Aradia Miniatures Gorgon

A surprise project to squeeze in before I get to some other stuff that really should be gotten to. One of my customers was looking for something Medusa themed and this happened to be on the for sale board here and it arrived in a timely manner so we get to have some straight painting fun instead of having to build stuff. The piece is quite lovely, very intricate and detailed, however the fit leaves something to be desired. The main problem is the left wing, why the sculptor decided wings were necessary is a conversation for another day. The wing gets wedged in very tightly against the "statue" and because of the set pose with her body, you don't get much room to maneuver. The wing then of course got in the way of the spear so a whole lot of fiddling about and a bit of filling/sanding was necessary to get things to this point.





















I ended up removing the arms from the spear, they come moulded in place, enlarged the holes in the hands slightly to help the shaft move freely and then got the right arm secured. I added a tiny pin to the disintegrated left elbow (an interesting touch) to help keep it in place. There was some trimming and filing involved to get the spear to fit over the wing. The wing should sit lower, but for the life of me I couldn't get it wedged in any tighter. I had to remove a bit of the arm stump and then blend in the skin flap coming off her shoulder/sides to get it to fit this well. I also made a slight change to the shin guards to better represent metal, the original sculpt has one of them crumbling (nicely done I might add) and the other cracked, but this will have all the gear in colour and the body of the statue will be stone. I'm no expert on Medusa canon, but I seem to recall that only living things were turned to stone. I've got a blob of blu-tack helping to make sure I don't break the tail off while I'm handling things, and a temporary base made of hex MDF and styrene. The customer may opt for something more substantial once they get it. No point shipping stone halfway across the planet.

This is a very challenging bit of resin to assemble, and will be even more challenging to paint. A year ago, I don't think I would have had the confidence to try to do this justice. I need to get all this primed, then I'll add the other wing and get that primed too, then the fun can start.


Kimmo

I've got this one in the stash and will be following with interest. The info you've provided above will come in very useful, so thank you .

- Steve

Hi Kimmo

Interesting project here and a timely delivery to you as well

Always enjoy the details you go into regarding models and useful as Steve says

What's the scale on this ?

Following with interest

Happy benchtime

Nap

Cheers Steve, Nap and Luca!

Steve, this is definitely a dry fit everything thrice job. There is probably a preferred order of assembly, but no instructions and nothing much on the net to help either. I think if you get the left wing on first, then the tail, and glue that to the statue, you might get it fitting the way it is supposed to. The issue there is you need to make sure that the whole assembly is well and truly stuck together. The whole thing then has to be placed just so in order for her arm to to rest on the stone and and ground. Not a piece for the impatient or easily frustrated.

Nap, it's 75mm, and the commentary is all part of the service.


Moving along, I've gotten everything primed and did a few retouches with putty. The right wing went on without too much fuss and happily doesn't really interfere with any of the painting. This will be a bit tricky to get paint everywhere, fortunately most of those hard to reach areas will be in shadow. Personally, I think the hexagon shape works well for the base, just wondering if it should be a little bit thicker.


























Now the real fun can begin. I've got a colour scheme to work with, and an idea for lighting. We'll see what we get up to over the next couple of days.

Kimmo

Cheers amarok!


Things have been going smoothly, slowly, but smoothly so it should have come as no surprise that a slight modification was going to be needed. I was explaining my lighting concept to the customer, and things evolved a little. My idea is to have light reflecting from water at the front and a soft warm light coming in from above/behind at the back. So the customer asked if I was going to paint the base to look like water? I said no, and then it hit me. Why not add some water? This would help sell the visual effect and give it some more interest. I was actually thinking that something seemed to be missing and just put it down to things being in primer. Out came the toilet paper and PVA, and then a coat of primer...


















Now the scene has more of a complete feel. I think if the stonework was taller, it would work better on it's own as it would imply whatever height you wanted. With it shorter, you really do need something to tie it all together. If I had a tall plinth, that would have worked too. Anyway, onto painting...


Kimmo

Colours have now been blocked in, some are rougher than others. Just trying to set the base tones and see what works. The green will probably be desaturated a little, better to start of with something a bit brighter and then tone down.





















Some of the detail is really starting to pop out now. Unfortunately so are a couple of mold seams that I missed. There were quite a few to deal with, more than I would have liked to see with what I would call a premium piece. By the time i work the shadows in and so on, they shouldn't be an issue. I need to do a light study to make sure I get the lighting right, then back to it.

