Return of the Polar Vortex

When I rolled out of bed this morning at the crack of 10:30 AM (I stayed up until the wee hours), the temperature outside was -18 with a wind chill of -45. It's been ugly cold for several days with a fair amount of snow and temps around zero, but today, the weather is so extreme that most of Chicago---schools, businesses, cultural institutions, even the post office---closed up shop and told us all to stay home. 

Because it's been so cold, I haven't been able to do any prepping or painting for about a week. It's just way too cold to be spraying primer or fixative, so commissions have been in a holding pattern temporarily. That said, I have made some progress working in my studio. Or rather, on my studio. Admittedly, "studio" is a rather grandiose word to describe a cheap plywood desk with lots of stuff piled haphazardly on it and near it. And while it worked well enough for years, many of the shelves were just dead space because they weren't sized with model horses or customizing supplies in mind.

 So I cleaned everything out of my tiny work space and demolished the desk...

And installed a much more sturdy and efficient structure!

I even ended up with more storage space on top for my body boxes which I desperately needed. This new set up will make it so much easier for me to work on models in color batches because everything is so much more accessible. I also went through my art supplies and tossed a bunch of worn out brushes and empty paint tubes. Hooray for reducing useless clutter!

The weather shamans are predicting a 60 degree warm up into the 40s this weekend (and 51 on Monday!), so I'm planning to make up for lost time. Prepping-palooza! In addition to commissions, one of the models I'll be working on is my 2019 NaMoPaiMo victim.

Obligatory NaMoPaiMo selfie

The unicorn version of the new-ish Breyer Yasmin mold was cheaper than than the hornless variety, so I'll cut the horn off and save it for use on another model. I'm not sure which one yet, but a fantasy model will be a fun change of pace!

In a continuing effort to paint a color I find challenging for NaMoPaiMo, I wanted to try a brindle this year. I couldn't decide on a model to use though, and I suspect that a brindle would prove difficult to finish in just 28 days. I also didn't want to take time away from working on my commissions, so I settled on a portrait of the part-Arabian mare DA Remote Control (aka Clicker).

I have long been intrigued by her "reverse brindle" coat, and a bay with white markings is a color I can easily rotate into the queue as I work on other bays. (Clicker's coat, while it resembles the stripes found on brindle horses, is the result of a random genetic mutation that essentially turned off the color coding for her hair in certain places.)

I know I've been quite remiss in blogging (on all of my blogs), but I have been steadily working on models. I'm finding that Instagram is a fun place to share my day to day progress that isn't otherwise necessarily blog-worthy. I'll probably post a fair amount of NaMoPaiMo stuff there before writing a wrap-up post here. And that said, I will try to put together a pretty pony pix post here as well in the near future, especially if we get another crazy cold snap like the current one. T.S. Eliot wrote that April is the cruelest month, but he clearly never experienced a Chicago February.

NaMoPaiMo 2018

The calendar says it's March, but Mother Nature hasn't even thought about spring yet here in Chicago. It even snowed yesterday just to remind us we've still got a good 6 to 8 weeks to go before the weather turns warm. I've experienced colder, snowier winters here, but the longer I live in Chicago, the harder they are to slog through. I know I suffer from seasonal affective disorder, and that combined with several weeks-long stretches of single digit temperatures in January and February made getting ready for NaNoPaiMo a challenge for me. Not only was it too cold to spray primer or fixative, the constant cold grey gloom was downright exhausting. Alas, hibernating until May doesn't pay the bills.

NaMoPaiMo is an event meant to encourage people to paint, especially people who are new to the hobby or who have never tried painting a model before. As someone who's been painting for a number of years, I feel like a bit of an imposter participating, especially when I have been steadily painting and finishing models this last year in order to clear out my backlog of commissions. Nonetheless, I needed a bit of a pick-me-up, and I had a blank copy of one of my new favorite molds just begging for some love, so I decided to go with a challenging color again this year to see if I could improve my techniques.

