Finishing Akito seven years after I started her!

Ever since Salute in April life has been incredibly busy! Once I recovered from the inevitable post event cold there have been many trips, weekends away and even our first holiday abroad since 2019. However, I was determined to have a new project ready for the Fen Model Show (FMS) at the end of July. The obvious candidate was my next Aeldari Corsair, the Shade Runner. But who wants to be obvious?

Finishing Horticulus Slimux was an extremely positive experience and fully rekindled my enthusiasm for painting. I’m enjoying the Corsairs but, as I predicted, I fancied a change from what is a very long running project. That change came in the form of another model that’s been haunting the back of my cabinet, since January 2018. Like Horticulus Slimux, it got off to a good start but stalled and was then sidelined.

 

In truth the ‘good start’ was a part of what put me off! This model is very challenging for me as it’s unlike anything else I’ve ever painted before. Initially I was experimenting and taking a risks but, with success, came caution. I’ve noticed that if a paint job goes well the fear of messing things up increases and that can become a barrier to painting. However, I think it’s far better to take risks and get a project finished, even if it’s not 100% successful. At the least you can chalk it down to experience and learn some lessons; but an unfinished project is a far less positive experience. 

The mystery model that’s been bothering my conscience for all these years is Akito the C Girl and it felt incredibly good to get her out of the cabinet and back onto the desk! Both the subject and scale are things with which I have limited experience and she is no less a challenging project now than she was in 2018. But its a challenge I was up for.

Before starting on the second phase of my Akito project I needed to study the model closely and come up with a plan of action. I’d achieved more on Akito than I thought. The bulk of the flesh tones were painted, the leather jacket was all but done and I’d made a good start on the hair. What remained to paint were the arms, sword and hood. This didn’t sound like a lot of work but I felt that there were also many parts of the earlier work that would benefit from some finessing and refinement.

For clarity I’ve broken my progress down into the following stages. But, as ever, the work is much more a matter of going back and forth than this would suggest. Progress is almost never linear with the earlier work needing subtle adjustments as the overall scheme develops.

The Overall Colour Palette

I wouldn’t usually start a project without a firm idea of my color palette but in Akito’s case the palette developed organically as I progressed. With the exception of the pink spot colour the palette consists mostly of blue grey, browns and the flesh tones. All are relatively desaturated and veer towards being neutral. I don’t think this is a palette I would have cooked up in advance of painting as it only came together in the later half of the project.

Flesh tones

When I’d put Akito to one side I felt that the skin on the face and torso was finished. I’d come up with and implemented a palette of colours that helped me to create the pale soft looking flesh I intended. On reviewing the work seven years later, that remains mostly true but I felt there was room for some improvement. I pushed a few of the highlights just a little further but the biggest change was on the face. I added some extremely subtle red glazes around the eyes, nose and cheeks. The paint was little more than tinted water but the addition of the red brings a bit of warmth and the feeling of life to the face. I used Fiery Vermilion from Army Painter for this. It’s an intense colour I look forward to further experimenting with.

 

Even with the face and torso finished I still had to paint the visible flesh on Akito’s arms. This was a daunting prospect as the final flesh tone is the result of glazing, layering and stippling a variety of flesh tones from several paint ranges; however, I was able to refer back to my own articles and blog posts to refresh my memory. Broadly speaking, I worked from pink hues in the shadows to gold hues in the highlights. Once I implemented this principle the flesh tones came together surprisingly quickly.  A key factor was the use of Rakarth Flesh both as a base colour and an element of my colour mixes. It’s a warm grey that helped to calm down the saturation of the overall pallet and unite the different hues.

Jacket & Hood

My first thoughts on Akito’s clothing was to create a very sci-fi look. I intended to use blacks and shiny textures. I began by painting the bikini top this way and was pleased with the result but changed my mind about her jacket. I decided that a more eclectic style would suite her character and it would be more interesting to paint. I painted the leather jacket brown and added lots of texture to make it look old and worn.

