Thursday, February 20, 2014

The Nine Balances - Nu Wa

Its time for the goddess to get her spotlight time :D

The girl is all ready for paint (plus all of her hair extensions :D)

 For the base color I used Buff Beige acrylics by Anericana.  I just found this new line of satin paint and just had to try it out :D  The color itself is alittle pale, but great as a base tone.


 Shaded with some transparent Brown Iron Oxide (Golden acrylics)


 Next is her body color.  First I shaded with Sap Green and followed up with some green/brown washes.



 Highlighted with Light buttermilk white (drybrushing)




 Did the same treatment for her hair/feathers.



 

her spine
 some head pieces


 her long long tale



 Added her main hair/feather piece



 Now a little tutorial on eye lashes :D
I am using the real "fake"eyelashes

 the eye is already painted before I put any lashes in.
 Using Elmer's paper glue, I added the lashes


 Cut the lashes to size

 After the glue dried, I outlined the bottom on the lashes with black.  Most of the glue dries clear, but couple of spots were a little discolored.



Wednesday, February 12, 2014

How to - Make your own paint rack

I've been buying a lot of new paints lately and run out of space on my Michaels metal paint rack that I got long long time ago.  The store discontinued those racks and the only once you can find are on ebay for something crazy like $100.  I did check out into buying some other premade paint racks, but most of them a little more expensive then I am willing to pay.
So here comes my cheap driven tutorial on how to make an affordable paint rack and lets hope it will be helpfull to some people :D

First I got a crate from Michaels.  It cost about $8 (plus 40% off coupon, which you can download on your phone via app store).  Its a deep crate that I cut in half.  If you don't have a saw, you can just get a smaller crate.
sorry for the first picture, since I finished one half of it before it dawned on me that I can make a wip on it.
 this is how deep is the cup up crate is.


 start by measuring the paint bottle and marking the holes for drilling.



Drill the holes

and for the lacing, I used Rexlace string that usually used for making bracelets (cost $1.99)
 ignore the color :D  It just looked fun to me.  you can use any color you prefer.
 cut up the pieces to size, plus couple extra inches for tying.
tie one end.
 insert in in one end and tie it on the other side
 this string is stretchy, so make sure to pull it out before you make a knot.  Otherwise it will be very loose in the middle.
 One side is done.
on the side note, if you have a back wall in the rack, make sure to do the inside side first.  If you do the outside first, it will be very hard to reach inside later.
 OK, once the horizontal lines are done, its vertical lines turn.
I had to loop the string over each horizontal  string.  If you don't do that, it will just slip and not hold any weight.


 Ta-Da, its done :D
it maybe not the prettiest thing I made, but considering that I only spend about $10 it looks great to me :D

Oh and I made this little box some time ago.  I used metal wire for it, so it didn't need to be looped at the crossings.  Wire works great, but its a little bit more expensive.  Anyway its another option that you can use.

I hope this is helpful to people.