The Third Miniature: the Lonely Lady (Painted Early Sept, 18)

At the time I ordered the Kingdom Death: Monster 1.5 core game, a few additional things were available on the Kingdom Death Store. In addition to the game, I also ordered the Lonely Tree Expansion which also includes the Lonely Lady miniature. After putting both main miniatures from the expansion together (the tree was a bitch!) I really wanted to paint the Lonely Lady next for three reasons:

Not surprisingly, the stone bra is added on during gluing. A lot of people choose to keep it off and let the breasts hand out in the wind. I'm a traditionalist

1. I wanted to improve on the realism of skin tone and texture. The Lonely Lady is mostly naked so more canvas.

2. While only a few, there are some details on the Lonely Lady that require a deft hand and for shading and highlighting, doubly so.

3. I'll admit it: she's hot.  Also, her background is also pretty cool (similar to sea nymphs like in Homers Odyssey) and I look forward to incorporating her into the game at a later point.

Given that this was my third attempt of doing a more detailed KDM miniature, I'm somewhat satisfied with the outcome. The canvas was simple but with some attention to detail needed. Improvements can always be done and I'd like to revisit this one again.

Note the detailing done on the lower leg

My attempts at skin highlighting here: calves, buttocks

Interestingly, this model taught me more about the paint and primer I use. Before, I hadn't paid too much attention to the paint consistency. This experience emphasized the importance of watering down acrylic paints. Since I've started, I've mainly used The Army Painter Paints and primer (I'll go more in depth about these paints in a later blog, but for now I'm focusing on my learning experience). The paints themselves are great and the matte white primer was so-so. Still, given just how thick these paints are, without watering them down, the texture of the miniature can look grainy, and doubly so with the so-so primer base coat. It's something that I noticed early into the painting session and you can see how the skin texture isn't as smooth as it could be, which I believe detracts from the natural look. It also makes highlighting look less natural.

I think I did an alright job on the lantern. It was my first real try

Before this painting session, I reviewed online about watering down acrylic paints. A common technique I read was to use the hard end of a paintbrush, dip it in your water cup and apply droplets into the paint. I didn't like this technique so much - the drop size can be inconsistent and I'm worried about the dirty water color affecting the paint itself. Instead I've been using an eye droplet to control how I add water to the paint. This was by far the most important lesson I learned from the painting experience, and I wanted to share it. Hope it helps.