 

The first step was to find some reference pictures and they proved to be very useful. It took a lot of dots, dashes, stipples and strokes to build up the texture in a variety of browns. The hues I chose were also affected by the texture. Smoother shinier areas have a cooler hue as they are reflecting more of the sky than the rougher areas. Where the jacket was especially worn I used an orange/brown to show where the darker surface was wearing off. Overall the jacket was one of the most enjoyable parts of the model to paint!

 

I decided to paint the hood grey. This decision was made fairly late in the process as my overall color palette began to come together. The hood was stippled to create a soft looking fabric texture. The hood’s lining was painted in a desaturated pale blue/grey to add interest and variation to the range of greys used. To make it look as if it was a silkier material than the outer hood, I painted brighter highlights and subtle pink reflections from the adjacent hair. The hood was the last element of Akito’s clothing to be painted but the jacket required one last touch.

 

There is a rectangular back panel on the jacket that cries out for some sort of embellishment. My first thought was to create the graphics for the panel in my illustration software then print it and glue it onto the jacket as if it were a patch that was sewn on. This would be executed in the same way as I create the labels for my plinths. Then I had second thoughts as, although I would have created the graphics myself, it felt like an easy option and not in the spirit of a project intended for a painting competition. This called for a freehand design. I decided to paint Akito’s name on the back panel in a graffiti style as though she had painted it herself and the prospect was daunting. However, I was forgetting my own roots! I am, after all, a fully trained Graphic Designer with 30 years of industry experience and this task took me right back to my college days. I came up with a letter style in my Illustrator software so that I had something to refer to but then painted it onto the jacket freehand. This enabled me to tweak the design to better fit the scale and area I was working in. Once I started doing this I loved the process! I had to take some risks on this project to make some progress.

Hair

I’d made a start on painting the hair during the first stage of the project. I’d mixed up a base colour, highlighted it with the addition of ivory and shaded it with Screamer Pink. This pink colour looked alright to me but also a bit lifeless. What I now needed to do was to bring some dimension and interest to the hair.  The addition of Blanched Berry deepened the shadows and the use of Bering Blue added a reflective quality to these areas. I painted further highlights but felt they looked a little washed out and desaturated. To counter this I glazed dilute yellow ink onto them. This warmed up the colour which had been a little too cold and it also brought some saturation back into the mid-tones and highlights. I think the hair now has some subtle variations of hue that make it more visually interesting than the initial flat looking pink.  

 

Metallics

Both of the arms needed to be painted in the second phase of this project. Because the arms would feature the largest metallic components of the bust they made up the most significant elements of the new work. I’d decided to use true metallic back in the first phase of this project. I prefer to paint non-metalic metals rather than true metallic metals as the final look is more in my control. However, I think true metallics can look great on larger scale models and this is something I wanted to explore more. It’s a choice I would regret at times as the metals proved to be a struggle!

I’ts been some years since I’ve used metallic paints and it took a lot of trial and error to decide which paints to use. I experimented with different combinations of metallic paint, ordinary paint and inks. My final choices were all from Scale Colour as they gave me the result I liked best with my preferred method of application.

 

I built up successive layers of metallic paint and ink glazes. This enables me to create deep rich shadows with a soft sheen that helps to sell the illusion of a patina. The mid-tones and highlights are built up with metallic paint to create texture and shine. I used varying combinations of black, blue and chestnut ink. The combination of these three colors gave me a great range of hues including blue/greys, browns and dull greens. The combination of these hues brought a lot of variation and interest to the metals

 

I didn’t want a dirty or corroded finish but neither did I want the metals to look pristine. I think a patinated look gives the metals some character and definition without being too grungy.

Sword

If the metals were tricky to paint the sword proved to be a nightmare from start to finish! Akito’s original resin sword had warped slightly and had a definite kink in it. It was easy to straighten the blade with a little heat but over time the kink would return. This was another reason I’d put the project on hold as I needed to find a replacement. I took my time and considered multiple options. I could carve a new blade from plasticard or source a new blade from another kit. I began an exhaustive search and although there were other kits with swords of an appropriate size nothing seemed quite right. However while searching online I came across an interesting possibility. Listed on Amazon as ‘Vintage Metal Bookmarks, Charm Pendants Mini Sword Knife’ was a set of metal alloy swords in what looked to be the perfect scale. They were priced at an affordable £8.99 so I decided to purchase a set and see if they were of any use.

