6 replies to this topic

[Krolik1519]

This is my most ambitious project yet, I haven't been painting that long. Only a year or two. And this is the first time I had use green stuff to modify the mini.
So this started out as gift for a friend, now it is a very late gift for a friend but I had a lot of issues ordering the parts through freebooter which started it off being late. They sent me the wrong parts twice. Once was my fault (can't damn them for that) and the other was theirs, but they graciously sent me the correct parts free of charge. (As always the parts I ordered from Reaper had no issues.)

Anyway, the mini consists of the following sepearte pieces Body, Leg, Arms, Hands(which are from a different freebooter mini), Wings, Base (from the same mini as the hands). Later I will also be adding one of the Reaper cats to the base.

Now for some technical questions:
1. First off I use spray primer, and while it works great most of the time, sometimes it leaves bumps. Is there a way to prevent this?
2. The paint is looking really thick, either chalk it up the the primer or me being lazy and not watering down enough, is there a good way to fix it without stripping? (I would hate to green stuff it all again)
3. I drilled holes for the wings, hopefully I drilled deep enough. I play on adding green stuff to inside the holes to support it. Any advice on the wings would be helpful, never attached wings before.

And some creative questions:
1. What color should I do the wings? I could continue the black and pink theme, but I was also thinking of making the veins in the wings like a red and blue circulatory system to go with the whole phlebotomist theme.
2. I was thinking of adding some kind of swirly simple Celtic knot design to the back of the skirt, would that be too much? I could always tone down the pink on the skirt.

So, I know that even if the paint looks thick (photos always make it look worse) I know my friend would love it, she is not a mini enthusiast, I just wanted to make her a mini that represents her. She loves fairies, she is pagan (which I wanted to represent is some sort of symbol somewhere), she's a phlebotomist, and she is into the emo style. She has an orange tabby named Milo that is the biggest freaking cat I have ever seen (I think she said he is between 15-20 lbs and he is not fat.) Which, if I had the room on the base, would be funny if I used a mountain lion instead of a cat to go with her.

Any suggestions or critique is welcome.

[MonkeySloth]

If you do need to strip the paint, which would be a shame since you're mostly finished, the green stuff most likely wont come off and if it does some super glue will fix that issue. As for the skin I wish I could help you on fixing it as I've always striped it and started over when I've had that problem and I still do skin first for this reason.

To help insure a smooth coat with spray primer make sure to be a few feet away and do not stop and restart spraying, if you do wait for it dry some before starting back up. Also use broad sweeping motions too.

If your holes are deep enough, which you can easily test before all the painting, you shouldn't need any green stuff to hold them in. The reason for pinning is super glue is great against a pulling force but not against a shear force (ie a cutting motion) but a metal rod is.

For the colors I'd stick with the color scheme you have now for the main colors. If you want to add veins and stuff that's fine but I would make sure there's some pink in the wings.

[Orionjp]

not fair throwing cute cat into WIP pictures :p hehe.

[Dr.Bedlam]

...so afterwards, you buff the finished product with the cat?

[themudhead]

Now for some technical questions:
1. First off I use spray primer, and while it works great most of the time, sometimes it leaves bumps. Is there a way to prevent this?
2. The paint is looking really thick, either chalk it up the the primer or me being lazy and not watering down enough, is there a good way to fix it without stripping? (I would hate to green stuff it all again)
3. I drilled holes for the wings, hopefully I drilled deep enough. I play on adding green stuff to inside the holes to support it. Any advice on the wings would be helpful, never attached wings before.

And some creative questions:
1. What color should I do the wings? I could continue the black and pink theme, but I was also thinking of making the veins in the wings like a red and blue circulatory system to go with the whole phlebotomist theme.
2. I was thinking of adding some kind of swirly simple Celtic knot design to the back of the skirt, would that be too much? I could always tone down the pink on the skirt.

So, I know that even if the paint looks thick (photos always make it look worse) I know my friend would love it, she is not a mini enthusiast, I just wanted to make her a mini that represents her. She loves fairies, she is pagan (which I wanted to represent is some sort of symbol somewhere), she's a phlebotomist, and she is into the emo style. She has an orange tabby named Milo that is the biggest freaking cat I have ever seen (I think she said he is between 15-20 lbs and he is not fat.) Which, if I had the room on the base, would be funny if I used a mountain lion instead of a cat to go with her.

Any suggestions or critique is welcome.

1. Preventing bumps in primer is a matter of keeping the model a certain distance away from the can as you spray, not stopping during spraying, and using thin coats multiple times. Also, be sure and use a good quality miniature primer. Primer meant for cars will fill in detail. I use Tamiya fine white primer and never had an issue.

2. Yep, thick paint must be thinned. I have heard that you should thin your Reaper Paint to the thickness of milk before use (I go thinner). Other paints will use more or less and some other brands (*cough-citadel-coughcough*... ptuihh), will always be thick due to the way the paint is made. A quick fix is to seal the mini with Reaper Sealer or Dullcote and then paint over that. Or you can try scraping extremely lightly with a blade to smooth out the paint. Strip and start over is extreme but in the end you may have to. It doesn't look like it from the pics though.

3. Looks good here, sounds like you have everything down. You may want to cut down the length of the metal rods slightly and do some test fitting before you glue them in.

Paint color choice is very subjective. As the artist you have to make that decision. Ultimately, I would not use the same colors as in the dress... I'd go for something like green or blue (hue) and be sure to maintain temperature (hotness) and saturation (brightness)... or skin tones for that yuck factor...

Adding any freehand (Celtic knots) can make or break a mini. Rule of thumb, add freehand to enhance, not just because. I'd advise against Celtic anything here. What do Celtic knots have to do with phlebotomist fairies? The knots would just be too distracting to your theme. If you just want to add freehand, may I suggest stylized drops of blood (like the pill on the back of Kaneda's jacket in the anime Akira). Also, If it were me, I would work more on getting the blending to be smoother. It looks a little 'undercooked' in your pics especially the back of the dress... ;)

Love the idea though. You have a great model going here. Keep it up. In particular, I like the pink hues in the hair. Nice!

[Dr.Bedlam]

I do rather hope the greenstuff is up to the task of supporting the weight of those wings over time. Otherwise, it's a great idea.

[chipchuck]

I thought the spikes on the wings were injection flow so I cut it off on mine. Dunno if that's right or not.