Hans is not happy

My friends, it looks like something is bothering Hans. Is it the incoming Shermans? Did his Jagdtiger's transmission break again? Is it the way he looks? Who knows! 🤣Before I describe my experience with Hans, I apologize for being quiet for a few days. But I managed to edit both videos (I think they're slowly getting  better and better!) and also spend some time outside.

Anyway, here's the result of my first serious try. I haven't painted figures before this. The only ones I made were back in the day when I was a kid, but those, as you can imagine, had no shading, all colors were wrong, etc. So this was something really tricky for me, but I think it's not as bad as it could be! Photos are in reverse order, so the last photo is the base coat. 

Of course it didn't go too smoothly. I had to put it all aside last night and go to sleep so I could approach the figure with a fresh mindset today. I was completely following this article which is a very good read for anyone wanting to try some figures for the first time: https://www.planetfigure.com/threads/painting-skin-face-basic-level-sbs.124485/?fbclid=IwAR1zca_r6x3dEwZI3RAkkzWnwOgWCg_4QxKZOMWzllRb8TddLVfO8bxTzHc

The only thing I didn't do was adding those green glazes. I just don't have the balls to do that 😅

I've run into some problems following this guide though. The Brown Sand base color was too dark in my case. I struggled with this a lot and that's where I've put the figure aside for the night. This morning I decided to deviate from the tutorial and use Basic Skintone for the strongest highlights, which I think saved the figure. 

If there's something I learned from this first experience, it's that using colored glazes is maybe the most important part of face painting. You can mess around with skin tones all you want but the figure is gonna look pale if you don't use some red on the cheeks, corners of eyes and mouth. Also blue glaze for beard adds a ton of needed contrast. 

I attached all colors used to paint the skin and hair. The color palette isn't that difficult after all, it's just the technique that's hard to learn 😆 At some point I felt like "never again", but I think with repetition, one can learn how to paint properly and more swiftly. If it weren't for constant mistakes and me trying to fix them, I think the head and hands would be done in less than 2 hours. This way it took me something over 4 hours. Also, PLEASE don't zoom in too much, it's not worth it 😁

And now, let's just not mess up the uniform!