Greys, whether light, dark, medium, or flea-bitten, have always been the hardest colors for me to paint. I have experimented with airbrushing them, hand-painting them, pasteling them, and combinations of all three with varying success. In the last year or so, I have figured out a technique combining pastels and airbrushing with a little bit of hand-painting that I think works reasonably well. I would still like to finesse the shape and placement of my dapples, but this is definitely an improvement on past attempts.

After priming the model, I base coated it in soft white paint. I then used an old, worn brush to apply black pastel dust. (In this case, it was technically charcoal dust because I ran out of proper black pastels. The pastels are a tad softer and easier to blend, but charcoal sticks work nearly as well.)

I then used an eraser pencil to create dapples...

Which I blended a bit with the worn brush and a little more pastel dust.

I then sealed my work with Krylon fixative and moved on to the barrel using the same technique.

With each body section...

I repeated the same steps...

And I used the eraser pencil to gently tease out highlights in the muscle grooves, elbows, flanks, and other "warm" areas where horses tend to grey out first.

Once I had most everything but the head pasteled, I came back over the topline, shoulders, and rump with another layer to pastels to darken them up and add some contrast. I did the legs as well, but forgot to snap a photo.

I then airbrushed a very fine layer of dark grey and then a bit of black to add a little more of a contrast than I could achieve with just pastels.

I decided to go with one dark leg to give him a bit of character. I hand-painted the mane and tail, hooves, and face markings...

and voila! I'm pretty pleased with him. I managed to finish him up with about an hour and half to spare on February 28th, so right down to the wire in typical fashion. (These photos were taken late at night with soft lighting, so the color's a bit off.)

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Having tried this technique a couple of times now, I have more ideas for tweaks and refinements, especially to the dappling. More practice is warranted, maybe on a Proud Arabian Mare?

I am still hard at work finishing up commissions---check out my Instagram feed for more pictures of models on their way home---and I will find some time to blog about them here, too, in the near future.

Onward!

NaMoPaiMo success!

She's done! And with a couple of hours to spare, ha ha! This color and pattern were a significant challenge to execute and complete because I have often felt a lack of confidence in my dun dilutions, but I'm really rather pleased this gal turned out so nicely. I am still struggling with my workload mentally (and temporally) and a big dose of seasonal affective disorder, but NaMoPaiMo has been a very much needed artistic mojo boost. Thank you so much, Jennifer, for organizing this wonderful hobby event! I have thoroughly enjoyed the camaraderie and enthusiasm it engendered. 

 

 

 

Hermosa is on ebay now. 

NaMoPaiMo: Down to the wire

Getting my ducks in a row is a slow process, but I have been busily chipping away at commissions all month. I've also managed to squeeze in some time to work on my NaMoPaiMo model. I think I'll be able to have her done by Tuesday (the last day of the month, eep!), but it's going to be down to the wire. Unfortunately, working right down to the last minute of a deadline is usually what I do. I always seem to underestimate how long painting will take, especially white layers on pintos. Which brings me to the subject of today's post.

I usually map the spots on my pintos with carefully shaped tiny pieces of blue painters tape or some form of liquid mask, but this time around, I decided not to. Because frame overo feels less intuitive to me than tobiano (my favorite pinto pattern if you haven't already guessed), I opted to draw the pattern on my fully painted model using references to have better control of the pattern. I used a white Prisma pencil to sketch that pattern and fill it in.

Then I began the slow process of adding thin layers of white paint to the pattern.

By the end of Sunday evening, the pinto markings have much better coverage than when I started, but they still have more layers to go. I often find that taking a break from the monotonous white layers is useful, so I decided to block in the basic color on the hooves and eyes. It helps give me a better sense of the finished piece, and it also seems to make finishing the piece less daunting.

Getting there!

So, with two evenings left to me to work on her, I need to finish the white layering, add pinking where appropriate, finish the hooves and eyes, and finish the mane and tail. I'm pretty sure I can accomplish this. Wheee!

Commission and NaMoPaiMo progress

I shipped out three horses last week. Hooray! Progress feels so very good. I have a long way to go, but chipping away at small tasks like prepping and priming is helpful. I work 40+ hours a week, and by the time I get home in the evenings and make and eat dinner, there isn't much time for working on horses. Most of my painting time comes on the weekends, so I do my best to get as much done as possible on my days off.