Kimmo

A good day at the bench, most of the sketching is done with the ambient light almost worked in. Things look a bit rough, but now I can see where and how I need to work. Some of the tints and hues aren't really coming up properly, but you can see a nice bit of controlled chaos here and there.






















I should have done the light study while the figure was primed, but this works well enough.











If you desaturate a photo and then really crank the contrast, you get a good idea of where the light should hit. As you can see, the front light is coming in from below. The challenge here is going be in not overdoing the highlights because I will need to add reflections and refraction from the water, these will be mainly on the stonework below. There will be a fair bit of ambient light, but again, not so much as to overpower the glow coming from behind.

Now I can start to get some clean up going and define areas that need it.

Kimmo

Hi Kimmo

"Controlled Chaos" .....hope I get some of that !!

Clicking on the pics for a larger look you can see where your aiming with this piece ....lots of details on both figures and tge base

Good suggestion about desaturation to get idea where light hits

Thanks for sharing

Happy benchtime

Nap

Cheers Nap! Controlled chaos is just my term for slathering on washes and wet blending, the stonework and the wings got a ton of it. You get some nice movement and shifts.


Another good day, got a lot done and may actually get this wrapped up tomorrow as hoped. I decided to go with metallics instead of NMM, been a while since I've used them so good to practice with those as well. Just the regular stuff, not Metal Color because I wanted an aged look anyway. I added a touch of blue and green to sepia and black ink to give a tarnished effect. Had a slight issue with the ink lifting on part of the helmet after a clear coat which needs retouching. Speaking of ink, used them a bunch as well, the more I use them, the more I like them. The water effects look pretty good, the reflections could have maybe turned out better, but for a first go, can't complain too much. The camera isn't playing nice again so some of the subtleties are lost, hopefully a dark background in the light tent will help matters.


























Still a bit of work to be done, and I'll need to have a rethink on the back light/glow effect, it might not really bring anything to the table without some darkening up.


Kimmo

Almost got things done today. Had a bit of a change in plans as the customer wanted a purplier skin tone and I wasn't happy with the helmet. I stripped off most of the patina on the helmet, some off the shin guards and redid the metal a wee bit then hit everything with new washes and a touch of verdigris. I like it a lot more now. I got pretty much all the other details done except for the hairdo, I need to go over the skin tones a little more. A lot of time was spent edging and adding pin washes to get the cracks and scales to pop better, rather time consuming.



















And the underside of the wing. The topsides got a bit of a mottling effect going on, which looks kind of neat. You can make out the verdigris on the spear point nicely.






Provided no more major surprises pop up, this should get done tomorrow.


Kimmo

Barring any opinions to the contrary from the customer, I'm calling this one done. Still have to take some glamour shots and get the light sorted out to show off the lighting on the piece properly. Workbench photos aren't always the best in that regard.

























Hopefully I get the bench cleared off and the light tent out tomorrow.

Kimmo

Hi Kimmo

Memo to myself .....try and check posts daily !!!??

Missed updates apologies for that

Like the way this has been done , you have a flair for painting effects and in your posts

A lucky customer


July's winning entries here:

https://www.planetfigure.com/threads/fotm-julys-winners.273062/

Vote in August's FOTM here:

https://www.planetfigure.com/thread...s-fotm-ending-midnight-bst-30-09-2020.268269/

Enter our VIGNETTES & DIORAMA comp ending 30/9/20 go to here:

https://www.planetfigure.com/thread...e-diorama-ending-midnight-bst-30-9-20.250127/

Happy benchtime, entering and voting

Nap

Cheers Nap! It's just like trying to get to Carnegie Hall. Practice, practice, practice.

Here's a teaser of the glamour shots, and a link to the gallery: https://www.planetfigure.com/threads/aradia-gorgon.274331/





Thanks to everyone who followed along and commented.

Kimmo

Hi Kimmo

Carnegie Hall ....more chance of me going to the moon !!!

Great result there off to look at the glamour

Thanks for sharing this WIP ....another happy customer

Look forward to the next

Nap

Aim high Nap Might be some time before I get another project going here, I have to return to the 35th scale world for some unfinished and unstarted stuff that will keep me busy for quite a while.

Kimmo