What arrived was a set of seven surprisingly sturdy metal swords of an almost perfect size. The greatest advantage I saw in these blades was that there was really no way they would bend or warp. What was less perfect was that, for obvious reasons, the blades were not only blunt but had somewhat thick edges. It was time for me to purchase a new set of files and get to work on the metal blades.

The metal was surprisingly hard but this meant that the work of refining the blade would be easier to control than if it were made of a soft metal. The job was straightforward and after a couple of hours of careful filling I had a suitably sharp looking sword. I cut the (rather too long) sword to length and then drilled and pinned it in place. I wanted a big bold sword but I’ve had feedback that it’s too long and, in retrospect, I agree as it unbalances the composition. However, I will chalk that down to experience rather than going back in and trying to change it.

I thought my troubles with the sword were all solved but I was very wrong! My first intention was to paint the sword metallic using a very bright silver. I experimented with Molotow Liquid chrome and it certainly delivered as promised. One heavy coat applied carefully but confidently with a brush gave a mirror like chrome finish, however, when I tried to apply some shading with my inks they just beaded on the surface and wouldn’t lay smoothly. On further consideration the chrome was probably too bright for the model anyway, so I applied a coat of regular silver paint to the sword and started shading with my inks. Everything behaved as expected but I hated the look of it! The silver looked too dull and too similar to the silver on the arms. I decided that if I couldn’t get a shiny silver I should go the other way and paint the sword in NMM finish with some true metallic chipping for a bit of wear and tear along the edges. The idea being that the sword has a coating of some sort over the metal finish.

I painted the sword with the grey and blue hues from my colour palette and included the black, blue and chestnut ink I’d used earlier in the mix. This gave me an interesting range of hues and also tied the look of the sword in with the metallic areas. Everything was going very well! The sword had blue/grey/green hues that were very pleasing to me. I’d highlighted the sword with an ivory colour but it looked a bit yellow, so I worked on lightening the highlights a little more. All to no effect because the highlights continued to get more and more yellow. All of the ink had been mixed in with the paint but I realised that yellow pigment from the chestnut ink was leeching out into the top layers. This continued well after all the paint was dry.

It was looking like I would have to strip the sword and start again but before that I had one last thing to try. Much of the work on the sword still looked good and I wanted to try and save it. So I applied a layer of matt varnish to see if I could seal the yellow stains beneath it. This was an even worse disaster as the varnish drew the yellow out more than ever!

In an effort to get the still wet varnish off I took a clean dry brush and quickly removed the varnish wiping it from the brush onto a paper towel. This worked and I was shocked at how much yellow had leeched into the varnish. The varnish was literally drawing the yellow out of the paint which gave me an idea. I repeated the process several times applying a heavy layer of varnish and then removing it until there was no more yellow staining the varnish. In effect I washed the sword with varnish. I then let the sword dry completely.

I repainted those areas that needed it and this time the yellow stain did not return. I will keep an eye on the model as the stain might return in time but so far, so good. I also threw my chestnut ink in the bin! I’ve never had this problem before but I certainly don’t intend to risk a repeat!

 

With the sword finally done Akito was finished. I’m still relatively inexperienced at painting larger scale models and I definitely have a lot to learn. But I enjoyed the process and I feel that this is something I can explore in the future. In the meantime, I’m very happy with how Akito turned out and it’s extremely rewarding to finish a project that’s been sitting around for so long. Seven years is a very long time to wait to finish a model (even for me) but it’s been well worth the effort!

 

C-Girl Akito – finishing the leather & starting the hair.

Having spent a little more time on Akito I’ve finished painting her leather jacket. In truth I may go back and tweak a few details as the overall paint job develops, but it’s reached the stage where I can move on to the next area.

