A few days ago, I started Tish, one of the Bonesylvanians from the Reaper line. I'd already finished painting Gus, and she's up next. She's super cute with her little vampire teeth and I wanted to paint her a bigger, more dramatic mouth. I may have gone a little overboard, but if I paint her some dynamic eyes to match, I think we'll be good.
I started off cleaning her up with my files to rid the sculpt of any mould lines. I noticed a small little pockmark on the bridge of her nose. It looks like she may have been a victim of a minuscule mould bubble, and I wanted to fill it in before I primed her. Since it was so small, I was hesitant to use Green Stuff or Milliput, so I used some flowable composite, basically super-glue that cures with light. I knew it would adhere to the inside walls of her little pockmark so I filled in the hole, stuck it under a lamp & left it to set overnight.
The next day I primed her, and realized there was a bit of texture leftover that shows through the primer. I should have used some of the tiny files to smooth out the nose beforehand. Oh well, live & learn! Hopefully once I paint in her eyes, hair & eyebrows, it won't be noticeable. Next up, I base coated her robe gown in a dark grey, painted the inside of her cloak a dark green to differentiate it (for now), and started on her face. Being a vampire, she should have a fair complexion and dark, dramatic eyes & lips. I may go back in when her face is painted and lightly glaze the shadows with some grayish green if she still looks too healthy.
Here's where the fun part comes in! While I haven't decided on which color & direction to paint her eyes, I knew I wanted to paint Tish a wide, toothy smile. First, I painted her teeth in an off-white and blocked out her new mouth shape in a dark red. I extended the lines to the outermost edges of her mouth sculpt. Then I cleaned up the edges with skin color in places that needed it and chose a brighter red. Painting in layers, I kept the bright red color on the inside of the dark red shape and focused the pigment toward the center of her mouth, where her lips are the fullest. Lastly, using Pure White, I highlighted her lips where I imagine light would reflect if she was wearing shiny lip gloss.
There's plenty more to paint, and I can't wait to do some more work on her eyes. Hoping to make some significant progress on Tish this weekend!