Provided you read my previous post, you will know that I decided late in the day to paint a 54mm historical figure for The Missus' birthday in basically a week. To recap, by last Tuesday night I had basically cleaned up the figure, primed it and started basecoating the skin and neckscarf - this was revealed in my previos post.
What was not revealed, largely due to continuing work after posting, was the preparation of the base for the groundwork (see the next 2 pics below).
I started by gluing the vendor supplied groundwork down onto the base, which was scavenged from an old football (soccer) trophy. After positioning and epoxying some stones on the side to imply a rock face, I placed masking tape around the sides where I wouldn't want spillage (be it glue, putty, sand or paint) later.
Next I would be building up a slightly sloping ground with plastic ceramic clay, but I first wanted to give the clay something to hold onto. Probably unnecessary, but I decided to do it anyways. I drilled a series of 1mm holes into the wood base, and cyno'ed short pieces pieces of brass wire into place. This would also give me an idea of the contours I was planning.
I let that set overnight, and the following day proceed to build up the groundwork with the plastic ceramic clay, placing the odd rock here and there. While the clay was still setting I also pressed some fine sand into place so that I could get an idea of of what it would look like later.
While I was quite knackered toward the latter part of the week, I didn't want to lose the momentum I had built at the start of the project. So I decided to continue working at the groundwork. Using Woodland Scenics terrain glue (basically watered down white glue) I glued down some GW sand and stone mix for texture and then covered that with a fine sand I had collected from the garden a few months prior.
The two sides of the base that would not be the main focus, the left and rear, were coated with a textured sandstone acrylic paint which I bought from a arts and crafts store. Once all of this was dry I removed the masking tape. You can see the result of this in the next 3 photographs. Please bear in mind that I haven't autolevelled these photos so the lighting isn't that great...
Okay, so up until now Saadi's quote isn't really appropriate becuase everything is more or less going to plan... the base is looking good, the figure is ready for painting and I've organised with the outlaws to spend the day with The Missus and keep her out my hair while I try this "speed painting" thing. But then Saturday happened...
After shipping the lassie off I finally sat down to paint at about 9 AM. To be honest I have no idea where I went wrong. Sure, I tried a new fleshtone mixture, and a different method of painting bronze. I can only attribute the (quite frankly) shit finish due to 1) my haste in painting and 2) a lack of practice of acrylic painting throught the year. So... a long story short, due to my haste, I will now be stripping the figure down and starting again.
Thank goodness The Missus isn't too phased - she's just chuffed at the prospect of getting a figure that has been specially painted for her. That and her main present was an iPod! LOL
