HQ12-02 Race Queen [WIP - Hair & Early Work on Face]

What is past is prologue ... so goes the oft quoted Shakespearean line from The Tempest. While in modern times this phrase has frequently taken on a meaning different from that intended in the play, it is the original interpretation which applies in my case. For it seems whatever technique I had learned and applied in the past had almost no bearing on the painting of the Race Queen's skin tone. I say almost because her eyes, lips, teeth and fingernails will still see the application of old acrylic painting methods. But hitherto the rest of her skin tone had been largely painted using new techniques like airbrushing of lacquer paints; dry-brushing of pastel hues; and hand painting of oil paints.          

1/12 scale Race Queen work-in-progress: Her hair and early stages of her face

Skin tone is on the fair side, exaggerated black hair, dark background and unpainted clothes ...

... but her skin tone should look relatively less fair once her facial features and clothes are painted in

Building on earlier firsts with lacquers and pastels, this session saw oil paints added to my existing repertoire of skin tone painting techniques. In the past, I usually used acrylic paints to paint the blush hues on a female figurine's cheekbones. But because acrylic paint dries extremely fast it's difficult to correct mistakes. Alternatively, I found the use of oil paints more flexible due to its slower drying time and the ease in which mistakes can be corrected with careful use of white spirit. Blush hues on the Race Queen's face comprised a mix of Winton Oil Color Flesh Tint and Permanent Rose. 

For her blush, a Winton Oil Color mixture of Flesh Tint and Permanent Rose was used

For her lips a mix of Vallejo Carmine Red and Salmon Pink was used; for her eye sclera and teeth Reaper Leather White

For her hair, various layers of Vallejo Model Color Black, German Camouflage Black Brown and Burnt Umber was used

A previous attempt at painting black hair gave rise to plenty of misgivings as I wasn't entirely happy with the final outcome. This time around aided by both an arguably better sculpt of a head of hair and the use of black paint as a basecoat (versus a lighter black brown in the earlier attempt). The former allows the contrast in colors to stand out more while the latter prevents the black hair from becoming too brownish. Acrylic paints used for her hair comprised Vallejo Model Color 70.950 Black, 70.822 German Camouflage Black Brown and 70.941 Burnt Umber.

Random strands of the Race Queen's black hair received extra highlights ...  

... which help to create a sense of volume in her hair

Contrast between the hair and clothes will lessen once her outfit is painted

Hair on top of her head received the least highlights ...

... which essentially means the main source of light isn't from above but instead it's coming from the sides

As you can see from the photos above and below, the Race Queen has an extremely fair complexion. Now there's a reason for this. I needed her skin to be fair in order to suitably contrast against the color scheme of her clothes, which odds-on should be light pastel hues incorporating skin-like hues.  

As this is still early stages of her face, some red from her lips had bled into the teeth

While there is more work to be done on her lips, I'm happy with the color of her lipstick

A light pink blush seems suited to her fair facial skin tone, for now

As much as I enjoy working on sci-fi and military vehicles, it's the time I spent on figurines that most invigorates me. On that note I hope to add more miniature figurines into my project pipeline in the near future. For reasons I'll explain later, there is a high likelihood that I'll add up to five new projects (two anime figurines and three anime mechas) to the existing five on my work table. It seems crazy if you think about it but there is a method to my madness. All will be made clear, eventually. For now it's good bye and thanks for checking out my progress on the Race Queen. Cheers!