So I decided to turn my attention to the hair. I’m pleased with the initial work but it still needs some attention especially with regard to the volumes. In addition to that I want to work some subtle colour variations into the pink. I think it looks a little monochromatic at the moment so I’m going to incorporate some hints of yellow/orange tones into the pinks. I think this will look a little more realistic and swing the overall tone away from the slightly purple tone it currently has. I definitely want the hair to be a strawberry pink and at the moment it’s more like raspberry!

I’d stated that I wasn’t going to put Akito down until she was finished. And from that statement you can probably guess that Akito has to go back on the shelf for a while. It was pointed out to me that the Golden Demon Classic, in May, is getting closer and I don’t have anything painted for it yet!

I’d like to have something to take, so I think it’s high time I started painting it!

2017 Looking back... and forward.

I caught a cold over Christmas (who didn’t this year?) and suffered a flare up of my asthma. So my painting motivation has been at an all time low for the last few weeks! Such is life and I’ve learned to go with the ebb and flow of enthusiasm for my hobby. Rather than beating myself up over my lack of progress, I can see that it all tends to even out over the long term.

As I’ve begun to feel better (but not up to painting) I’ve spent a little time on this blog replacing some of the missing pictures. It’s just as much of a slog as I’d feared, but I’ve worked my way back to the end of October 2014 and the start of Gutrot Spume!

It’s been quite nostalgic to go through my old picture and it’s heartening to see how my painting has continued to develop and, I hope, improve over the last few years. As I say in my bio on this blog, ‘there is always something new to learn’.

All this nostalgia reminds me that it’s time to look back and review the past year! Overall it feels as if I’ve been less productive in terms of finished miniatures especially as I’m now painting ‘full time’. However while this is true it’s not the whole picture.

The first half of the year was dominated by my workshops and the necessary preparation they involved. So when you factor in the Plaguebearers I painted ready for Copenhagen, my output is on a par with previous years.

This greyscale Plaguebearer was painted for my contrast workshop in Copenhagen.

My three workshops, in Copenhagen, Stockport and Hull, were a huge and thoroughly enjoyable part of my painting year and I’m looking forward to developing this side of things in the coming year.

Contrast in Copenhagen

Textured NMM in Stockport

Monster Flesh in Hull

2017 saw me finish three projects: The Orruk Megaboss, The Abyssal Warlord and the Death Guard Chaos Space Marine. In addition to these, and the aforementioned Plaguebearers, I’ve put a fair bit of work into the Akito bust and made a tentative start on my new Nurgle Predator.

I think the three finished minis represent a very distinct phase in my painting. This year I’ve explored and developed my approach to painting contrasting textures and that’s very evident in my work. I feel that, over the last year, I’ve greatly increased my range in this area. That’s something I’m especially pleased about because I think it’s bridged a gap in my skill set. Not so very long ago I was all about smoothness!

I’ve enjoyed continued success in painting competitions. They remain a great motivator to improve my painting and help to give my painting year some structure. Salute 2017 saw me take home a Bronze for my Abalam bust. The Golden Demon Classic in May saw me win a Gold in what was the most strongly contested Golden Demon I’ve attended! But it was the Warhammer 40,000 Open Day in November that gave me my greatest success with a Gold and my fifth Slayer Sword. I’m very proud but no one gets anywhere by resting on their laurels so I’m going to have to keep on my toes and keep pushing myself to grow as a painter!

On the personal side, I took myself in hand this last year and made a major effort to improve my health. Over the last few years I’d become quite seriously over weight for someone of my height, or lack of it, and my blood pressure had gone through the roof as a result. I got my diet under control and began to exercise regularly. By August I’d undergone quite a transformation having lost 44 pounds and ‘found’ a full head of hair! Most importantly my blood pressure is now good for someone of my age.

These photos are, give or take a week, taken one year apart,
it's quite a shock to see exactly how much I've changed!

