Gokufan's Celestial Genesis Twilight

Since I left off with her hair a chartreuse mess, I begin this session by giving it a coat of Army Painter Flesh Wash, to hopefully bring down the green and darken the recesses.

While the hair dries I begin working on some of the more monstrous parts of her flesh, her leg gills and chitinous feet. For these I go for a crusty red-pink look like you might see on a coral reef inhabitant. I start by base coating with VGC Gory Red. I then darken some of the crevices with a mix of gory red and dark Prussian blue. I blend in the surrounding skin with a mix of light turqoise and gory red. Highlights begin with a mix of gory red and VGC Squid Pink, continue with some basic skin tone added to the mixture and are finished with a few points of pure basic skin tone. The highlights are somewhat rough, which I think does a good job of making the area look crusty and chitinous. Of course my blending skill may also have been a factor…

The bottom of her left foot is causing me some consternation. It’s one of the few low details areas on the model and I’m not sure what to do with that. Ben Komets appears to have freehanded some toes in in his version, maybe I’ll give that a shot in the future.

The hair has now dried so I begin highlighting it by overbrushing dark flesh tone, continue with a mix of dark flesh tone and VMC Ivory, and finish with a few points of pure ivory.

At this point I take a picture of my palette. So messy! Along the bottom you can see the area I used for her skin, the middle has her red leg gills and feet, and the upper left corner is entirely what I used for her eyes. The clear white blob in the upper right is Vallejo Glaze Medium, useful for getting paint nice and thin without it breaking down. Maybe I should invest in a neutral colored sponge…

I decide to work on her costume next and try an NMM copper to contrast with her skin. I’ve not done copper before so this is somewhat experimental. After looking at my paints and some reference images I pick a palette of VMC Hull Red (really great red brown paint here, I highly recommend it), VGC Hot Orange, VMC Dark Flesh Tone, and VMC Ivory. This should create a maybe somewhat unrealistically orange copper that I think will go well with the fantasy theme of the model. I start with her headdress as a test area. I slowly start blending up from the hull red undertone into highlights. It takes a bit of monkeying around and I have to reassert the midtone by glazing hot orange, but I quite like the final effect.

I realize the I’m having some difficulty taking good pictures with my new phone, so I grab my printed backdrop which seems to help a good bit. Hopefully the pictures will be better from this point forward.

With her shining headdress and light blond hair her face is looking like a bit of a black hole in comparison. Note to future self: think hard before giving blond hair to darker skinned minis. I brighten her face up to help it claw back some attention. Looking at the pictures I took I think I’ll need to go back and blend it a bit better.

After this I go and apply the copper effect from her headdress to her outfit in much the same way. I feel a possible twinge of regret for attaching her arms before doing this. I always have a hard time telling whether to sub-assemble or not. Nonetheless I’m happy with the finished effect and decide to call it a day here.

Note: I’m still considering how to add more interest to the skin. Normally with skin I’d add red and yellow to create an impression of fleshiness and the reflection of sunlight, but I’m not quite sure how to do this with blue skin.