Hello hello,
It's Cara, FeliciaDay3D's resident graphic designer and occasional paint gremlin. I'm supposed to be painting Zaboo right now, but I'm doing what we call in the industry "productive procrastinating".
I painted Tinkerballa yesterday, and I thought I'd document the process so you could see a fun behind the scenes peek at applying pigment to tiny people. I only have a resin printer (Mars 2 Pro), so any color that goes on my minis has to come from me.
So here's a peek at my desk setup (Moose the Cat is a crucial part). I've got a nail polish rack that holds my 50ish favorite paints, itty bitty sable brushes, an Army Painter wet palette, a medicine bottle with sticky tack on top to hold the mini, a delicious beverage, and some tunes cued up. Beyond my desk chair is an absolutely absurd amount of paint from Reaper Miniatures. Kudos to Ron Hawkins, their Art Director. But don't tell him I said that, he'll get a big head.
The second picture is brush-on gray primer. I usually use either Reaper Grey Primer, or when I stop by my FLGS, I pick up a bottle of Army Painter grey primer. I don't tend to airbrush my minis to prime them unless I've got something BIG- I like getting my brush into all of the little nooks and crannies to get a feel for the mini and the little troublesome hard-to-reach spots. The priming step usually takes me around an hour- 2 minutes to prime the mini, and 58 minutes beforehand trying to locate wherever the heck the goblins hid the dang bottle.
I still had a sheet in my wet palette left over from Vork, and instead of getting a new sheet, I just dumped my primer on the old sheet. Brush on primer splatters a lot, and I didn't want to get splatter all over a fresh palette. In future pictures, you can actually see all of the grey splatter on my desk. That's not dust. It's paint.
I slapped on some primer, had a little extra, so I prepped Zaboo for the next day. While they were drying, I prepped a clean wet palette. Now, for those who don't know what a wet palette is, it's a bit of damp foam covered by a very thin parchment-like paper that just an itty bitty bit of water can seep through and keep your paints moist. I used to paint on a paper plate and my paints would get all dry and chonky. 0/10 don't recommend. The wet palette also has the bonus benefit of thinning your paint a bit- the key to painting minis is applying a lot of very thin layers on top of each other to build gradients and have a nice smooth finish.
If you look at the progression of Brunhilde, my Barmaid Barbarian (1st two from HeroForge, 3rd self-sculpted), that very first mini on the left is STANKY CHONKY. That's what happens when you paint with drying up paint, or put too much paint on and start pushing it around when it's partially dry. I don't recommend it.
Okay, back to the task at hand.
While the primer is drying, but before I hit it with a hairdryer to make it dry faster, I begin to pick out potential Tinkerballa colors. I tend to work in gradients- starting from dark and building up to light. I tried to arrange the colors in the dark-to-light gradient. Don't forget to give your paints a good shake before you start to mix up the pigment and binder. It can start to come apart and make your "paint" come out watery at first.
And now for the Reaper Community in-joke-that-isn't-actually-a-joke....
BURGUNDY. WINE. It's my basing color and incredibly versatile. You can build so many different colors up from it- I'm talking reds, purples, browns, golds, oranges, fuschias, even greens.... I'll do a writeup about it someday. I've been preaching the gospel of Burgundy Wine for years, and rumor has it that if you whisper "Burgundy Wine" 3 times in a mirror at midnight, I'll show up and steal all of your paint (rumor credited to ejala of the Reaper discord).
Burgundy Wine has this interesting quality where if you've only got one coat, it looks purpley. If you do a second coat, it looks more brown. I always hit it with a second coat for a browner start. Having a darker color allows spots-that-you-missed to look a little more filled in. Starting with black, however, will make your colors look a little muddled and colder.
Despite picking out all of the rest of Tinkerballa's colors previously, I decide I'd like to start on the skin. Now- I use itty bitty brushes. The 10/0 is for details (like the face), lining, and refining. I used the 3/0 brush to start filling in the bases.
First up was Oxide Brown. It's got some reddish tones to it, and I thought it'd give the skin a warm start.
Continuing the base colors, I grab my Carnival Purple to start Tinkerballa's clothes. It's pretty dark, but we'll work it up to something more pastel. Now- my paint was clogged. If you find yourself with a clog, DO NOT CONTINUE TO SQUEEZE. It will explode. Your mini will get sprayed. Your palette will get sprayed. Your cat will get sprayed. It's devastating. I keep a sewing needle at my desk as a "pokey tool" to unclog the top. I really should clean it. I don't.
Once I cover the base, I select a base for the red tips of the bow and the arrow. Now, I picked Red Brick, which is near identical to Burgundy Wine, but I figure it wouldn't hurt to make it just a little redder to start.
Okay. Red Brick is applied to the end. I then grab Reaper's Violet Red, the next step up in my gradient (ack, pokey tool time), and begin to apply the Violet Red closer to the edge of the bow.
