Ewwwwwww!
Is that a pest strip? What the hell kind of bugs you got in that place pal?
Nahhhh. Just Mikey's "ears". Tacked them to a piece of packing tape so I could prime and paint them eaiser.
A bit darker, using a dark green with some payne's gray mixed in on the higher areas, and more of a tan in-between. I did the same thing on the forearms, and front of the legs. I try to do everything in at least 3's. I never just use one color for anything. And I don't mean hilight, midtone, and shaddow. And everytime I switch colors, I overlap a bit onto the areas around it, to keep blending everthing together. And it usually adds another color, as they mix.
Hey look, Mikey's ears are attached.
This is after I painted them (duh) and went ahead and loaded up my Micron airbrush with various colors and did some shading, and coloring.
Raw umber for shaddows, burnt sienna to add some red tones in some of the fleshy-er areas, van dyke brown and paynes gray and sepia around his scales and back. Added some spots to further the transitional effect.
In the pictures below, you can get a better idea. It seems a bit blotchy now, but I'll be doing some pastel work for some added shading and coloring, and then I'll be misting over everything, and building up some hilights. Its tough when your working with this many colors, and patterns on a kit to do hilights and shaddows. You have to be carefull when misting or tinting, as the color you choose can affect the layer underneath. Example, if you have a kit that is blues and yellows, and you use burnt sienna (a redish brown) over both, the blue can turn a purple, and the yellow an orange. Ok, maybe not a good example. Stick with burnt umber and paynes gray. Neither seem to mess with the colors uner them when shading.
Applying some Liquitex Modeling paste to the offending seam.
I love this stuff. Its water soluable, and drys fast. Make sure you apply some dull coat or your favorite laquer sealer before doing this.
Mikey (MIB)
Nothing fancy going on here. Just base coated with a light tan. Reviewing the movie and behind the scenes junk on the DVD for Men in Black, I airbrushed a green/teal mix over the appropriate areas, just to start blocking in where the colors break up. I then mottled over this with a darker more olive green, trying to stay on top of the details and ridges of the top of the arms, front of the legs, back, etc, letting the teal show through. In the film, under the scales is this lighter color. I then creeped this dark green into the tan areas, blending the two together, and doing some quick shading.
This is just to give myself a guide so I don't have to leave my DVD on pause all the time. I couldnt get my PC to play the damn movie on anything except with that crappy Interactual player so many DVDs want you to install now. So, hence, even though I tired many other programs, couldn't get any screen caps. Oh well, I think I have the image burned into my mind now. Going from the film, which he appears at night so everything has a blue tint, and the spfx stuff on the extras, where you can see a lot more coloring going on, I'm trying to hit somewhere inbetween. And, probably add a few of my own touches here and there.
Sorry, thats it for now.
--update---
(really tired, so excuse me if what follows does not make much sense!)
Pictures above, on the left is to compare with the one on the right, which is after I started drybrushing the scales. Instead of the usuall working from dark to light, I did the opposite. Well, no, I kind of went back and forth.
Hey, those ears or flappers don't match the rest of the kit!
Oh, well, we have to fix those seams first.
Smooth everything with a damp brush, and then dabbing the edges with a damp cotton swab. Use water, washer fluid, spit... whatever is handy. (this is why you seal it first)
Now just touch it up. I started with my lighest tan color I used for the stomach, then one of the greens. Just kind of splotched it on there, blending it about. Then went back to the paint I saved (for once!) and drybrushed over the scales, blending it all together. When doing stuff like this, make sure you save some paint, dont let it dry out, or use colors you can mix again. I guess in this case its not too critical, since there is a wide variety of greens and browns, but hey. Like I said, I'm half asleep.
Mikey is getting into
this old Samurai flick that was on at 3am.
detail.
--update--
Below: Did some more airbrushing, to tie everything together using a transparant raw sienna/white mix. Used some pastel chalks to add some red hues here and there, and to do some shading. They wern't working as well, so I used some FW artists ink, Antelope Brown (transparant). Worked great. In the creases of the skin, like in the elbow joints and where the fingers are bent, I pretty much drew a line to add more depth. I mentioned something about that in my last kit too I think. (again I'm super tired, been digging around the house for something... but I'll get to that.)
About finished with this part of the kit. Going to move on to the rest....but oh no!
Oh well, no big deal. Maybe I can find something cool to add, out of all that crap I never throw away because "I might need it someday." I actually have the three "guns" from an old big screen tv that have tons of cool sci-fi looking stuff on them. Maybe I'll dig into those. I already looked at caps, film cans, plumbers putty tubes, no luck. Looking for something that fits right away, without me having to bend or tweek it.... tomorrow....