So what of the future? As I said earlier I’m looking forward to further developing my painting workshops. I shall be returning to Element Games for my ‘Contrast in miniature painting’ workshop on the 2nd and 3rd of June and beyond that I’m looking into running a series of workshops by myself in Southampton.

On the painting front I have Akito to finish. This project continues to challenge and stimulate me, as it’s so different from anything else I’ve ever painted before. I’m looking forward to seeing Akito finished, hopefully in time for this year’s Salute.

Once Akito is done I will turn my attention to the 2018 Golden Demon season and consider my approach this year. I’d like to work on some long-term projects, as this is where I do my best work. But for 2018 I will probably try and get a couple of character minis painted and I already have my eye on some likely candidates.

In the much longer term there is the new Nurgle Predator and the recent release of a plastic Great Unclean One by Games Workshop has raised some very interesting possibilities and further fueled my enthusiasm for this particular project.

Although my plans for 2018 are a little vague, the year feels full of possibilities and I’m keen to see where it will take me!

C-Girl Akito – Painting worn leather

It’s time to get Akito down off the shelf and back onto the painting table. So far I’ve painted Akito around other projects but from now I’ll stick with her until she’s done. This was always my plan although it’s a little later in the year than I’d anticipated; but I’ve enjoyed taking my time on this bust.

That’s just as well because I’ve found that slowing down seems to be the best way to progress with the next phase of Akito’s paintjob. The leather jacket has taken my painting into new territory and I’ve had to focus a lot of time and attention on it. I’ve developed a routine of painting for a couple of hours each day and then reviewing and amending my work the next day before moving on to a new area. That makes for slow progress but progress nonetheless.

The Akito bust screams out for painted material and texture contrasts and, having put a lot of effort into painting smooth skin, it’s time to paint a lot of texture on the leather jacket. I’d intended to paint Akito’s clothing in predominantly black tones but, as always, my plans have evolved as the paintjob developed. I’m now painting the leather a very battered and worn brown. I think this is both a more interesting painting challenge and a more realistic approach to Akito’s costume. Her clothing will have a randomly put together feel as opposed to a carefully colour co-ordinated fashion choice. That seems more appropriate for this character.

I’ve been putting a lot of effort into painting textures in my recent projects and this bust feels like the next step. The larger scale gives a lot of scope for painting texture but it also creates a huge challenge! I’m right out of my comfort zone but that’s no bad thing as it’s keeping me on my toes. Simply stippling over the jacket, as I might in a smaller scale, will not create a distinctive enough texture. Stippling certainly has a place in this paintjob but too much stippling will only serve to create a generic texture. What’s needed here is something more nuanced and distinctive.

This has challenged me to experiment with the marks I make with my brush and I’ve had to work around the problem to find a solution. As I’ve painted the jacket I’ve developed an approach that, I think, is beginning to work. This is something I’ve found especially interesting as it reflects the ongoing development of my painting technique. Going back a few years my stippling was, quite literally, painting with dots now, however, it’s far more varied. More often than not when I stipple I allow the tip of the brush to skip and drag over the surface of the model making a combination of dots, dashes and scribbles.

My colour palette has also undergone some trial and error to find a workable solution. Although predominantly brown I’ve painted the jackets highlights in cooler blue/grey tones as if reflecting the sky while the shadows go to black. This is similar to a NMM technique as leather can be a shiny reflective material. However, this leather is extremely old and worn and, in the most worn areas, the material would be rough and unreflective. To create these areas I’ve used a yellow brown tone and fairly course brush marks.

Colour Palette  

 

Base:
Flat Black/Brown Leather mix (Scalecolour)

Mid Tones:
Brown Leather (Scalecolour), Brown Gray (Scalecolour), Rucksack Tan (P3), Bering Blue (Scalecolour)

Highlights:
Midtone colours + Purity White (Scalecolour)

Overall the painting of this bust has been a process of going back and forth to adjust the balance between the contrast, colours and textures. The jacket is still very much a work in progress but, after some fretting, I’m beginning to feel good about how it’s going.

C-Girl Akito - To the rescue!