...pokey tool again on Reaper's Holly Berry. This is a seasonal color (available in December), but it's the best dang red they've got. It's very pigmented, and comes out nice and bright. I applied this bad boy to the very edge of the bow, and you can see the gradient start to appear.
It's time to do the same thing with the purple!
I pick up my Royal Purple, and begin to apply it very thinly in areas where I want to simulate light hitting. I work around different areas of the mini, such as the boots, then the bow, then the arm bands, so that the previous areas can dry while I work on the next, and then loop back around when things are sufficiently dry for the next round of thin layering. I continue to repeat this until the covered areas match the color that's in the bottle (because you can't go further up from that).
Then, onto the next color! I've chosen Amethyst Purple, which is pretty close to the actual color of the costume.
Now I generally don't mix colors at the start because I'm very bad at replicating mixes. But, I will very lightly blend mixes on my wet palette- again, in very thin layers- in order to try and make a smooth gradient. You can kind of see here the transition and blend from the darker Carnival Purple up to Amethyst Purple.
Skin time!
As I did with the purples, I begin to build a transition from a dark color to a midtone where I think light would be hitting the mini. The back of her legs were particularly fun for this- the forms are very well defined.
And now, I add in the highlights
Okay. So here's the thing. I like using Maiden Flesh as a highlight, but Tinkerballa doesn't have a Caucasian complexion, so it has to be used a little sparingly. JUST at the tip top highlight. You can see in the middle picture I do a LOT of thin cross-blending to try and make it smooth.
And now, the dark bits.
Aw yeah. It's all coming together.
So something I've noticed is, especially if you're working up different parts at different times, is even the best/correct blend in the right place may look WRONG if it's not in context with the right colors. It wasn't until I added the black hair, brows, and eyelashes that I started feeling like I was heading in the right direction.
Now, here's where I goofed a little, guidewise.
If Reaper makes a batch of paint they're less than satisfied with, usually if the color is off, they'll bottle it up and send it out as free samples. Now, this sample was my first-ever Reaper paint (which caused the crazy spiral into becoming a Reaper fanatic... gg Reaper, gg), and I use it as a base for fur and other creamy whites. I do realize someday I will run out, it's irreplaceable, and I will cry. But until then, I use it. For replication purposes, it's incredibly similar to Leather Brown. I picked a warmer base to contrast with the purples a bit- I was considering using Snow Shadow, the base I used for Codex's skirt, but figured that'd make the mini too cool.
Once I lay that in, I re-pick-up the Maiden Flesh for the fur highlights, and a TOUCH of Pure White for an additional highlight on the fur color. Pure White is a little extreme and I recommend to use it sparingly.
While I had the whites out, I took this as an opportunity to do the eyes. I DON'T do the eyes in Pure White, as our eyes in real life aren't pure white. If you slap Pure White on a mini's eyes, it can look too extreme and creepy. I often use Maiden Flesh, or if I'm going REALLY bright for whatever reason. Linen White.
And then onto the hair. Now, Felicia's been very insistent that we don't try to match the actors, but I'd never really painted (intentionally) Asian hair before, and from experience with some of my friends, I know some reflects light bluer, and some reflects light browner. So I looked up the actress' hair.
In a lot of the promo shots, it didn't reflect much light. It just looked black. Like Vantablack. Which was REALLY neat looking, but not particularly helpful.
So.... I went with Mountain Stone, figuring it's a slightly brownish gray. I probably should have put a touch of blue in the transition from the dark to the highlight, but I figured it looked "cartoony" enough and matched with my style.
Looks like somewhere around here I put just a SMIDGE, a WEE GLAZE of Violet Red on her cheeks for a little blush.
I also added a little bit of Misty Grey to just a few small areas for an extra highlight.
Then time to plot out the greens for the grass!
Not pictured: Reaper's Green Liner. It's dark. A limited release Army Painter paint, Grung Green (made for the Nolzur's Marvelous Miniature's line) made it in there because it's practically neon green and makes for a killer highlight.
Aaaaaaand by this time it was like 11 at night, so I just "wet blended" most of this together. Which is basically mixing paint together directly on the mini. Then I slapped some Grung Green highlights, lightly drybrushed purple over the name, and KABAM! We have a MINI!
Then I throw my minis into a less-than-20-dollar-light-box I got from Amazon a million years ago and is starting to die. The key about these light boxes is: you have to get one with a RING light at the top. Some have just a strip of LEDs in the front and that's not enough light. Then, I stick my hand underneath the piece of printer paper that's in there and tilt the mini up a little so that light from the top falls on the front of the mini a little bit. It's all very professional.
And here she is!! Ready to get shipped off to sunny La La Land!!
Ok yeah now I have to get cracking on Zaboo.
You're all lovely,
Cara