1/7 Holo -FINISHED-

My little fox girl is finished!  

She is definitely in my top three favorite figures I've done so far.  The only thing I'm not happy with are her eyes, they aren't very even.  And the base gave me fits because I couldn't figure out what to do with it!  But in the end I think it worked out!  Click for larger pictures.

Title:           Holo

Scale:         1/7

Media:        Acrylic and pastels

Method:     Airbrush, Hand-painting

 

Now, the dreaded Angel...

WIP - 1/7 Holo

My first work-in-progress post!

The figure I'm working on right now is called Holo, from the anime Spice and Wolf.  I haven't seen it, but I thought the figure was cute so I decided to build her.

After a thorough bath and some sanding, I pinned her to check for any gaps that might need some putty.

There are small gaps at her arm joints so I took care of that.  I primed her, masked her eyes and anything else I didn't want to paint right now, then started painting.  First I laid down the base colors for her outfit, hair and skin.

Time for some shading!  I shaded her with a combination of airbrushing and pastels. After I shade a figure, I usually do a light, thin coat of the base color to blend the shading and make it look a little more natural.

 

 Now for the eyes.  I love and hate painting eyes.  Love because they really bring life to a figure, hate because I feel like I can never do them right !  I could use decals, but that feels like cheating.  Anyways, I shaded her head...

Then took the liquid mask off of her eyes.  I painted the whites, and the eyelashes.

Next I lightly drew where I wanted the irises to be (looking straight ahead, some of the hardest eyes to do!), and painted them dark red.  I lined them in black, painted the pupil, then lined the bottom of them with a brighter red.  White highlights are the last step!

I sealed them with Future Floor Wax (an acrylic sealer) to give them a glossy, life-like look.  And she is almost finished!  All that's left is assembly!

Some final pictures of Holo to come later!  The next figure on my table, a HUGE 1/4 angel,  I have been VERY frustrated with...


More on her later, after I am done punting her around my backyard...

Last Batch of Butterflies, 2011

I was cleaning out my refrigerator yesterday when I found my container of butterfly chrysalises, and realized that I haven't really given much of an update to the last hoard of butterflies I raised before the end of summer!  This must change!

For those who don't know, I raise butterflies every summer.  I only deal with two species for now:  Monarchs and Eastern Black Swallowtails.  Maybe someday I'll branch out to more, but for now, two is enough ^^.  I didn't have any luck with Monarchs this year, probably due to it being so hot and dry this summer, but I had TONS of Black Swallowtails!

I had so many in my last brood that I ran out of potted parsley (their host plant) and had to resort to store-bought.  I think I counted about forty caterpillars in all.  I lost a couple due to not being careful with how I set up my tank (I use a twenty gallon long fish tank with tree branches held steady with duct tape for the caterpillars to pupate on, annnd, well, I had some exposed duct tape... ).

It took about a week for all of them to morph to the next stage of life so I could "harvest" them for spring.  For some reason unknown to me, the caterpillars seemed to like a certain corner of the tank....

Seriously?!  There is an entire twenty gallons of space, with tons of other sticks and walls to attach to, and thirteen of them decided to settle on just four inches of stick.  THIRTEEN!!! 

Insects...  

Well the seasons were changing so after they all pupated, I took them off their sticks, put them in a plastic container, and into the fridge they went for the winter.  I'll glue them back on more sticks when spring arrives, then put them outside so they can emerge, fly away, and be free!  

Come spring, I shall go into detail about how to raise your own butterflies; trust me, it's not as hard as you think, and is totally fascinating!