Finally gotten my latest project to the point where I can start a blog, my bench has been an unholy mess getting the bases done. This is a bit of an oddity, the same subject in two different scales (75mm and 150mm) and settings. The star of the show is a witch that was printed from a file, a first for me and was rather eye opening into how things are done in the 3D print world. It wasn't quite as straightforward or simple as I expected. In the end, the figure turned out well enough and the client is happy with her.

Our first offering is our star perusing a book of spells and getting prepared to make something at her workbench. I went with a twist in that the bench is nestled on top of two trunks I made using debarked branches and greenstuff. The stone is extruded foam, the table from balsa, and the branch trellis is plastic rod textured with putty and photo etch leaves. The base is cut out of mdf and edged with quarter round stock. There are a few more bits to be added, but you get a good idea of how the scene will play out.
















The next one is a half bust with her wading in water. This will be an interesting one. It will either turn out very cool, or kind of corny. I won't spoil all the surprises just yet and we'll see how it gets along.















And the roughed out base. I used foam board and an oval mdf base skinned with styrene.




Still a bit of work to be done before I can actually get painting.

Kimmo

Going to be plenty of interesting painting ahead, my mind is going all sorts of places. The full figure is 75mm and the half bust is double if I remember correctly, so 1/12.

Kimmo

I've gotten the larger figure sketched in basically using Vallejo's Malefic Flesh set with a couple of other colours thrown in. This is a decidedly limited palette for me. I've mentioned this set in other blogs and can highly recommend it, it has a bunch of lovely destatured colours for primarily painting dead or cold flesh, but is very handy for other uses as well. I've gone for something moody, and apart from looking a bit rough at the moment, it should work for what I have in mind.













There is quite a bit of detail present which will need to be picked out in due course, right now I'm just establishing values.

Kimmo

A bit more work today, I smoothed out some of the shading and started bringing in a little moonlight.













Some of the detail on her bodice is starting to show now, I added texture with stippling, I think a bit more is needed. At least one more round of glazing to really smooth out the shading will be necessary. Next I'll get going on the belts and other details.


Kimmo

very nice work!!!

Cheers snik!


Got the rest of the details worked in, still some refining to do.


















And now is the time to reveal the base. I didn't want to post any progress pics yet because I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. So, starting with the first step






The water was roughed in along with some "turbulance" and glow and a print of a swirling galaxy was glued in the swirl hole. It's just printed on regular paper, it snuggles down rather well when soaked and coated with thinned PVA (white glue). The next step was to gloss the sides, touch up the galaxy to taste and blend it in to the water, then add some thick gloss gel to build up ripples.










You can just make out the ripples. And the first test fit...












As I said earlier, this will look super cool, or not. Everything will depend on the next step which is to pour some tinted Still Water over the base, then one last clear coat. Before that happens, I have some more painting to do.


Kimmo

Almost done with the painting now, maybe one final filter to get more moon glow. I added another printed piece for the pages, as much fun as it might have been to try something freehand, I just didn't want to spend the time trying to get that right. It's been stained and just wet down, subject to approval. One of these days I'll give something like this a bash.

















Hopefully I'll be able to get the first coat of water down tomorrow. That should really bring up the pucker factor.


Kimmo

Great work so far! Looking forward to seeing how the water application turns out

Cheers Scott! You and me both...


The first coat of water has been poured, and now we wait to see what we get. In the meantime, we can have a look at the companion piece. The colours have all been blocked in, and I did some preliminary shading with the skin tones. I'm using one of Angel Giraldez's recipes and I should have used Violet Red instead of Sunset Red as a magenta substitute so a bit of toning down is required. Otherwise, nice and lively skin tones compared to the bust.












The base has been blocked in as well. The trunks have turned out better than I expected with just a basic paint job and wash.














Lots more fun to come.

Kimmo

The first pour has cured enough to see what we have, and it looks pretty good to me. It may have darkened a bit more than I would have liked, but still pretty good.














As the stuff dries, you can push it around a bit and create some more movement, it tends to level out quite well so if you want more prominent waves or ripples, then another round of heavy gel is in order. And here's a shot of the leftover poured onto glass to give you an idea of how dark it set. I used roughly 1.5 drops of paint to 10ml of Still Water. It looked quite light in the cup, but dried like this, so experimentation is highly recommended. I'll have to do a proper test one day to see how to get a better translucency, and to see how inks differ from paint and maybe pigments/washes wouldn't be a bad idea to play with either.







Next up is a bit of a think, maybe some more ripples and a final clear coat to bring the water up to the edges.


Kimmo

The water turned out great. Love the effect

Cheers Scott!


Moving along with our second piece, I've gotten most of the shading done and the vegetation is well underway on the base.

















Our lass is progressing nicely as well. I had slight mishap and her index finger snapped off so a new one had to be made. Fun stuff when you can't really get in there with a file and sandpaper.















And a look at the whole scene














Slowly getting there. Still a bit of stuff to do, mostly refining.

Kimmo

Been slow going the last few days, been too warm to do anything until late at night. The good news is, both are very close to being done.

















The water has turned out rather nice on our bust. I added a bit of a filter before pouring the last clear coats, the first coat didn't quite get up to the edge so a bit of touching up was needed, which actually created more texture.














Here you can see the painted effects better





And here the lighting was adjusted to give maximum contrast to show off the ripples.






A few tweaks and I need to see the bust on a dark background, maybe a couple more sessions.


Kimmo

I think I've finally got these done. It's been a real slog the last two weeks because of a heat wave. Not fun trying to do anything when the indoor temperature is hovering around 27C.


The scene was fleshed out with some leafy branches, one natural, the other from wire and shredded foam. I made a cutting board, knife, scissors, mortar and pestle and a water bowl with a water lily floating in Still Water. The lily is from Model Scene.


















I made a few tweaks to the bust after adding the pages. You can see how glossy Still Water is by the shadowy reflection. Interesting stuff to play with.




















Now to take some good photos and get the bench cleared off.

Kimmo

Great looking work! Outstanding work on both!

Cheers Scott!

Got some good photos taken and a gallery is up, which can be found here. Thanks for those who followed along and commented. A couple of teasers...









Kimmo