Disaster struck today as I tried to cut down on the glossy bits of the sheen caused by Vallegio when using the glazing method of painting and the whole top of the bust turned white! So, there was a scramble to quickly use the Future to rescue it from the Gunze Flat to restore it to the original colours again! Phew it saved the day.Now, lets review again. Below is the heavy contrasts that is done to bring out the features of this famous actor. The strong features are done by having the face :-
1. Painted with primer
2. Then solid matte black
3. Use of drybrushing white vallegio
4. Drybrushing the base colour skin tones
5. Paint in the dark shades
6. Wash with light Sepia Ink
7. Wash with Burnt Amber wash to tone down harsh contrast
8. Dot in the eyes
9. Highlight the high points with skin tones added with white
10. Paint in the lips with 2 tones of brown purple
11. Darken lip lines
12. Dot in the unshaven look with dark chocolate and dark Luftwaffe Green
13. Paint in the 4 tones of yellow for the hair
14. Black wash hair to bring out the contrast
Then you get the pre-colour modulated and blending basic face as shown below.
Then, we need to modulate and tone down or up the high contrasts with various reds and skin tones to give a gradual finish. When all this is done, the bust gets the hat and then a matte spray which turned MAD!@$#&*!
The use of Future saved the day and then the ardous task of using the basic super thin washes of the skins, the blacks, the browns to get back the original look began! After 4 hours of efforts and 16 layers of 5% colour water washing with high speed industrial fan blowing in the background, its finally rescued! With the gold brushed in as a highlight, the final figure is ready.
There is something about the eyes that is not right! Finally, I got it when I discussed this with Eunice my wife and also my son Dominique, a prolific painter himself....I need to get the whites done with some warm to show blood vessels....so, we thin glaze it with red, orange. Then I painted in the eyelashes with dark greyish brown. This gave life to the eyes.
The use of Future saved the day and then the ardous task of using the basic super thin washes of the skins, the blacks, the browns to get back the original look began! After 4 hours of efforts and 16 layers of 5% colour water washing with high speed industrial fan blowing in the background, its finally rescued! With the gold brushed in as a highlight, the final figure is ready.
There is something about the eyes that is not right! Finally, I got it when I discussed this with Eunice my wife and also my son Dominique, a prolific painter himself....I need to get the whites done with some warm to show blood vessels....so, we thin glaze it with red, orange. Then I painted in the eyelashes with dark greyish brown. This gave life to the eyes.
Enjoy!Side View, the dark nooks and crannies turned white and had to have black wash of 1 part paint, 100 parts or so water and 1 part glazing agent to fill it slowly, about 16 layers! Then the shin is brought back to life. And to get back the contrasts and the curvature of the hat, same is use to highlight the areas previously painted with dark grey blue over the black again for about 5 to 6 layers. After rehighlighting the gold trim, all is set!
Finally completed with much peril! Make sure in the future, never to short cut it with Gunze or any matte finish, but to glaze it on slowly with the Vallegio 2% matte varnish over 10 layers to get it right, in this case, the airbrush does not work as well as compared to armour models or planes which I have previous done for 37 years. Labour does pay dividends in spades.
