In the Studio

The Copperfox Welsh Cob has come a long way since my last post. He's not quite ready to paint yet, but he's getting close. Finishing up prepping is one of the most tedious times in the customizing process for me. All the pieces are where I want them, and all the sculpting work is essentially done. I'll think everything is good to go, only to find another tiny place that wasn't quite smooth when I spray the primer. 

In the Studio

Just thought I'd share a couple of pictures of projects I'm working on now that NaMoPaiMo is over. First up is the first of my two Andre resins (sculpted by Sarah Rose.) He's almost ready to start painting. I resculpting him slightly with a new braided mane and tail as well as shoes. I plan on painting him a very dark brown with some subtle dapples.

Prime Time: That Which Lies Beneath the Paint

Krylon Gesso Spray and Tamiya Fine Surface Primer

With NaMoPaiMo coming up, I thought I'd start a series of posts on some of the finishwork materials and techniques I use. Since a lot of people are probably in the process of prepping right now, I thought I'd start by talking a bit about the types of primer I like. Different people like different kinds of primer, and the most important thing is finding something that works for you. 

My NaMoPaiMo Entry

 

This year I'll be participating in National Model Painting Month (NaMoPaiMo). If you haven't heard of NaMoPaiMo, I highly recommend checking out the Official NaMoPaiMo Info Page. Basically, it's the same idea as NaNoWriMo, except instead of writing a novel in November, the goal is to paint a model horse entirely in the month of February. The first NaMoPaiMo was held last year, and while I attempted it, things just didn't work out for a variety of reasons I'm not going to get into here.

In the Studio - Jumping Around

 

I apologize for not posting here lately! It's about impossible for me to get any serious time to work with my computer during the holidays, but I'm finally starting to get caught up and I have a couple more posts I plan to put up this week.

How to Decorate a Base With Static Grass - Part Three

 

After parts One and Two of this series, our base is looking pretty good. It's covered in a nice lush layer of static grass, and if you wanted, you could just finish the bottom and leave it as is. But I wanted to add a nice dusting of snow to this piece, so I'll be covering that as well.

In the Studio - Painting and Sculpting

Using a telephoto lens probably wasn't the best choice here; poor Truffle looks a bit squished from this angle.

I have a lot of different projects going on a the moment. Probably too many, and I probably should just pick one and finish it before moving on to something else, but I've never been able to get that to work.

How to Decorate a Base With Static Grass - Part Two

 

If you haven't already, I recommend reading Part One of this series, where I showed you how to prep a base for static grass application. In part two, I'll show you how to go about adding the static grass.

 

How to Decorate a Base with Static Grass - Part One

I first learned about static grass last year while looking for tutorials on how to make plaster rocks for a diorama project. I thought it looked pretty cool, and a few months later I was able to get a static grass applicator and think it's the best tool I've tried so far for creating realistic grass for model horses.

 

Most of the static grass tutorials I've found have been on model train sites. I haven't been able to find any model horse sites that even mention it, so I though I would do a tutorial on it here and hopefully introduce more people to this cool material.

In the Studio





Tonight I thought I'd share a couple of picture of models I'm currently working on.

 

First up is a Truffle resin I'm resculpting to a unicorn. This guy was a second that came out of the mold with an incomplete tail. He is one of the few Truffles I've made so far that has a magnetic base. There's still a bit more resculpting and a lot of prepping to do before he's ready to paint.

And this is a new sculpture I'm working on. He's 1:12 scale and still very much a mess at this point, but hopefully you can sort of see what I'm going for. I've gotten a bit further since this picture was taken; he doesn't need a block of polymer clay to stand any more and all the aluminum foil has been covered up.




 

Removing Paint from an Original Finish Model - Part One

Today I was cleaning and found a Breyer Goffert I started etching ages ago and eventually gave up on. The black paint on this guy was really thick and I just didn't like how he was turning out, so I moved on to other projects and basically even forgot I had this poor fellow.