“I can get down to some serious mini painting for myself! I’ve got some exciting projects in the pipeline and I’m looking forward to getting them underway!” 

… So much for good intentions!

I’ve had an unusually busy Summer and the only problem I have with it is that I’ve been busy doing things other than mini painting. In itself that’s not a serious problem but, as Summer turns into Autumn, I find myself feeling more than a little frustrated at the lack of painting action and extremely keen to get started.

So I began working on one of my ‘exciting projects’. Without going into detail things did not go well, in fact, they went very, very badly! It’s been many years since I gave up on a project but I think I may well have to with this one. At the moment thinking about it makes me feel pretty miserable; but I’m sure a pause will help me to reflect on my problems with this project and learn some valuable lessons.

In an effort to shake off the painting blues and get my mojo working I decided to switch projects and make some progress on Akito! So far it’s proving to be a successful strategy. I’m making some progress and most importantly enjoying myself. Having previously painted Akito’s face and the majority of the flesh tones it’s high time I blocked in some base colours and began to build the overall colour contrasts.

One advantage of the hiatus this project endured is the extra time I’ve had to consider my plans. I’d decided to create a strong contrast between the pale flesh and a predominantly dark costume. Set against that would have been a highly saturated hair colour graduating from yellow at the roots, through orange into red, and finishing with purple at the tips. This would have been very striking but, on reflection, I’ve decided to paint the hair strawberry pink. There are two reasons for this. I think the more saturated colours would be too bright and draw attention away from the rest of the bust. I also feel that the saturated colours would be too aggressive for the mood I want to give the piece. The weapon and costume are already fairly edgy and aggressive, so I’ve decided to contrast that with a soft, and admittedly slightly stereotypical, girly pink colour for the hair.

The choice of pink was inspired by a conversation during my workshop in Hull and a little online research has provided plenty of useful reference material. I was a little nervous when I came to paint the base layer for the hair as pink, much like red, can be a tricky colour to work with. It will be useful to have the base colour to hand when I come to shade and highlight the hair but the mix was fairly complicated, so my chances of exactly recreating it later in the project are slim. Therefore I decided to mix up a batch of paint in a dropper bottle. Thankfully I nailed the mix first time and got the exact shade (strawberry ice cream) that I wanted! My mix consists of Khorne Red, Flayed One Flesh, Karak Stone and Rakarth Flesh.

Once the base colours were blocked in I turned my attention to the bikini top. I’d decided to paint this as a synthetic neoprene type of material but a conversation during my Stockport workshop (there’s a trend developing here) helped me to refine my plans. Rather than the soft ‘rubbery’ sheen I had intended I decided to paint a high gloss, almost metallic, shine to the material. A little online research provided some good examples and suggested that I used an ultra fine stipple technique to replicate the texture of the shiny fabric. I’ve painted this in a cool blue/black that will contrast with the warm brown/black I plan to use on the jacket.

Although these are only base colours and in need of a great deal more work, this stage of the project has moved things on considerably. I now have a more highly developed vision of how I’m going to paint Akito and the bust itself looks a lot more completed. It’s been fiddly work but well worth the effort.

Busy Times!

The last few weeks have provided an unusual experience with regards to my hobby as although I’m very busy I have little to show for it! As I predicted earlier this year I’m deeply involved in preparing for my Copenhagen workshop over the coming Easter weekend. Demo minis have been prepped and painted, notes have been written, a resourses folder compiled and minis selected for the trip. And jolly good fun it’s all been too but there’s nothing to show for it on this blog!

Apart from my workshop preparations, I’ve found a little more time to work on Akito and develop the flesh tones on her torso. I’ve found it especially challenging to achieve a realistic balance of smooth flesh tones and strong, but subtle, contrasts. Unlike painting monsterous flesh there is no way to hide any imperfections behind textures or special effects! But I feel that I’m getting there and just need to be patient and persistent.

The following weeks are also likely to be a bit of an odd time for me hobby wise. On the weekend after my Copenhagen workshop it’s Salute, at Excell in London, and I’ll finally get the chance to enter my Abalam bust into a painting comp. It will be interesting to see how he does as I feel I’m still something of a novice with regards to painting busts, and there is a lot for me to learn.

