KROSMASTER DRAGOON POWER PACK

KROSMASTER is a collectable game with large Chibi style, cute, pre-painted figures. I bought a bunch of them – they are adorable. I wanted to teach myself to use an airbrush and thought these would be good for that.

Here is the figure as she comes. I started her in 2020 before I quit painting. At some point her hammer must have broken and it is no where to be found…

Like many Anime / Chibi style models – pretty much anything goes color wise so I was practicing color fades on her hair… It will be nice to finish her.

COMPLETED AUGUST 2022
The Monkey King – Fairytale Games
Paints: Mostly Warcolors
Inks: Warcolors & Army Painter

I gave up painting a few years ago when my hand tremors and weakness got to a point I was more miserable trying to paint than enjoying it. I am finding my way back after 2yrs and am going to learn new techniques to work around my limitations.

ON THE WORKBENCH

The next project is another figure from the same box set as the Cheshire Cat I just completed. This is The Monkey King.

In looking around for inspiration for his color scheme I came across these two helpful references…

So here is where I am starting… I just don’t have the dexterity to clean the mold release lines or pin the weapon straight like I would like but if I want to ever get anything painted I will have to just get over that…

I worked on him, on and off, for about 4 hrs today to complete up to Stage 2.

COMPLETED AUGUST 2022
First mini completed after 2yrs away from painting. Not perfect by any means but I am quite happy with him.

This is going to be harder than I thought. My hand tremors make fine detail work and smooth blending just not possible. So I needed to figure out a way to still show detail without relying on being able to tightly control a brush… Imagine this whole figure is not much bigger than a quarter so the detail is Itty bitty… And much of my other ones are even smaller…. But anywhoooooo….

Left: End of Stage 2 yesterday

Right: Part 1 of Stage 3 – First Highlights
I am trying a technique that you can see the best on the tree trunk. I created very strong, dramatic highlights in a cartoon style and will go back once it’s ready and add some light color back over the top to add tone back in… Not at all my normal style but it might work…

STAGE 2 COMPLETED
Last night at 3am – this is the first stage of detail work and one of the new techniques I’m trying – this is done by applying either thinned paint or in this case colored inks which flow into the crevices, create shadows and bring out the detail….

STAGE 1 – basic color blocking – is done… the idea of Stage 1 is like kindergarten coloring – stay in the lines and put down a basic middle tone color in the right spots but just in 3D…

Things I have learned so far :
▪️ Pushing myself for an hour straight out of the gate because… Just 5 more min…. Maybe not the best idea…
▪️ 2yr old paint requires much, much, much shaking – whew!
▪️ My old lady eyes, even wearing my detail glasses, are certainly not what they used to be…
▪️ My hands are wrecked for high detail work… I will have to do short sessions because the shakes are real and I think, I hope, I have an idea that will compensate somewhat for it… We shall see…

That needs to dry completely now and I’ll start Stage 2 tomorrow…

For many years, until my hands got weak and I started getting tremors, I painted fantasy miniatures… Think Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter type things. I absolutely loved it but I eventually reached a point where I was so disappointed with my limitations I gave it up…

I haven’t been in my painting room in over 2 yrs… It was making me anxious and sad and I didn’t deal well with all the feels – so I closed the room off and at one point almost sold it all… and this is a very addictive hobby – I have hundreds of miniatures to be painted…

My hands are still not great but I miss this so much that I am going to try to reteach myself to paint within my current limitations. I will have to learn all new techniques as the way I painted before is just not possible anymore.

So I dug around for a model that didn’t have too much tiny tiny detail that I couldn’t handle and found this Cheshire Cat from a box set of Fairytale Creatures.

Then while looking for a reference photo to use I found this teapot…. WHAT!?!

It’s exactly the color palette I was thinking of – I didn’t paint that, I found it on Google….

So the models range in size and difficulty and this one is bigger than many I have but until I develop new brush skills, that’s what I need.

2yrs guys… 2yrs of missing a hobby I was more than a little involved in. I have to keep reminding myself to go in with low expectations and that I may just have to settle for a very different style than what I could do before but…

ADVENTURE AWAITS…

I’m going to go pick some paints and start base coloring after lunch…

*squeeeeeeeeeee*