Painting fuel and an in progress pony

I use an Iwata Eclipse airbrush, and paint primarily with Jo Sonja acrylic guache. I thin it to the consistency of whole milk to run though my airbrush, building up color from light to dark.

I do sometimes use other brands like Liquitex and Ceramcoat if I don't have certain colors on hand. Jo Sonja is carried by Dick Blick, but there isn't a store near me, so I usually order that paint online. Happily, I can get to a Michaels easily to pick up the other brands when I can't wait for an order to arrive.

In between working on commissions last weekend, I painted a few layers on my NaMoPaiMo Hermosa who will eventually be a grulla frame overo. I usually mask off pinto patterns with little pieces of blue painters tape, but I decided to try overpainting the pattern with thin layers of white instead. We'll see how that works out. These cell phone pix are not great, but here are the first few layers of color.

Pale iridescent cream

An overlay of pale grey with a hint of silver

A slightly darker wash of grey

Two layers of darker grey

Today, I began adding layers of color with pastels. I apply them with old brushes that have gotten worn and fluffy and are no longer of any use for painting fine details. I have specific brushes for various colors to keep the colors I apply from getting mixed and muddy. You don't want to use a brush caked with black for pink skin tones, for instance.

First I added a layer of dark brown.

And then some black.

I seal all layers of paint and pastels with Krylon Matte fixative. It dries quickly and has a nice, smooth finish.

I'm quite pleased with how this grulla color is shaping up. I rarely mix colors from recipes---I just wing it most of the time---but I do at least make notes for myself when I come up with something I like. I have been experimenting with subtle metallics lately, and it's made all the difference, especially with this color.

Tomorrow, I plan to block in the basic pattern. I'll probably do some more pastel work as well. Having looked at my reference photos, I need to darken up the legs a bit as well as add dun factors. Because I use the tail as a handle, that and the mane will be just about the last parts of the horse I work on. Stay tuned for more pictures!

Safety Dance and other prepping musical numbers

Living in an apartment presents a variety of challenges as an artist. Lack of space in general is the primary one, but lack of appropriate space is also problematic. Regarding lack of space, most of my models live in boxes at the moment because that's the most efficient way to store them. My shelf space is limited, so I have a tendency to rotate models on and off display. Plastic bodies and resins also stay boxed until I'm ready to work on them. And as you can see, my work space is tiny.

Where I prep, airbrush, and hand detail models. Cat for scale, ha ha.

Lack of appropriate space means I have to primer horses in my bath tub rather than in a better setting such as a garage or a deck (like so many turn-of-the-century buildings in Chicago, mine has neither).

I spread newspaper or butcher paper under the models so as not to get
primer all over my tub.

The first step in getting a model ready to paint is selecting appropriate entertainment. No really, prepping is tedious and boring, so having something to listen to while I work helps keep me focused. I occasionally play something from Netflix or Youtube on my tablet while I work, but the vast majority of the time, I listen to my trusty iPod. Audiobooks, especially mysteries or histories, are my usual preference, and my musical tastes  run to to punk, ska, goth, new wave, and '90s alternative, with a very healthy dose of Celtic music thrown into the mix. Sometimes you need a good bagpipe jam to keep you going late at night. :)

The second step is prepping. This means removing all seams, the company logo, filling divots and pinholes, as well as restoring any details compromised by the prepping process, like wrinkles crossed by a seam. When I need to remove company logos and heinous seams, I prefer to us a Dremel. You can buy a practically endless array of sanding, cutting, and drilling bits for Dremels which make them incredibly useful tools.

Dremeling is a messy business---fine plastic or resin dust will coat your clothes, so wear something you don't care about. (Speaking from experience, you may also accidentally catch your Dremel in your shirt and tear a hole in it, so again, wear something expendable.) Dremels will also fire larger chunks of hot plastic or resin right into your face (it stings!), so a respirator and safety goggles are a must. I use these (pictured below) which can be found at any home improvement store, but as I wear glasses, I find that bits of plastic and resin can still nail me pretty close to the eye. I recently saw Adam Savage (of Mythbusters fame) using this face shield with glasses, so I plan to acquire one soon. It looks perfect for what I do.