After that I’m going to be at Warhammer Southampton, on Saturday 29th April, where I’ll be showcasing my miniatures and running some demonstrations of the techniques I’ve used on my Golden Demon winners. I will also be judging a painting competition!

Looking further ahead still there is the Golden Demon Classic at Warhammer Fest on 28th May. My Megaboss is ready and waiting which is just as well because I don’t think I’m going to have spare time to get anything else painted ready for Golden Demon this year. That’s because I’ve two more painting workshops lined up for this Summer and I’ll be gearing up for the first of those pretty soon.

This will be at Element Games, in Stockport, on the 3rd and 4th June. The subject of the workshop will be aged and distressed non-metallic metal armour, like that painted on my Megaboss. There will be a focus on using Scale colour paints and the workshop model will be the Abyssal Warlord by Scale 75.

And there’s more because on the weekend of August 5th and 6th, I will be in Hull for the Weekend Workshop. I will be breaking out the Plaguebearers again for a weekend of painting monster flesh. Expect microbeads, baking soda and slime effects to feature!

Painting Flesh Tones with Layered Glazes - Step-by-Step

Jay Martin has given me the opportunity to share my experience of painting Akito on his excellent site Figure Mentors. Part one looks at how I used layers of glazed acrilics to paint her flesh tones. You can find it HERE.

C-Girl Akito Part 1

I’m currently busy preparing for my painting workshop in Copenhagen but I’ve also started a new painting project. I decided some time ago that once the Megaboss was finished I would like to paint a bust.

Just as the Megaboss project was in it’s final stages I was contacted by Piotrek (Peter) Czajka. Peter is the man behind Neko Galaxy and he asked me if I would be interested in having a copy of his C- Girl Akito bust to paint. I’d seen, and been most impressed by, the stunning version of this bust painted by Krzysztof Kobalczyk. Now this is a lovely bust but I had to think carefully before accepting, as it’s not the type of subject I would have normally considered painting. Then it struck me that that was exactly why I should paint it! It’s time to step out of my comfort zone and push myself by painting a new type of subject.

When the bust arrived it was just as good in reality as it looked on screen. I’m still something of a newbie with regards to resin busts, so I was very glad that the clean-up was very straight forward with only a few slight mould lines to clean up.

I’ll confess that I was daunted by the prospect of painting a young human female as I’m far more used to taking on the monstrous likes of Nurgle. However I sat myself down, took a good long look at the bust, and began to figure out how I wanted to paint her.

I quickly realized that this bust offers tremendous opportunities for painting contrasting textures and I fully intend to make the most of that. I’ve decided to paint Akito’s costume as dark leather to contrast against the flesh tones. I’ll use true metallics, as with my previous busts, because I prefer them to NMM when I’m working in this scale. I want to give Akito a bit of a punky feel so I’m taking inspiration from the current fashion for bright multi-colored hair which will provide an ‘interesting’ painting challenge.

I’m sure my plans will evolve as the project progresses but, with my planning done, it was time to dive in and get painting. As is usual for me, I decided to start with the face. The flesh tones seemed to be the most logical starting point on this bust and, as the focal point of the piece, the face would set up the personality of the piece. I’ve said it before but if you can’t get the face right, it doesn’t matter how well the rest of the piece is painted it will all look ‘off’!

I wasn’t initially sure how to go about painting a youthful human flesh tone but quickly realized that my method of painting monster flesh would do the job. Starting off with a base of GW’s Rakrth Flesh I carefully built up glazed layers of my various flesh tones. Applying the color this way makes use of the translucent qualities of diluted acrylics. This helps to give the flesh tones a luminous quality and, hopefully, a life-like appearance.

I’m very happy with how things are going so far and I’m surprised at how much I’ve achieved (for me) in just one day’s painting. This project is proving to be exactly the challenge I needed and I’m feeling pretty excited about it’s potential!