Week Two: Painting begins!
Adipose started off the week with an unexpected visitor. It would seem that my Quality Control Manager, Renji, the cat, needed to inspect that Adipose's work space was adequate. He also had some words with Rory to make sure that the Goldfish was not being imposed upon by this strange, white creature.
On the same day I helped Adipose post his blog entry; he started to paint! He asked me for my help in picking out colors for his donkey model but insisted that I let him do the painting. The base coat went down without a hitch!
Thursday came, and Adipose was super excited to shade his base coat! He picked some pretty bold colors and I warned him that a little bit of color, especially on white, goes a long way. Adipose brushed it off and eagerly went into his painting.
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I went back to working on my own model (and several others). I didn't see what happened, but the happy sounds of painting soon turned to sounds of exasperation. I wasn't too concerned, as sometimes I did that too, especially if I am trying to paint areas that are hard to access. Next thing I knew, I heard a small clicking sound, like a tiny paintbrush being thrown. Now I was concerned.
I got up from my table and walked over to find Adipose staring forlornly at the wall. Double-checking that his donkey was still on his table, I asked him what was wrong. Adipose claimed that he ruined his model. Frowning, I went to check his model, as when I had given it a cursory glance before checking on him I'd seen nothing wrong. Sure enough, the model, while starkly shaded, was in good shape. No nicks, dings, broken parts, nadda. The donkey was perfectly fine. I told Adipose that the model looked fine and he asked if I'd seen the paint job. I informed him that I had. He asked why I wasn't upset as it could be plainly seen the model would need to be restarted.
I informed him that his model was not a lost cause and that it could definitely be made into the donkey he wanted it to be. He countered that it looked nothing like any of my horses on my acrylic table. It took a lot of reassuring, but eventually I did convey to Adipose that while the stark coloration looked ugly right now, we could soften it with a layer or two of his base color. No model (that I know of) has ever looked great on its first couple layers of paint, and many suffer from the "ugly stage" for quite some time. It was a natural step in the process and he could keep working on it as it was not a lost cause. I told Adipose that he should probably take the rest of the day off from painting, and continue working on his model tomorrow. He agreed and apologized for losing his brush.
It turned out that it would be several days before Adipose or I returned to work, but when we finally got back to it today (Wednesday) we went at it with a vengeance!
First, I had to demonstrate on a model what Adipose needed to do. To soften his shading, Adipose needed to do washes of white over his shading.
Adipose only had to do one wash layer, while I had to do four on my pony. This left Adipose feeling quite smug about his painting abilities.
Then we moved on to markings. I advised Adipose to use several colors for the spot markings as the fur color would not be the same color throughout on a live donkey. He did this with remarkable speed and his efforts looked quite good!
Once he'd completed his markings, Adipose moved on to softening those said markings. Using a white colored pencil he softened the edges of the spots so that they blended with the fur a bit better.
After that, Adipose started to work on his details. He started on his eyes and hooves, but then decided that he needed a break. Especially after seeing that I'd zoomed through my Appaloosa pony. He couldn't believe who quickly I'd gotten it done. I informed him that I had more experience and as I liked to work on several projects, it was only natural the pony would be finished.
Not in the least bit reassured, Adipose said he was going to find the Doctor...there was also something about time travel to speed up his painting process...?
Til the next time!
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