1/6 Ming Yue -FINISHED-

Well here she is, my twilight goddess! 

I have to say she is probably my new favorite figure in my collection.  She was a lot of fun to paint, even with all of the tiny details.  I can't wait to get more figures in this series, it's such a gorgeous line  !  Click for larger pictures and hope you enjoy the sparkle and shine!

Title:        Ming Yue

Scale:       1/6

Medium:   Acrylics, enamels, pastels

Method:    Airbrush, hand painting

 

 

WIP - 1/6 Ming Yue Pt. 2

Time for one last update for our twilight goddess !

So with the airbrushing done, it is now time to accessorize!  I mean, what woman doesn't like shiny and sparkly things?  I know I do (much to my husband's dismay at times)!  I painted all of her jewelry silver, then did a wash of black to bring out the details.  As I was prepping her for priming, I hollowed out some of the bigger jewels so I could set some crystals in them later, as in now...  Here I used a 5mm Swarovski flatback in Crystal AB for her necklace.

Gotta love the rainbows on her boobs, makes for an interesting picture !

Next I cut the weird doughnut things off the straps on the front panel, and replaced them with a butterfly headpin and more Swarovski crystals! 

 Drilled a tiny hole then glued them in place...

Marvel at the shininess you shall ...

-ahem-  Anyways, I decided to add a little something to her outstretched hand, and what better than a pretty luna moth?  I cut some wings out of a piece of clear practice and airbrushed them lime green.

I sculpted a fat little body out of some Milliput and it is done!  She is assembled and ready for display now!

First Batch of Butterflies! 2012

I haven't forgotten about my butterfly rearing!

Well, that last brood that I kept in the winter did not survive, though I believe it's because the air doesn't circulate very well in my fridge.  It made me sad, I should have kept them outside, but this winter was so warm, I didn't want them to get confused and come out early.  I felt very guilty to say the least .

So I thought I was being punished for being a bad butterfly keeper .  I planted parsley and flowers in my garden, but they haven't done well, mostly because of the heat and poor soil.  So no black swallowtail butterflies came to lay eggs .  I had totally given up on raising any pretty bugs this year.  But yesterday as I was perusing what was left of my poor little veggie garden, guess what I found?!

CATERPILLARS!!! 

I found three on my pathetic looking parsley, but eight on my carrots, two of which were in their final instar!  WOOT!!!! So I dug out my twenty gallon tank and cleaned it up, then harvested my caterpillars!

If you'll notice, I have forgone the duct tape this year, don't want a repeat of that fiasco.  I put the big ones (fifth instars) on one side and the smaller ones (late second to early third instars) on the other.  One of the big ones was already settled to pupate and has already spun his support thread!  So I got it just in time!

 The other big one is still chowing down though ...

I have nine little ones on the other side, looks like they are molting to third instar.  They have probably another week or so of growing and eating like tiny pigs before they will be ready to pupate ...

Meanwhile, they have been spotted by my bearded dragon, Grimlock....

Me Grimlock want worms for snacking!

He is beside himself wanting to have a black swallowtail lunch !  Too bad for him though, he can stick with crickets...

I will keep you updated on this brood's progress, as well as a tally of girls and boys!  (I haven't a clue how to tell a caterpillar's gender...I have to wait to see when they emerge as butterflies ).  This will probably be the last one of the summer; I think the next will be the overwintering generation.  Better late than never I suppose!

WIP - 1/6 Ming Yue

Like I said, I gotta do something besides sand, so I'm going to finish up a figure I've had for a while...

My next project to paint is Ming Yue, the latest figure in E2046's ORI Elegance collection.  This is an absolutely beautiful line of figures, and I hope to someday own all of them !!  She is by far my favorite one so far...

Prepwork was super easy, she was a near perfect cast.  Only problem was a small place on one of her feet that was oversanded a bit by the workshop.  A little putty fixed it, sprayed her with primer and it's onto painting!!!  

I HATE that color scheme (I'm just not a fan of yellow) and I'm all about different colors with figures anyways.  So I will make her a kind of goddess of twilight or something and go with a nighttime theme.  So guess what that means....

COLORSHIFT PAINT!!!

I <3 this stuff!  Like for realz!  This is some of the coolest paint ever and I finally have something else to use it on !  I've used it on my Elf Assassin last year and it turned out great, so let's see how it goes with Ming!

Ahh, so pretty ...it turned out great!  It's hard to see in there but it shifts from blues to purples depending on the light angle.  You will be able to see it better in final pictures...

Next I masked off the skirt portions and painted them an eggplant purple.

I felt a paler skintone would  be overwhelmed by the darker colorshift paint so I went with something darker, the darkest I've attempted so far.

Not done with the shading yet, but this gives you an idea.  Next shall be her hair.  I went with white, didn't want the entire figure to be so dark.  I painted a white basecoat, shaded with gray because there's already so much purple and blue, and misted a pearl shimmer all over it so it would shine like starlight.

Here's a little preview!

OOO she's really starting to come together !!!  Time to start thinking about a base!

I want to do something that would be mirrored, but I don't really want to attempt drilling into a glass mirror (she will have to be pinned and balanced on her base) and nothing plastic that would be suitable.  So I went with the next best thing:  chrome paint on a wood base.

Not perfectly smooth like a mirror but it will do for being wood, and it reflects pretty well I think.  I'm going to let it cure for a few days then I will paint a nighttime sky around the edges ...

Airbrushing is done, now for the little handpainted details.  There's so much to do!  I'm so thankful she's a 1/6 scale, I believe my eyes would stick in a crossed-eyed position like my mother always warned they would if Ming were any smaller...

More on the shininess in a few days I hope!