Amy Johnson bust part 2

So this week was all about Amy.  I first redid her eyes.  I had tried for a hazel (ish) colour and that hadn’t worked out.  So I repainted them in a light blue (old Citadel Lothern Blue).  However I kept missing on the left eye and messing it up.  The resulted in a very lumpy looking eye.  In the end I scraped off the paint back to the resin and started from scratch.  That worked a bit better.  Still not as good as the other eye which I just fluked.

New eyes

For her flesh colour I’m trying a mix of

* VMC Violet Red
* VMC Beige Red
* VMC Flat Red
* VMC Light flesh (the main base colour)
* VMC Light Yellow
* VGC Dead White

Lots of glazes, lots of layers.  Seems to be working out so far, but she may still be a bit too pink.  I’m leaving the face for awhile now until the rest of the figure is done so I can tone her face in with the rest.  Keeping the glazes very diluted and trying not to rush and make any colour steps that are too much.

Fur collor

For the fur collar I wanted a dark brown.  This will also make the much lighter face pop some more.  My colours for this were

* VMC German Black/brown - base
* VMC Leather Brown - base
* VMC German Pale Brown - highlight
* VMC Brown Sand - highlight
* VGC Dead White - highlight
* VMC Dark Sea Blue - shadow
* AP Black - shadow

The base colour was a mix of 2/3 German Black brown, 1/3 Leather Brown. Rather than painting totally over the highlight areas instead I selectively highlighted on the tops of the fur ridges multiple times.  This layering gives extra bulk and texture I find.  The shadows were more of glazes under the folds with the most extreme highlights on the tops of the folds.  Also around the face area at the front of the fur I took the highlights to the highest to be closer to the lightness of the face and also to draw the eye more to the face.

Leather jacket trial on the right

Lastly I started doing some trials on the leather jacket.  I think for this scale I need to have some real sheen to the leather.  So I’m experimenting with my old Citadel Inks (Brown, Black, Violet - in the hexagon bottles).  These haven’t seen daylight for a number of years but are still usable.  The ink dries very glossy to satin.  On a test figure I did some experiments and am starting to get the look I’m after.  I found trying to highlight after the base coat doesn’t work so well.  Instead I found pre highlighting the figure and then applying the inks worked better.  The highlights are better and smoother.  Again pre-shading working well.

So on the real figure I’ll start with a very light base coat, highlight it up to near white as appropriate and then start the ink washes.  The violet ink also worked quite well in the shadows.  All the inks are being applied diluted as straight out of the bottle they are way too intense and glossy.