Well, it's been a few days since I updated. You can thank the good ol' Pennsylvania weather for that. I bought a new primer this past autumn and found out I couldn't use it in temperatures lower than 50. Then I was told by that no-good, lying weatherman that it would be nice on Monday. Instead, we were graced with this:
That's right. Snow. On the last day of March. It melted quickly, but that's beside the point. So, I had to wait to prime Crocker. I finally got around to priming, with some difficulty. The primer wouldn't shake correctly (you know that ball that rattles around? It wasn't rattling) so I had to battle with it. Luckily it was about 55 out so I wasn't too upset about being outside. Finally the primer yielded and I left Crocker out in the sun to dry. The results could have been better, but in the end I had a primed pony.
Now for paint! My victim for the Spring Swap said she likes purple, so I decided on a shimmery violet color. Very fairy-like! First was the base coat.
He wasn't quite so blue in person. It was in the upper 60s today so I had the window open. Unfortunately that made my acrylics dry faster as I was working with them, but I did get a lot done.
We interrupt this Crocker progress to bring you two other ponies I've been working on. I mentioned in an earlier post that I'm doing a portrait of Na3na3 from Prince Fluffy Kareem for charity. I didn't mention that a while back, I decided to do a mini-Taskin as well.
When I started customizing, I would simply start painting after priming. In recent years I've learned that pencil-marks are my friend, especially for white areas. I mapped those out and started with a cream-colored basecoat for Taskin.
Na3na3 is a bit easier than Taskin. She's a simple bay mare with a white mark on her forehead. I wondered if I couldn't try doing pastels on her to build up her color.
She came out a lovely color... if I wanted her to be a dilute. I also ran into a couple of problems with the pastels sticking to the body.
As these horses were sold unpainted, I didn't bother priming. Now I know for next time. See the big splotches where the pastel wouldn't stick? I decided on acrylic.
Mmm, chocolatey. I figured it was much easier to do this until I get the whole pastel thing down. But I had fallen in love with pastels (and had some dust leftover) so decided to try some on Taskin.
Aaaand same problem. Back to acrylics for you too, Taskin.
I should also mention: I know some artists use brushes for applying pastels, but I tried that years ago and didn't like the outcome. Now I use... you know those spongy applicators that come with eyeshadow palettes? Those things. They're cheap and work very well. I'll say now that my old Urban Decay spongey things are very shoddily made. This was after a few layers of pastel on Na3na3.
Now with Na3na3's basecoat dry, I wondered if I couldn't use the pastel for some shading.
It's a subtle difference, but it's there, and I do like the look of it in person. Of course, at this point I had gone into a frenzy with the pastels.
(Yes, that's me crushing up bigger bits with the back of a paint brush.) Na3na3 got a few more layers, and I took another look at Taskin. I noticed that in the reference photo I had he has some reddish undertones to his mane and tail. I figured I'd just add a little color...
Well, I've had better ideas.
"I'm a candy corn!"
(I think it's safe to say this applicator is obliterated. On both sides.)
Now back to Crocker. I did two coats of the basecoat violet, and while waiting for those to dry, I went back to Taskin with acrylics in a better (and thinner) buckskin color.
Bubble butt!
So after that I took a break. A few hours later I noticed my mom had hijacked the computer desk (two computers, one desk), so I went back to work. I mixed some paint for Crocker's main color...
...and found it successful! I mixed his basecoat (violet and cerulean with a touch of blue lake, if you wanted to know) with some metallic violet craft paint. It made the perfect fairy color! Unfortunately it was night time when I did this, and I don't think the camera really picked up how shimmery he is.
Then I decided to paint over Taskin's orangey mane and tail with a darker reddish-brown as a base...
-sighs- Well, it's gonna be covered with black anyway. Now that his main color is done, I plan on doing some shading, plus some more work on Na3na3. I'm also trying to figure out how to do Crocker's wings. With how nice the weather's been, I've been on a bit of a creative kick, so stay tuned!