I then go back over the seams and logo with sandpaper, using coarser grit (100-200) to begin with and progressing to finer grit (500-600) to smooth the surface nicely. I use a carbide scraper from Rio Rondo to get at seams in hard to reach places or in areas with lots of fine details (wrinkles, hairs, etc). The scraper comes with 6 different tips of varying shapes and purposes.

I'm not picky about sandpaper. I'll buy anything that looks useful.

Once all prep work is done, I go back over the whole model with medium-to-fine grit sandpaper to give the surface just a bit of tooth to grab the primer. Resins generally get a quick scrub with soap and water to remove any lingering mold release and then some general sanding.

For primer, I use Rustoleum Clean Metal Primer in white. Because I use acrylics, I build up color from light to dark (otherwise, the colors end up looking muddy and dull), and a white base layer is the best option for me. I know some artists use red or grey primer with acrylics, but I feel white makes my paint jobs more luminous and clear.

As I mentioned above, I primer models in my bathtub. Happily, my bathroom has a window that opens to the outside, so I can just open the window wide, spray the models, and turn on a fan for air circulation. I keep the door closed so the smell won't permeate my apartment. And, of course, I always wear a respirator when spraying primer.

I spray models one side at a time and let each side dry for at least 24 hours before spraying the other side. (In humid or hot weather, I usually let models dry for 48-72 hours before adding more primer.) I then spray the top of the model and then the bottom, sometimes in one go depending on the size of the model. If I'm holding the model while spraying primer, I wear gloves to keep it off my skin. (Potential toxicity aside, it's very hard to scrub off, and going to work with primer on my hands would not be acceptable.) After the first rounds of spraying have dried completely, I sand the model lightly to remove any drips or gunk that may have stuck to the primer in the drying process. Very often, I'll have to give the model a couple of extra quick passes with primer just to make sure everything is adequately covered.

"Two by two. Hands of blue."

So all told, prepping and priming a traditional scale model usually takes me about a week depending on the weather and how bad the seams are. I'm sure I'm slower than other artists at the process, but I want to best possible canvas for my paint. Next time, painting tools!

And the obligatory earworm:

NaMoPaiMo

Many of you are probably familiar with NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, an online event in November in which people from all over the world attempt to write a novel, or at least 50,000 words, in the space of 30 days. The only prize is a sense of accomplishment and hopefully a bunch of words that might eventually be publishable.

Jennifer Buxton of Braymere Custom Saddlery fame was thus inspired to create NaMoPaiMo in hopes of some camaraderie when she decided she would like to paint more this year. The idea is to paint and finish one model during the month of February. Any model and any media (acrylics, pastels, oils, even eye shadow and fingernail polish) can be used. To say the idea took off is an understatement---Jen has more than 250 entrants from 16 different countries at last count!

NaMoPaiMo struck me as a lifeline to drag me out of this artistic rut I've been in and to help keep me motivated. I'm going to try to make a couple of posts a week about my artistic process as well as on progress I'm making on commissions. Momentum is key. So that said, my NaMoPaiMo victim will be this Breyer Hermosa model---I'm thinking grulla frame overo. Both color and pattern are particularly challenging to me, so I hope they'll make for interesting blog fodder. Step 1 today though will be cleaning up my work space. As you can see from the photo below, I need to change out the filter at the back of my spray booth and lay down some fresh newspaper to start with. I also desperately need to reorganize my body hoard to make my work space more efficient.

In the meantime, I've dug through my saved reference photos for some inspiration. Grulla is one of those colors that comes out a little different every time I try it, but this shade is what I'll be aiming for.

Berry Sweet Whizard, a handsome QH stallion owned by
Cedar Ridge Quarter Horses

And as for the pattern, I think I'll opt for something with a moderate amount of white like this.

(Photo source)