One very l lucky gift I got was a slew of Guild miniatures (thanks to my nephew Josh), including Sonnia Criid and her crews in metal. I had to recreate her left leg under her coat with some greenstuff (simple thanks to my Instant Mold) and her cigarette was missing. But otherwise, she was in really good condition.
Primed white, black wash and thought about the color scheme for everything except the coat. I've seen Sonnia with blond hair and black hair, but I really couldn't picture without red hair. My goal here: I also got the Sonnia Avatar with her, so I wanted to paint the two Sonnia figures simultaneously. So the color scheme challenge here was to get a scheme that would work with a yellow glow I'm expecting for Object Source Lighting (OSL) on the avatar version.
Coat color was my big challenge. The lapel needed to be the same color as the inside of the coat seen at the bottom. I was going to avoid the classic color when I found a two tone coat color that I liked. This would reflect the OSL glow in the other model and I was convinced classic Sonnia color scheme (reference) worked. So - classic scheme it was. I set out for the pallette.
Coat
Vallejo Heavy Brown - main
Reaper HD Golden Brown - undershadow wash
FolkArt Walnut Brown - wash
Reaper HD Desert Tan - 1st highlight
Reaper Yellow Ochre - 2nd brighter highlight
Hair
Reaper HD Sunburn Flesh - main red color
Cinnamon (Reaper Ruddy Brown) - wash
Reaper HD Woodland Brown - 1st highlights
Reaper Rosy shadow - 2nd highlight
Jeans
Reaper HD ash grey - main
Dark Grey - wash
FolkArt Cobalt Blue - undershadow
Shirt
FolkArt Parchment - main
FolkArt Light Medium Grey - Wash
Reaper HD Concrete Grey - undershadow wash
Cuffs
Reaper Bloodless Skin - main
Reaper Moldy Skin - wash
Reaper HD Ashen Brown - undershadow wash
Started with the eyes - and I felt like for a moment I was looking at ScarJo.
The first coat she really started to come together. I was really happy.
And... then..
And... then..
I had to go and screw around with the eyes. Why? Why did I screw with my number one rule? Because I saw this article from the hyper talented Marike Reimer and thought "Hey a tiny dot of white will give that eye some shine!" Instead, I messed it right the hell up. So I had to repaint the right eye white and outline black. But now the eye on the right was way too big. I just couldn't get it fixed.
Eventually I figured out that the black had gone past the eyeline and onto the face and toward the ear. So I had to work the face color from the hairline in until it looked right. It may sound obvious now, but at the time, it felt like a miracle that I figured it out on my own.
I used a non-metallic metal (NMM) technique for the sword and chains. Did anyone ever state how much of a pain in the ass NMM on chains are? It's a ton of work trying to get a little metallic shine on every stupid chain link.
Anyway I went for fire theme on the sword details which you'll see in later pictures using Reaper HD paints. Mounted her on base using my Terraclips Cities pallette. Also managed to spill super glue all over that right leg, so it was unnaturally shiny.
I've done this before and the solution is Testor's Dullcote. Had to learn the hard way on that.
So far, very pleased. Now I needed to focus on some other details. The classic Sonnia picture has her holding a cigarette in her fingers, but it broke off the mini along with her left foot apparently. I tried to glue a new one back on, but one small bump and it broke off. Being that I wanted to use this mini in games, that wasn't going to work. I had to start thinking out of the box. It seemed logical that she would be holding a soulstone. So with a reference or two of its bluish glow, a soulstone would be where the cigarette once was.
While fixing the soulstone, I started thinking about what to put on the base. There was the usual standbys of weeds and stray stones, when I wished I could bring the fire theme to the base like the Avatar. Then I remembered I used this technique I'd read online to create smoke puffs fron Q-tips.
And I just so happened to have some leftover "smoke" from some shadow figures I'd been working on.
Picked one I liked. Ceramcoat Purple Smoke with some Ceramcoat Cinnamon with touched of Reaper Ruddy Brown and Burning Orange on the underside.
Suddenly a look fell into place: Sonnia has just finished crushing a soulstone to burn something up, and she cockily looks to the side as the ignited item snuffs out.
Here's a shot with it mounted where you can see the soulstone.
And here's one from the backside. Better pictures to follow with a better camera soon.
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