On the back of doing well with Death in the Purgatory painting contest and getting my "one of everything" pledge from Another World's Indiegogo campaign, I decided to enter the competition that they recently ran.
With all the pieces now announced and on Facebook, I can finally show off my entry - Bonnie.
The competition rules changed how I usually operate when painting a mini. I like to take a load of WIP shots and share them in various forums (Wamp, The Ammobunker and recently CMON) but the Another World rules stated that all entries had to remain secret until they were published by the company. This threw me off my stride a little but in the end I had her finished and in before the initial deadline of 30th November (which was then extended to 10th December to allow for more entrants to receive and finish their pieces).
I set out working on the piece wanting to practice my flesh tones still and I also wanted to try out sheer fabric, which fitted nicely on her suspenders. I'm quite happy with how they turned out, as well as her face, but I feel that her cleavage lacks a lot of depth of tone, despite the generous proportions of the sculpt. I had a few goes at this but couldn't seem to get it quite right. At this point I'd have probably asked for people's opinions, but that would have been against the rules.
One part of the mini I'm rather happy with is the newspaper on the base. Initially, I set out to tab pin her with both feet to the base, but somewhere along the line I messed up the measurements, meaning that if I wanted one foot to fit, another would have to lose the pin and be a ways off the ground. Normski, who is pretty good with these things, suggested a tiny newspaper crumpled on the ground to hide the gap. I found a Victorian looking paper on Google, printed it out really small and rolled it up. I then give it a couple of twists and fitted it under her foot so it looks like she has stepped on it, rather than the true reason of it being placed behind her boot to hide the large gap between her and the pavement.
The base itself was made using the Victoriana Basius pad from Wargames Bakery.
While I'm happy with how the face and the suspenders turned out, the dress isn't. It's another thing that goes down to not posting WIP images. I'm 100% certain that had I posted it in this state, I'd have been told "that needs more depth, add another couple of layers of highlights at least." However, thinking that at the same time as being hit with mojo fade I decided that it was enough and made do. In hindsight, I'd probably like to have pushed the highlights more, and also to a particular angle to give a concept of directional lighting rather than just the general folds.
A while ago, I'd have been happy with how the dress looks. Now, I know I can see that it needs more depth and I need to get into the rhythm of adding those tones while I'm painting, not while blogging about it after.
The Another World comp has prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places, as decided by a judging panel. They also have a public vote on their Facebook Page. The winner of that contest is whichever miniature album has the most likes and shares on the album before 30th December.
I'm not a massive fan of this type of contest, as it turns into "who has the biggest circle of people who will like and share when asked, to help win a contest, no matter what the other entries look like."
With that in mind, I'm still going to ask you to go over to their page and take a look at all the entries - there are some seriously nice pieces in there. I'm not going to ask for you to like the album for my entry, that just doesn't sit well on my moral compass. It's like kicking a cat or drinking someone else's beer - it's just not the done thing in my eyes. A piece should gain recognition due to how good it is, or how much someone likes it, not because someone your mate knows in another group asked people to.
Instead, go have a look at all the entries and if you like one (or more, nothing stopping that), click "like".
