As previously noted, I’ve not been terribly productive on the painting front this year, which is really unforgivable when this year presents a prime opportunity to do very little except paint. I’m still working, so I’m not completely freed from other obligations, but I don’t have my usual commute, I can’t spend time in the pub and we haven’t travelled since getting back from New Zealand in January.
As I say, I’ve really had no real excuses.
However, I’m now running out of other distractions and I’ve been quite surprisingly productive in the last couple of weeks. Firstly, Putin is finished except for a plaque. I’ll get that sorted out when I have a few more to order at once. It’s not like there’s any particular rush.
Secondly, the dour medieval chap is also done. He was a fun bit of work just playing around with paint and textures and stuff. For those of you not following along on Facebook, here’s how he came out:
When I can be bothered dealing with couriers, he’ll be winging his way off to a friend.
Thirdly, I decided to enter Massive Voodoo’s Beyond Your Imagination competition. I didn’t even realise there was a competition for a while – I just really liked the model Roman had painted up and wanted to give it a go myself, so I headed over to Mr Lee’s to get the set and discovered it was sold out. And then sold out again. And then on the third release, I managed to get them. (They are currently, I’m sure you’ll be astonished to discover, sold out.)
When I finally got them, I already had a few ideas, but so far three of those ideas haven’t been realised but deserve to be, so I think I may need another set. Anyway, working quickly with what I had to hand, I came up with this:
For the record, I have now spent far too much time focusing on rotund astronaut buttocks. They’re quite prominent.
Anyway, there will probably be at least one more of these, if not three more…
Finally, I’ve been working quite steadily on the native American:
I’m pretty happy to call his face done now, and I’ve made a small start on his scarf. Speaking of which, if you look back at the previous blog, you’ll note that I’ve made a small change to it. The original was all folds, which I guess might be fine, but in my research I found that these scarves were generally quite brightly coloured and patterned, so all those folds would make that more difficult to get across; as such, I’ve smoothed it out quite a lot and made it a bit broader in places.
My research also found that he’s a Kiowa (the fur-wrapped braids was the giveaway), which is a tribe that’s often described as being very much what you expect of ‘stereotypical’ native Americans. They lived semi-nomadically in tipis, rode horses, hunted bison, did the Sun Dance, etc. If you’re particularly interested, the actual sculpt appears to be based on a photograph of Chief Running Deer.
Finally, I beheaded Lady Gaga and replaced it with a much improved head from Hornet. I still have to resculpt the hair, though, so there’s not really much to show for that.
Fet Paints 
