Banshee Anonymous bust

Anonymous bust by Banshee

The Anonymous bust done by Banshee (Alfonso Giraldes) was the first bust that I purchased over a year ago.  It’s been sitting in the draw waiting for me to get brave enough to try it.  I found the expanse of flesh (and nothing but flesh) quite intimidating.  I decided to start it about five weeks ago and it just sat on the desk.  Proverbial mental roadblock.  I just couldn’t find a way to start it and didn’t want to do it badly.  So it sat unpainted.

Finally this weekend I just dived in.  I used a number 2 flat brush to just get the paint on quickly and to sketch out the rough shadows and highlights.  I found that using the flat brush really enjoyable as it had quite a good point (chisel tip?) and I could use it to do some fine lines as well.  In the end I had to stop as I was doing wet on wet (on wet) and paint was lifting off and leaving bare patches.  The end result was pretty rough and rather orange but I had started.

On the next session I pretty much repainted most of the figure and started getting the colours right and trying to get the blend areas smoother.  I’m keeping the paint very thin for the most part, trying to build up layers to give the skin some depth.  I did the eyes as not having them done was throwing me off.  I think they may be a bit bright however.

On the left side of the face the check groves ended up becoming three scars.  They aren’t really sculpted that way but I used some darker colour to suggest the scars.  I then got the idea to continue that theme and made the left side of the head scarred/burnt as well.  I’m alternating the colour areas by using dark red/purple for the damaged flesh areas and the skin highlight colour for the scar area.  So far lots of glazes used to give some depth.  Unfortunately I’ve made a pattern and need to break that up so it looks more random.  The brain just loves uniformity.

The hair I went for a ginger/orange.  So far it seems to be working, but I have to be careful that the highlights don’t go pink and stay orange/yellow.

So much mixing

Before I started it did a couple of test mixes to try and get the flesh colour sorted using Jo Sonja paints.  I’m really liking just working with basic colours and doing mixes.  Rather than make up a pot of flesh colour (like I did for the Cimmerian King figure) I deliberately didn’t.  This forces me to mix every time and get the mixes consistent.  Hard to do but it’s the only way I’m going to get better at mixing.  I find my flesh mixes always get a bit yellow as I don’t add enough white to begin with.  However I also found that a dot of purple in the mix helps a great deal in neutralising the yellow.  The colours I’m using are

Jo Sonja
Raw Sienna
Burnt Sienna - more red than brown I find
White
Light Yellow

Cadmium Scarlet

Napthol Crimson

VMC Violet Red
VMC Dark sea blue

The basic flesh mix is raw sienna, light yellow, white and spots of orange, red and the violet red.  The highlights are more white and yellow and orange, the shades more violet red, burnt sienna and red.

 My custom Jo Sonja paint holder :)

Going forward I need the scars to more pronounced and the base of the neck and back need work.  I’m really happy with the cropped hair fuzz on the right side of the figure.  I think the forehead may be a bit yellow.  I’m wondering if the green of the cutting mat I have in my painting area is throwing me off slightly.

Finally keeping with tradition I did another Dungeon Saga Troll.  One to go.