It just has some notes I took while working on it, then a handful of images I took throughout with minimum commentary added when importing all my images here. ## WIP Notes - Began initial cleanup. Took about 45 min for just the few pieces. It is just as much removal if not more as e2046 kit and hard as well due to it being so small. For the price and size I would expect it to be a bit more ready to go out of the package. - I am finally starting to understand the technique Bruno Papa (Sideshow Technique) presents for red/blue/yellow on faces at a basic level. He does very thin coats that seem so thin to not do anything, but they really do build up and show. I'm still not sure and need practice on yellow and blue more for sure but - red: I think I got the technique right on the woman's head, messed up on the dead guys head. I had it very thin (like a thin wash) and wiped excess water off on towel first so much it seemed like nothing was left. Then I hit the lips for a few minutes. It didn't seem to be changing or do anything, but after a few minutes of it the lips do start to show color. I did the same on nose, cheeks, ears. It's very subtle but it really does work. In comparison, if you look at the dead guys head, I wasn't patient and tried the technique there too. But way less subtle and the colors show it for sure. It'll work out for this figure, but don't rush it. - blue: Bruno says it is very easy to mess up blue, and this is true. Doing about the same technique that worked for red seemed to be too much for blue and left unnatural looking shadows. I tried it in her ab creases or on back with muscles but it was still a little strong. - brown: I also tried brown for shadows but I didn't do it as thin and I also did not use a thin enough brush. **Use a very small brush to start!** My medium round purple brush was too big - should've used the smallest. I'm not sure if brown would've even been the right color for it, but a better brush would've helped. - Colors: - Hair - I started with two drops brown to one drop red which was pretty good. I may add a little extra red as I get into highlights and maybe a dry brush. - bone white on skulls, followed by a brown wash and some details with a thin black. - Tattoo Painting: - This is harder than I thought, but also not terrible. The hard part is getting the right amount of paint on the brush. I have a small enough brush, but if you get too little paint, it doesn't leave a mark (or if it does an uneven one). If you get too much, well, it's too much and probably hard to remove. - I tried first to use a pencil to draw it out first, but the pencil wasn't very good at marking up either. I had to push too hard to get it to show and it seemed to start to peel the paint where I tried to pencil. Maybe try with the gundam pencil next time (I used BIC) - Using glove as palette - Sideshow does this a lot so I thought I would try it. It worked pretty well. I primarily benefitted this time around when working with a paint that was coming out watery from the bottle. On the wet palette it got worse and I needed it thicker (was running in eyes). Added on glove and let it dry a bit and used from there. I also mixed a couple colors on glove no issue. Even if I don't use it a lot, wearing one glove for a painting session can make a lot of sense. - Dropped it at the end - Of course as I was adding final clear coat, I dropped the whole thing and it broke in 3. Luckily the breaks were in places I could glue it back together pretty easily (waist, right hand) with minimal notice or other fixes. Ultimately, I think I was trying to add clear coat while I wasn't 100% sure the pin at the bottom was fully cured, so I was trying to hold it between two fingers carefully and clear coat it all (trying not to touch wet parts). This was my mistake - I should've waited until I could be confident I could have a solid grip before clear coating, and if that means two rounds of clear coat while something dries better, so be it. - Also, I didn't pin the first time when attaching at the waist. This probably contributed to it breaking there. I pinned the second time. I need to make that the default because this has happened on multiple models. - Perhaps I should also get a soft standing mat where I airbrush, to soften drops. Also good for my feet. ## Videos My first video! No, I likely will not become a streamer, but for some reason I've wanted to try a document camera out to see if I get value from it so....here we go. [[Models - 2023-02-15-210314.mp4]] # Misc Images ![[IMG_20230215_211347.jpg]] Here I am trying the technique from Bruno Papa, although I later realized it's the same used by Sideshow Collectibles so maybe it's their technique. The base coat probably was too light. I used basic skin tone for it I believe. ![[IMG_20230208_205659.jpg]] ![[IMG_20221030_141836.jpg]] Applying the red I clearly went overboard initially, not as subtle as I should've been (needed to get more off the brush before going but I got impatient). Luckily, with this part of the figure I could pull it off regardless. ![[IMG_20221030_170435.jpg]] ![[IMG_20221030_170437.jpg]] After doing red/yellow/blue, I got into brown washes and kept working at it until something decent came about. ![[IMG_20230208_205725.jpg]] ![[IMG_20230208_205733.jpg]] ![[IMG_20230208_205736.jpg]] ![[IMG_20230213_200145.jpg]] ![[IMG_20230213_200147.jpg]] ![[IMG_20230213_200149.jpg]] Bust ![[IMG_20230208_205705.jpg]] ![[IMG_20230208_205716.jpg]] ![[IMG_20230213_200045.jpg]] ![[IMG_20230213_200049.jpg]] Below I think I started doing red more subtly on the lips and ears. This is where I started to figure it out and have a bit more patience. ![[IMG_20230213_200106.jpg]] ![[IMG_20230213_200118.jpg]] ![[IMG_20230213_200131.jpg]] ![[IMG_20230213_200157.jpg]] ![[IMG_20230213_200203.jpg]] ![[IMG_20230213_200206.jpg]] Hair. Wanted to go for some details by adding in highlights and shadows. ![[IMG_20230215_081830.jpg]] ![[IMG_20230215_081836.jpg]] ![[IMG_20230215_081850.jpg]] Just adding in some washes and marks on the skulls to dirty them up some. ![[IMG_20230215_081903.jpg]] ![[IMG_20230215_081907.jpg]] I don't know, there are a lot of these photos of this head. All starting to blend together. This looks like I started on the hair finally. ![[IMG_20230215_081918.jpg]] ![[IMG_20230215_081920.jpg]] ![[IMG_20230215_211338.jpg]]