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Building
Painting Shiori was very fun and rewarding, and was a breeze. I wanted
a bit of transparency for her white bikini (drool), so I painted the skintone
over to the bikini. The trick is to not paint in the bikini linings and
top of folds; these areas have thicker material and hence will show white.
After the skintone is done I was too lazy to mask the bikini pieces, so
I used some Tamiya acrylics flat white and just airbrush the white in.
With my skintone done in lacquer, I can wipe the overspary from the Tamiya
white with alcohol. It's pretty convenient! Finally extra white is applied
to the bikini folds and linings, and the transparent bikini is done! (Not
very obvious in the photos ^_^;) It looks like underwear more thah swimwear
:)
Then it's time to apply oil. This time after the oil painting I didn't
seal her with a flat base - the oil gives a sheen that looks exactly like
lotion applied to skin (drool again). Shiori is basically done. Had a
minor disaster with the hair tho, I guess I don't remember if I had washed
her hair and some paint peeled from masking ;_; Not too difficult to fix,
however. She's one of these "I primed her 6 months ago and don't
remember anything now" kit, you see.
This time I use thin metal sheets for hair strands... they work tons
better and I think I'll probably stick with them from now on. Only downside
is they are very elastic (I use very thin brass), and you really can't
airbrush them when they're already attached to the head. But that's a
small price to pay, the hair looks much better.
Then it's time for the diorama base. It was not difficult to make but
was extremely messy. I used a picture frame I bought from store (about
$4), and bought a pack of sand. Wish I live near the beach so that I don't
have to buy things like SAND! Anyway I mixed sand with plaster of paris
and started pouring the mixture into the picture frame. I'm too impatient
so I pour a lot at once. so the plaster is probably not going to dry until
next year :) I wanted to depict Shiori sitting at the beachhead, so I
have a small slope on one side. Hard to keep the plaster mixture from
spilling all over tho. After the mixture is dried for a day, I mixed some
Elmer's wood glue, small amount of plaster and water to make a paste that
glues the top layer of sand in place. Actually it's a lot of work to make
a relief I really like, while keeping in mind where Shiori is supposed
to sit, since her body parts makes depressions in the sand and those depressions
has to be accounted for in making the relief. Then I mixed some flat earth
and spray it over the beachhead to give the sand a wet look, and seal
everything with a coat of krylon matte finish. I guess I didn't need to
seal it, but I was kind of paranoid. Then I put Shiori in place and "putty"
the area between her and the ground with sand-glue mixture.
Next it's all the extra stuff. The water is made with Elmer's school
glue... yeah it's bizzare, but I think it might just work. It even has
a blue tint to it! It takes a looooong time to dry tho, and you may need
to apply multiple layers. I don't think it dries hard either ^_^; The
beach ball is made with a ping pong ball colored in, and all the other
little shells and star fish are made from epoxy putty. Very fun!
In retrospect I think using sand may not be such a good idea, in particular
I should've sifted the sand so that I get finer grains. It looks like
a rocky beach now, but it's really not too bad ^_^; May be stained corn
starch/baby powder is a better idea? I'd imagine they'd be hard to work
with tho. Also a cute crabby would be nice... living things would make
great companions... but I'm not good enough to make a tiny crab.Till next
time...
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