Teddy 4: First Wash, Detail Clean-up and Badge of Frustration

Almost every miniature I paint has one spot that becomes the bane of my existence.  This miniature's bane will be the "t" and "e" in the word plate.

So I did a brown wash of FolkArt Teddy Bear Brown on key spots.  Did a little Coffee Bean and Van Dyke Brown to get some separation.  Also added this to the claws a little too to give it a more bone look. 

Also decided it was time to get Teddy on some pins before I started doing the detailed work.  I didn't want to do this earlier as Teddy is a heavy mini and needed as much support as possible.  But I couldn't delay it forever.  Otherwise I'd be putting my hands all over key details I might not be able to recreate. This part went smoothly.

Next up - make the plate look a little more like a plate rather than two concentric circles with a face.  I could have gone for the "admiral dinner plate" look. But I decided on a more classic plate reference.  Reaper's Power Palate tool is a god send. I've learned a lot about shading and tones in ways I never could see on my own.

Reaper's suggestion was their Ghost White on one side, Leather White on the other with Pure White for the highligts.  I used an icy blue, FolkArt Dove Grey and Folk Art Titanium White.  I also didn't get rid of the middle blue ring. Since I used glazes, it's there very subtly.  It's still a little too blue for my tastes though.

I gave the outer ring a thin line of pure black for separation.  That's where the trouble started.  The letters started getting in the way a little.  And the "T" in plate was just weird looking.  The cross was too slanted.  And the "E" was missing some definition.

So I fixed it... with the wrong font color.  I used a darker brown (Coffee Bean) by accident.  I forgot I had the font in the same color as the wash on the fur (Teddy Bear Brown).  So I glazed the "E" with a little white to fix it.  Then I trimmed back the cross in "T".  But it was on top of the "E".  So I whited out portions of the and redrew, but now the spacing is all off.

At some point, you have to realize you are your own worst enemy. So I stepped away to eat something and came back to fixing the font. A little TB Brown to fix the cross in the "T"... A little white between the "U" and "B"... And I felt it was a lot better.

Left Teddy for the day to experiment on blood a little (more on that later). Came back next day to tighten a few other details, namely:

• Glaze of FolkArt Dove White to get more white plate than blue plate
• Some more dark wash around the eyes to make the crazy pop more
• Some yellowish color at the base of each tooth so they look more realistic (FolkArt Cappuccino)