It’s been a while, and you could be forgiven for thinking I’ve not been painting. In reality, that’s actually pretty true – I’ve hardly touched a brush all year so far. In my defence, we did just move house, which obviously gets in the way of doing anything productive other than, you know, moving into a new house. I suppose that’s sort of productive in itself.
Anyway, the new house means that I now also have a new painting area all for myself. It’s fab. Behold:
So on one side I have the painting station, complete with swanky new lamp (thanks Facebook nerds!), while the other has the photography booth and display cabinet. It’s almost like I’m a real grown-up now that I have all the same stuff as everyone else.
I’m really looking forward to actually using it.
Speaking of which, I actually did some painting in the dying days of 2018, including very nearly finishing off a few pieces. First up, the basically complete torrent ducks:
I’m not sure if you can make it out in the pictures, but the fast-flowing water came out pretty well. It’d probably be more effective over a larger area, which is good to know just in case I decide to do something like that in the future. It’s just done with sculptable water (Vallejo, I believe) and a couple of shards of acetate to give it some of the more gravity-defying splashes.
Up next, a couple of pieces that pretty much just need basing finished up so that I can attach the ducks: mallards (at last – a variety of duck that everyone should be familiar with) and muscovies:
The muscovies were quite a lot of work because they’re structurally very different from other varieties: their feathers are oriented slightly differently, they have longer necks, they’re considerably larger (these aren’t quite as large as they could be, but I didn’t fancy sculpting the whole thing from scratch) and they have the weird red growths around their eyes and bills. I’m actually really pleased with how they’ve come out.
And finally, some work-in-progress cayugas, which you might recall from the wee Dusty and Otter vignette.
These are drakes, so they’re a shiny dark green (or they will be). So far just a few highlights; it should all come together with the shading and some mottled white spots. I’m not sure how I’ll base them yet, but I’ve been looking at pictures of Lake Cayuga where they were first bred, and that’s given me a few ideas.
I’m also now contemplating my next major project (I will, of course, still be painting more ducks for the next nine months or so), for which I’ll probably need to commission some sculpts, so I need to think about getting onto that sooner than I might otherwise get started. To that end, does anyone know of a flat/demi-rond/bas relief sculptor willing to exchange their talents for money?
Fet Paints 