This past week has been full of watching Dark Souls III on Twitch (especially Black Light Attack and his Big D*** Susan character), playing video games, painting, and putting together my new paint rack. I got braces on Wednesday... again. I had braces as a kid for four years and in the last decade, my teeth have shifted on their own enough to offset my bite. I'm not thrilled, but I'm told, luckily, it will only take about six months to correct. I'm okay with that. I've been told by seveal people my age, "What's it like having braces as an adult? I've been considering it for myself and it's inspiring to see someone else doing it!" Other than learning how to talk and smile with a lot of metal in your mouth, it's not so bad.
In fact, when Jonathan Phillips-Bradford from Eldritch Studios & Elizabeth Beckley (from Miniature Mistress fame) invited me to be on their new Tabletop Hangout show, I was really excited! Even though it was only one day after my braces and I was in a consderable amount of aching pain, I had a great time with the crew– Jonathan, Elizabeth, Kevin Clark and Heath Foley. It was a lot of goofy fun sitting around, painting and talking about what's been happening lately. We also got to play a quick round of Super Fight at the end, which was pretty fun. You'll have to watch it to see who wins in the end! A big thanks to the crew for having me on :) If you have some time, check out the Youtube Video here:
While we recorded, I worked on this little chibi Twilight Knight from Soda Pop miniatures. Her cape is coming along nicely! I'm hoping to make it a rich, silky purple and it's coming along nicely! I tell you what, it's really hard to paint while you laugh. Also, I know I hold my brush in a unique way and it's very obvious in the video. Oh well.
Earlier this week, I received my new paint rack from Impudent Mortal which was the first U.S. retailer I've found to carry a this! So far, I've only discovered paint racks from companies based in the United Kingdom and shipping would be too costly– sometimes just as much as the fixture itself! Impudent Mortal is based out of the state of Ohio and I found this for a very reasonable price. I'll admit, it took me awhile to assemble it. I was happy to find this "reverse paint rack" since I like to see the bottoms of the bottles rather than the tops, so I can easily see the colors I can choose from. All my paints, with the exception of a few metallics, are Reaper paints. The dropper bottles fit nicely in the rack's design and I knew it would be perfect mounted above my painting desk.
While the directions aren't included in the kit, they have easily accessible links for the assembly steps online. I found it odd that they didn't include them with the package, though I can appreciate them wanting to save on shipping clutter and paper by having an online resource. With a bit of super glue, the pieces fit together sturdily and I was able to mount it and start the hardest part– choosing which colors to fill it with.
Over an hour later (as I watched Netflix), I had arranged my newly mounted paint rack. I finally decided on this system for storing my paint– from top to bottom, left to right:
- Pure White > Greys > Pure Black
- Light Neutral > Dark Neutral
- Light Pink > Dark Red/Violet
- Light Purple > Purple/Blue > Blue
- Light Blue > Dark Blue > Green-Blues (my favorite colors)
- Light Green> Dark Green
- Yellow > Orange > Red
- Fair Skin Tone > Dark Skin Tones (arranged by triads)
- Light Earth Tones > Dark Browns
Sounds a little obsessive, huh? Well that's the way I like it :) It makes sense in my head this way!
Once I finished organizing my paints, I went to bed and after running errands the next day, sat down to put my paints to work! Since I'd worked on my chibi Twilight Knight earlier that week, I wanted to do more with my Kingdom Death Twilight Knight. I started out with neutral browns for her coat, but I guess I had too much fun painting the cloak of that chibi, since I changed to a rich purple. It matches her gems, and while I like my miniatures to have repeating colors, I'll need to find out what color to paint her hair that works with the overall color scheme. Any ideas? I considered painting her hair a strawberry-blonde or make her a redhead, but I think that would stand out far too much agains the purple cloak. Maybe a rich Earth Brown color? I'll have to sleep on it. I still have some sword and belt touch-ups to make as well as painting the base! Plenty more to go and I'd like to see her done before the month's end. It's taken long enough! In the meantime, I'll need to revisit my weathering project– more on that next time!
