Lady Mechanika Part 1

I've hit a block on the Hussar bust.  I moved on to the black uniform and it's been giving me a lot of difficulty, so I decided to take a break and work on something else for awhile.  I've been meaning to start on one of the steampunk figures from Scale75, so I figured now was the time.  I'm working on Jessica Thunderhawk, however the sculpt is based on a piece of art for Lady Mechanika so that is how I'm planning to paint her.  Lady Mechanika is the main character in a steampunk comic.  The box art for the figure followed the original artwork exactly... so I felt like I needed to do something different.  I used some of the other artwork associated with Lady Mechanika and here is what I came up with, just a quick base coat and color sketch.

And here she is with a little more work on her.  I spent about 1 or 2 hours cleaning up the stripes on her pants (though they will obviously get more work when I start to shade and highlight them).  I also went to work on the skin.  The approach for female skin is a bit different from male skin.  While you can still have high contrast, you generally want softer transitions and to downplay the more minor features.  So the lines from the nose down to the corners of the mouth are subtle and lines under the eyes aren't brought out at all.  The darker you make features like those, the more masculine the face will look.

Announcements and Paint-Along

I've got a couple quick announcements, including a new paint-along I'm organizing.

First, I'm looking to take on some commission work in the next month or two.  If anyone is interested, drop me a line either at CMON or here (there's a contact form over on the right).  My focus is 54mm and 75mm figures, though I'll paint 28mm too if I feel like I can do the figure justice.  I don't normally agree to do that many commission pieces, so if you're interested now is a good time to ask!

Second, I've been talking with Caleb about teaching a painting seminar up in the San Francisco Bay Area.  The topic would be painting faces and skin tones.  Right now it's still in the very very early planning stages.  If it happens it will most likely be at one of the Game Kastle stores (either Fremont or San Jose).  There are also some shows coming up, so maybe I could do the seminar at one of those.  I'll post more details once we get things figured out.

Third, I'm doing another paint-along over at Cool Mini.  Here's a link to the thread.  The topic is steampunk and a number of us will be working on the Jessica Thunderhawk figure from Scale75 (although you can join in with any steampunk themed project you want to do).  The general idea is for this to run through April and May.  I won't have a chance to start for another two weeks, so plenty of time to get a figure and join in.

Here's a look at the Jessica Thunderhawk figure, in case you'd like to do the same one I'm working on.  If you're ordering from the USA, I recommend contacting Red Lancers.  She's not listed on their site yet, but they carry the rest of the Scale75 line and I'm sure could get her if asked.  Or you can order direct from Scale75.  Of course there are lots of steampunk options (Infamy, Guild of Harmony, Malifaux, etc).

The sculpt is clearly based on this piece of art from Olga Starodubtseva, which is a version of the comic book character Lady Mechanika.  I plan to use that character as the inspiration for my paint scheme, though I won't necessarily be following the colors from this image.