For this week's theme week entry I present to you a figure set that I
have been waiting to get to and paint all of this years challenge.
That set is Mary Poppins and Bert in steam punk style from the Guild of Harmony,
although they call them Maria Poppets and Albert for obvious licensing
reasons! This set is the original limited edition version where they
are connected and taking off from the roof tops, which I am very happy
to have picked up, as they now only sell them separately.
This
figure is a gift for my wife, which is now kind of an annual tradition
during the Challenge. It came up a few years ago that I had never
actually painted anything for her (mainly due to the fact that she is
not a gamer) over the many years I have been playing games and
painting. So, I decided that in the interest of a happy marriage, I
should probably rectify that and went looking for something she would
like. Since she is a huge Disney fan and loves the steampunk aesthetic,
I searched out some figures that would relate to that, yet still be
interesting to paint. That is where I happened across the excellent
small company Guild of Harmony and picked up several of their figures.
This
figure was a bit of a challenge to work on as everything on it is resin
and much of it small and thin enough that there is a lot of flex to it
(his brush, her umbrella pole, and even his ankle and arm holding her).
Worse, they connect by the hands (well, his wrist) so it adds even more
flex if painted together, and even separately there was no great way to
hold her for painting. I painted them separately which was easy enough
for him, but had to drill a hole in her, under the dress and stick a
metal rod up her dress (much to the amusement of the wife and my teenage
boys) to mount her on to paint.
In
the past I have just selected colours that I liked, but this time I
handed that duty off to Kim as I wanted to make sure it matched her
image of them in steampunk style. So all the credit on the colour
choices go to her, I had a different image in my head for colours, but
these turned out better than what I had in mind! Everything started out
as a base coat of black and then I did the faces first to get a good
expression to go from to stage the figure around, which is not something
I normally do, but it helped here. One thing that I really tried to do
was get valid looking skin tones, and added a lot of colour to her,
while it doesn't show well in the image, she does have pinkish / rosy
cheeks, lipstick and a very pale complexion. Albert on the other hand
has a darker complexion and dirtier cheeks to fit the scene. I find it
really hard to get the flesh or light colours to balance properly
against a black background though, so they dont show well.
All
of the clothing was worked up from black as well. I used completely
separate methods for each as they are in very different outfits. For
her I glazed everything up using at least 30 thin layers of just one
colour on her dress relying on the pre-shading I had done with white
primer via airbrush. It was my first real attempt to relearn proper
glazing techniques after having just read Arsies's Painting Toolbox
book and having discovered that I need to re-learn many of the things I
have been doing wrong (well not wrong, but not in a manner to get
better results and learn more over time). For anyone that did not pick
up his book on Kickstarter last year, it is well worth looking for a
copy! I really like the result and think that her dress came out with a
really soft look to it and almost no hard edges, it did take a ton of
time though.
Anyway,
for Albert since his clothing is more work like, I went with a much
harder, almost pure wargame/tabletop 3 colour approach. I ended up
using more than 3 colours to get the highs and lows as I wanted them,
but as you can see it is a much different look, and I think very close
to the style that Curt and Greg use to great effect on many of their
figures (which I love, but have a hard time duplicating).
The
only part I had any real issues with was the umbrella/helicopter
contraption. I had images of it being colourful and tried several paint
schemes (I think I painted it no less than 6 times!) trying to work in
purples, pinks, and whites. In the end, after much "I told you so" from
the wife, I went with the copper colour she had suggested to start
with. Damn, I guess once in a while she is right.... shhhh, don't tell
her I said that! Anyway, in the end I think it works better this way
as it gives more steampunk look to the figure and helps convey the idea
that it is a machine and is in fact strong enough to lift them (even
though she shouldn't be able to hold him).
After
finishing that off, it was time to connect them and base them. Here I
ran into one other issue, how to base them! I had images of doing a
section of roof to put the chimney on, but the supplied chimney was not
high enough to build up a V section of a roof peek around as it almost
completely disappeared. All the model bricks I have around here are all
different in style to the piece so I couldn't extend it with that
either. By the time I realized this it was too late to build it up and
extend it with green stuff as it wouldn't have time to cure to paint. I
was also not 100% sure that was the look I wanted. So in the end, I
just put a magnet in the chimney and in the base and attached it that
way for now, until I figure out what I really want to do with it.
I hope you all like it as much as I do, it was a lot of fun to paint.
For
those interested this is the Third Steampunk figure I have done from
Guild of Harmony, all as presents for my wife Kim. The other two were Tinkerbell and the Little Mermaid.
