SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star [Nickelodeon Best Friends Diorama - COMPLETED]

What better way to celebrate the return of sunny blue skies after a haze-free week then to complete perhaps the most cheerful pair of figurines in my collection. And who else better exemplifies such a happy and optimistic outlook than both SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star. Back in the day, when my son was a preschooler and I had less whites in my hair, our first SpongeBob episode together was one that revolved around bad breath. It was disgusting enough to make me wonder what SpongeBob's appeal to kids was. But in the end I got it. Now I wish more people have SpongeBob's innocent goodness in his heart than the Squidward Tentacles we have all become.        

Patrick Star (left) and SpongeBob SquarePants (right)

Shading for this mini-diorama looks deceptively simple but it actually took a lot of layering as well as wet-on-wet blending to achieve the smooth transitions you see, especially on Patrick. Less shading work was done on SpongeBob, partly to balance out the fact that he had more details than Patrick. 

Nickelodeon Best Friends mini-diorama featuring SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star

Having more details meant SpongeBob warranted less shadows/highlights transition work compared to Patrick

Side view (left) highlighting SpongeBob's nose

Olive green shadows on SpongeBob could easily have been shaded olive brown instead

One thing that could have been done differently was the olive green shadows on SpongeBob. An alternate choice would be to use olive brown instead. However, I chose the former to brighten up SpongeBob's colour scheme and hence the overall look of the piece. Meanwhile, my son cheekily suggested that Patrick's belly button should contain more shading (if memory serves me right, there was an episode showing Patrick's fascination with the contents of his belly button .... ewww ?) to reflect the contents of Patrick's innie. I passed on that! There is a case for too much realism.

Back view of the Nickelodeon Best Friends mini-diorama featuring SpongeBob and Patrick

Hands on back shoulders, the classic best friends pose

Side view (right) highlighting Patrick's tummy

Patrick had more shadows/highlights transition work done on him to compensate for lesser details

Living in a pineapple under the sea means the base has to be a sandy beach. It's a no-brainer. To accurately simulate such a texture, I used a combination of three old Citadel acrylic paints i.e. Bestial Brown, Bubonic Brown and Bleached Bone. Dry-brushing the latter two hues on top of the the initial basecoat colour created a sense of depth on the already nicely sculpted beach. But one challenge the base threw up was the difficulty in getting paints to penetrate the tiny ubiquitous pockmarks. To solve this problem, I mixed Citadel Lahmian Medium into the basecoat colour of Bestial Brown to reduce surface tension of the paints. This then allowed the basecoat paint to penetrate the pockmarks.

Base comprises three layers of dry-brushed paint to simulate depth in a sandy beach 

It has been a slow couple of weeks hobby-wise. I must be suffering some form of burnout as my productivity seems to have nosedived drastically. Even my plan to draw at least one portrait a month has been effectively curtailed. Try as I might, I can't quite put my finger on what's ailing me. If I don't get a handle on this soon, I might just find my painting or drawing activities come to a complete standstill. And that can't be a good thing if the law of inertia is anything to go by.