Know your paints

Ok- I'm back from the conference in DC, which was very cool, and am at my painting desk.  I made a pretty big mistake last week in assuming what my paints would look like out of the bottle.  I had planned on painting the armor, gloves and boots of my figure a gray, and the rest of the figure black.  My black paint looked fine, but my highlight shade of gray paint looked like chalk; it was way, way lighter than I had expected.  Back to the drawing board.

You landed on boardwalk, sucker!

This was one of those times that educators call a "teachable moment".  I should have had an idea of what my gray paint was going to look like.  I figured I could make swatches of each of my colors, and made swatches today I did.  I painted a bit of each color on the backs of old business cards.  I also threw the name of the color, the manufacturer, and the product ID on the card to make I can easily buy more when I'm out.  They came out looking like deeds from a Monopoly game, but they serve their purpose.

Another thing that I had not thought of but should have is the finish of each paint- besides the colors themselves, a few of my paints have a very glossy finish, and the rest are pretty matte.  I figure knowing what is what on the finish front is also pretty useful. Figuring this out is an unintended benefit of the project.  Yay for unexpected results!

Now that I know what colors I have, there is a dilemma: I could paint medium gray over the old steel gray paint, not knowing how that is going to turn out, or I remove all of the paint and start again from scratch.  If I start again from scratch, I'm going to need a good way to remove the paint.  I know there are ways to do this, but the methods I know involve buying more supplies, and I'd rather accept that this is a first try and that it isn't going to be perfect.

So- time to get back to actually painting the figure.  More soon.

Until next time,

David D.