Project 01 'Nero' Paint

He's starting to look like Nero now!

I added alll his features, including the tedious scales on his belly, and baked him in the oven for a good 15 minutes. Oh my gosh was I so nervous for him when I put him in! Each minute that passed felt like it had been an hour! I was starting to think that he was going to burn and all that work would've gone to waste! But, as you can see, he came out just fine.

Now if you look at the curtain in the background, you can literally see how long it took me to paint some details on him.... I spent most of yesterday, worked till 10 pm, and then worked again in the morning the next day! Now that's dedication to the craft.

His coloration was a little tricky and I had to pull out a few stops to figure it out. One major problem that plagued me, was that the golden yellow I normally use to paint him, was nearly all gone! GGAGAHAHHHH!! And I couldn't got to the store to get another bottle that late at night, so I had to improvise... I took two other yellows, a cream and a pale flesh yellow, and mixed then together with a little bit of the golden yellow I had left. The color was.... Okay.... But not quite "Nero-Yellow".... So I painted a base coat, then two more primer coats of the mixture to make sure there were no flaws, and then I looked at him and I didn't like the color.... How on earth was I going to fix this?!

Well, I figured it out! I saw my airbrush markers sitting over in the corner of the room and got to thinkin'... Could i use them to help get teh colro I wanted...? Well, I choose a nice soft orange, loaded it, and began airbrushing. Upon my first attempt, the color was too strong, so I took a napkin to kinda dab some of it off, and then inspiration struck! Working quickly, I would airbrush some orange on, then quickly takea damp napkin and rub the surface. It worked like magic! I don't know if you can tell from the pictures, but he quite literally looks like a toy now! Airbrushing is freaking awesome! I wish I had discovered this years ago!

And as for the rest of him, I hand mixed a glossy acryllic witha metallic for his horns and claws to make them look more natural, which worked great. Then I mixed some red/dark red/black paints to make his belly scale colors. This needed 3 coats because one coat looks like blood, which is kinda cool should I choose to do a scary model sometime. And then I had to handmix some brownish gold for his markings. Man, I almost never use a base color when I paint, I always mix them...

Well, hope you enjoy! Figured I'd upload the progress on him so far to let you guys see how he's comming along. ^_^ Still got a long way to go though... I have his other half of markings to do, his right legs, both of his wings still need ALOT of work, and of course his eyes. Not sure why, but I see to always want to do them last. Must be a, "they can't see how they look until they are completely finished" thing with me or something. I dunno.

Sculpture/Nero are © ME