Vasilisa 2: The Duller Details

After my first pass on Vasilisa, I feel I'm looking at someone dressed in bright interesting colors yet is supposed to have been through the wastelands.

In the same breath, the wood grain got a little too faded thanks to over-applying the dark Walnut brown glaze by accident.

So first up to fix: that cloak - too bright a purple.  So I mixed the base color (Ceramcoat Purple Smoke) with a little Dirty Grey for a heavy glaze to dull it down. Conversely, I took a little of the wood grain base (FolkArt Teddy Bear Tan) with a brighter yellow (FolkArt Buttercup) to punch it up in the muddy areas.

I started working a plaid design that I figured was appropriate for all the half cloaks I'd seen. I wanted something detailed but not really interesting, like a tartan.  Using the colors I already on the figure I pulled a pattern together on my pallette.

The tricky part was applying the stripes in a realistic way that clothing hangs - especially since I've broken her cloak into two pieces.  I found a pic or two that was a little helpful, but getting a good 180° view was night impossible.  Time to just put brush to figure and wing it.

I eventually got something that was okay.

The pattern by the arm holding the spool (not yet attached) was messy.  The lines didn't meet up exactly and I had to flub it a little.  It's noticeable to me, though not sure it's as obvious to others.

Here's she is on the base. Front side...

.... and backside.

Vasilisa 1: Contrast to Collodi

Next up from the Master of Puppets set was the new Henchman introduced in Malifaux 2E, Vasilisa. Her story is thematically is the same as Collodi's, but her style couldn't be more different.  Where Collodi had the lush appearance of a stage performer, Vasilisa looked like an old woman in a babushka.  Or something like a babushka, cos I'm still not sure what that is she's wearing.  It's somewhere between a headscarf and a poncho or halfcloak.

One thing I learned to do after painting pieces after I assembled them: hold off on assembling if there's a hard to reach area.  On Vasilisa, this meant don't assemble the one arm reaching into the side bag for a spool.  Paint the inside of that bag first... THEN glue the arm on. It's hard to get the finer details right when there's a obtrusive yet delicate piece in the way.

I always go for the "under" layer first, which normally means putting on flesh color. Here it means wood grain. So I did my brown lines with a heavy glaze of FolkArt Teddy Bear Tan, as I had with Collodi. 

Now for the overall paint scheme. She obviously has an old sewing woman look, but what exactly did an old sewing woman look like about 100 years ago? *shrugs*  Let's see what the Internets have to say.

Results: Do I trust Charles Edward Wilson? Okay. Yeah. *shrugs again* Sure, I do.

I decided that she would have a couple different colors involved.  An off-white for the apron, FolkArt Olive Green for the dress, a duller purple for the ratty old cloak, a dull beige for the babushka (FolkArt Barn Wood) - and if Charles Edward Wilson is to be trusted -  some plaid stripes over top.

Her cane I just did two heavy washes of Folkart Walnut Brown.

I wanted to get a nice yellow-brown leather on the bags and straps so I chose FolkArt English Mustard.  Honestly though, this is mostly because it reminds me of Games Workshop's Snakebite Leather, the one color GW I felt nailed.

Overall, I was shooting for a color scheme that would not be as lush as Collodi's, yet still use some of the same base colors (purple, yellow, green). That presented some challenges. For example, a dark cloak seemed like a good idea so I chose what I thought would be a muted purple. 

But it still came off too bright.  So there were some items to clean up on the second pass.