Presenting her royal highness, Princess Livia from Tin Man Miniatures. Tin Man Miniatures is best known for producing 28mm-32mm scale figures based on the Barsoom planetary romance series written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is the non-"A" version of the figure. The "A" version represents the same character, but wearing less than what is seen here.
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| Extraterrestrial beach attire. |
Figures representing women clad more in concept than reality don't regularly feature on this blog, but this one has been in my unpainted pile for more than long enough. I picked her out of the pile since I was in a swords and sorcery mood after an involuntary month long break. Although "sword and planet" might be a better description here.
My first attempt ended with Livia taking a bath in Simple Green. I tried out a different spray primer and found that it went on too thick and obscured the finer details. Then the nozzle broke and I threw out the can. Worse, I didn't like how the paint scheme I picked out - pale skin and gold metallics - blended together.
Sometimes a fresh start is the best option. Besides, I need more practice with painting flesh tones. This wasn't the end of the challenges I ran into with this project, though.
Preparation
This figure required nothing other than the warm soap and water cleaning I give to all of my miniatures as a first step. I wasn't able to find any mold lines or flash.
Base Assembly
I decided that the small integral base is not fit for the purpose of keeping the figure standing upright. My solution is the same one I use for Reaper Bones miniatures - gluing the figure on a steel fender washer.
Color Scheme
I opted to paint this figure as a human rather than a Red Martian. No offense intended to Edgar Rice Burroughs, but I felt that I would get more utility out of a swords and sorcery appearance for this figure.
The warm colors of the figure's skin and hair contrast with the cold metallics of the figure's outfit and jewelry. The small amount of blue cloth continues the warm/cold contrast.
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| Hair flowing in the winds of an alien desert. |
Spray Primer
Tamiya Surface Primer (L) Gray
Tamiya Surface Primer (L) White
Sprayed in a zenithal pattern. This worked much better for preserving the details of the model.
Skin
Reaper 09041 Dark Skin
Reaper 09221 Olive Skin
Reaper 09260 Bronzed Skin
Secret Weapon W005 Flesh Wash
I built up a tanned appearance from the Dark Skin base layer to the Bronzed Skin highlights. All of these paints work well as various skin tones. The wash added surprisingly little and I'll skip it the next time I use this recipe.
Hair
Reaper 09221 Olive Skin
Reaper 09257 Blond Hair
Secret Weapon W005 Flesh Wash
Using Olive Skin as a base layer meant one less paint bottle to dig around for. The wash was much more useful here, bringing out the flowing hair sculpted on the figure.
Metal
Citadel Colour Codex Grey
Citadel Colour Boltgun Metal
Citadel Colour Mithril Silver
Formula P3 Armor Wash
Metallic paints don't always coat well, so I started with a non-metallic base layer. Even applied as a highlight, the Mithril Silver overwhelmed the layers it was sitting on. The wash toned down the shine and brought back the details of the metallic areas.
Cloth
Reaper 09017 True Blue
Basing
The basing material is my usual mix of sand with water, PVA glue, and FolkArt 231 Real Brown to fix it in place. Next came a dry brush of FolkArt 420 Linen to give the surface a drier, sandy appearance. I used Citadel Colour Chaos Black for the rim and - judging by the photos - I'll need to touch it up.
The initial set of photos I took of this miniature revealed all of the flaws in my paint job. This wasn't the first time I ran into this issue, but it was the first time it was bad enough for me to go back, fix things, and reshoot. Most of the flaws were with the cloth and skin tones. Also, it was at this point that I applied the wash to the metallic areas since the reflections were giving my camera fits.
This project turned out to be more of a challenge that I anticipated. This is not the fault of the figure, which is well sculpted and cast. An unplanned month off from painting left me a little out of practice. Perhaps something else might have been a better choice for a first project back. On the other hand, I did come out with new recipes for painting skin tones and metallics. Overall, I enjoyed the process of finding solutions for the problems I ran into and extracting a figure from the unpainted miniatures pile.
The basing material is my usual mix of sand with water, PVA glue, and FolkArt 231 Real Brown to fix it in place. Next came a dry brush of FolkArt 420 Linen to give the surface a drier, sandy appearance. I used Citadel Colour Chaos Black for the rim and - judging by the photos - I'll need to touch it up.
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| The base still needs a little work, but good results overall. |
The initial set of photos I took of this miniature revealed all of the flaws in my paint job. This wasn't the first time I ran into this issue, but it was the first time it was bad enough for me to go back, fix things, and reshoot. Most of the flaws were with the cloth and skin tones. Also, it was at this point that I applied the wash to the metallic areas since the reflections were giving my camera fits.
This project turned out to be more of a challenge that I anticipated. This is not the fault of the figure, which is well sculpted and cast. An unplanned month off from painting left me a little out of practice. Perhaps something else might have been a better choice for a first project back. On the other hand, I did come out with new recipes for painting skin tones and metallics. Overall, I enjoyed the process of finding solutions for the problems I ran into and extracting a figure from the unpainted miniatures pile.
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