I wasn’t feeling all that motivated early in the week. The builds, all wildly out of scale, were much more appealing than painting, which I pretty much phoned in. The fountain was an interesting exercise, though I think I made every mistake possible.
- I did not make clean cuts – the hobby knife was too thin, I didn’t score the foam core first, and I didn’t make enough passes; the edges were seriously chunky.
- The paper did not come off clean – it took me a few tries to figure out a system that worked, messy as it was.
- I didn’t align the rings well enough – a couple of them broke and I didn’t take the time to align them very well, beveling the inner edge of the pool, which looked weird.
- I glued the centerpiece in too soon – it limited accessibility and compounded the alignment issue.
- Quilting pins are longer than standard apparel pins, which is lovely, but the diameter is also larger, so hiding them in the grout lines didn’t work so well (but anything that only went partially through was fine)
I’m fairly happy with the texture, cracks, and wear. I tested pretty much every piece of basing I own; I need to order some vines. Battlefied grass as moss definitely looks better with resin over the top, otherwise, thinking I should test the the painted glue/sand combo. The tiny leaves are pretty great though.
Thirty years before Albert Einstein’s discovery of the relationship between matter and energy, Renoir, Monet, Degas, and Pissarro are painting canvases with an awareness of reality bathed in a field of waves in which matter is constantly renewed by light, thus becoming movement… Their use of pigments as the channels for the light that hit them makes the colored surface breathe, inflate, and recede.
Guy Cogeval, Post-Impressionists
Still following Jeremy @ Black Magic Craft’s video on beginner projects, I thought I try the brick pillar and a variation. It was simple and pretty forgiving of sloppiness. The sphere is air-dry clay over aluminum foil. The clay was pretty easy to work with, but the final finish is…fuzzier than expected when sanded. It’s much softer and lighter than polymer clay, but I don’t imagine it holds detail all that well.
[Regarding Cezanne] It’s an accepted fact that his elaboration of a new and coherent form was achieved at the expense of of his having to deform nature, but this was done to render objects manifest in the most profound way.
Guy Cogeval, Post-Impressionists
I also found this tutorial that looked interesting, but I didn’t have any chipboard, so I tried it with foam core scraps. The dry run went ok, but lessons…
- Foam core without paper is great for fantasy, less so for sci-fi
- I dunno if my Mod Podge was older than I realized, or it just doesn’t play nice with acrylic ink, but it went gritty AF – I’m holding onto it for stone/fantasy, but next time I’m only adding paint
- Even well cut foam edges didn’t look clean enough – edging with cardboard food packaging helped to crisp them up
- Sanding still takes for. ev. er.
I’ve been trying not to go overboard on supplies, but I did order some chipboard after the wall anchor/rivet build. And terrain paints. And maybe some corrugated paper so I can make dumpsters. Then came my year-end review and bonus, and it’s not like I can put the entire thing towards my credit card – where’s the fun in that? I also scored some killer deals on used art books at Powell’s and I have a couple more shipping. On the other hand, I haven’t bought a model or a game in months and my pile of shame is shrinking – albeit slowly.
I think part of the reason I was dragging my feet was my lack of plan for the plethora of flat planes. I ended up doing a soft drybrush, lightening towards the top, to add texture and interest that, I think, comes across better in my hand. I need to do some cleanup tomorrow, but I think Felix and Oscar are about done.
Felix 
(the D6) 
and Oscar 
(the octahedron)
I was feeling kinda lazy until I reviewed the week, but I didn’t do half bad. I think I’ve earned a drink.
A group of five or six maladjusted painters, one off whom is a woman [the audacity 🙄], and all of whom are suffering from insane ambition, joined together to show their work…. They’ve put their vulgarities on public display without the slightest regard to the drastic consequences such an exhibit could provoke. Yesterday, a young man leaving the exhibit was arrested on Le Peltier Street after he bit passers-by….
Le Figaro, April 3, 1876