From Evernote:

Astrid - repainted - part 8: final shots and final thoughts

Well, she is out of my hands and into the loving hands of my dear friend now.

A lot more could have been done of course, but I see this as a vast improvement to the last paint job on her.  

in hindsight, I think I need to keep a notebook or just to keep a list here on my blog to remind myself what needs to be done, which part up to where, which color mix I used, etc.

anyway, lesson learned, good bye Astrid.

From Evernote:

Astrid - repainted for the love of the hobby - part 7

So did I mentioned that this is my first free hand? well it is.

not as hard as I thought, but the thing is that I could have do some outline on it first, but I didn't, coz it's white line...

the base color could have been darker and more contrast too... 

oh well, I'd say it's not bad as a first try.

these shots are to check for errors, I need to give it out on 31st so I can't really fix anything here...

in hindsight I could have used a better base, do a lot more on her sword, backpack could use a lot more sanding and highlights...

again, lesson learned, I am getting a small sander :)

  

From Evernote:

Astrid - repainted for the love of the hobby - part 6

So these things always happen, my brush tip slipped and landed on her forehead. good that it's very thin and it's easy to cover up

so I ended up laying a few more layers of paint on her face

and now it's smoother than before,

so it's not really a huge loss

From Evernote:

Astrid - repainted for the love of the hobby - part 6a

Color tester mini - This is another first for me.  Seeing that I got a shelf full of half finished mini I thought I might just grab one of them and use him as paint tester. 

It works out quite well too, no need to take any chances, but seems bit unfair to the poor mini though...

From Evernote:

Astrid - repainted for the love of the hobby - part 5

So I finally got around to paint her face.

As usual I got my 2:1 1:2 mix - that is, I mix foundation with shadow, and work my way up to lighter color...

that was a mistake. 

In the past I used to do 2:1, then 1:1, then 1:2 mix, so between each shades I got 3 different successions, but I thought since I thinned down the mix so much I can get away with one mix less...

I put this shot in because her skin looks smooth, and this actually is very close to how I look at her with naked eye

The result of one less mix, is that her expression is a lot more intense, giving the impression that her feature is more pronounced and therefore a more intense look...

ho well lesson learned. 

Astrid - repainted for the love of the hobby - part 4

nothing exciting here, except for a lot of touch ups and filling in on missed bits.  I am happy with the triangle on the instrument, but it's not perfect though.  It's again good experience for the next mini.

 

Astrid - repainted for the love of the hobby - part 3

not a lot of progress with this shot... to the untrained eye perhaps. I am very happy with the details I picked out this time around, the hardest part is perhaps the strings that run down the center of her body.  it was mostly done with wash and very tiny lines of highlights. Good experience.

Still nervous about missing out on highlighting her, I did quick dry brushing on the brown parts so that I'd remember to do highlights.  In hindsight this actually would have helped if I had used a even lighter color for the dry brushing, this is because I thin down my paint a lot and the black/dark-white contrast actually shows through.

The face looks a bit flat because I haven't done anything to it yet.  I had been busy for a while, when I am tired I won't have good control of the brush.

Astrid - repainted for the love of the hobby - part 2

Not only had I washed it to the metal, I had also removed a lot more mold lines as well, one regret, looking back, is that I should have give her face some more sanding and perhaps even use miliput to smooth it out

Different from last time, her prime was done with spray on primer, much, much easier.

 

As always I had done the face first. This time around I did the base coat of the hair and face first.  Reason is that the hair is always very close to the eyes and face, if I had done the eyes painting the hair is nerve racking.

and this time, I use a whole bunch of minor techniques I learned from experience, I am proud to say that I am happy with how her eye turns out.  next level is to dot the pupil will have to wait for the next one though...

 

this time around, I out a lot more effort into base coating her, putting wash here and there so that I won't forget the details.

Astrid - repainted for the love of the hobby - part 1

• hi everyone
• I repainted her because she had been sitting on my shelf for a long time as I can't decide on the color of her body... then as time went by I learned a lot more and painted a few more mini, when I sat her side by side with my new ones she seems not too impressive
• It was not too hard to give her the wash, but before that, I took a few more shots
• I think her eyes and face is decent, but I missed out on a lot of details on her cloths.

One last shot before the bath....