PiliPili "Kyoto Belle" by Larissa Tamberg

I think this is one of the best bust that Pili-Pili has to offer to date. I would like to thank the sculptor for his magnificent work. Such a graceful figure awakes the desire to paint it as beautifull and full of life as possible.

Working on the figure I have demonstrated my technique on how I work with acryllics an various AMSS show, and every time there were a lot of questions asked. I'll try to answer some of them in this article. I work with different sorts of acryllics and by different brands, like Jo Sonja's, Humbrol, Armory, Andrea, Folk Art and also Russian watertempra. All acryllics can be mixed without any problems and once dry it will stay on. Dry arcyllics are very resistant, much more resistant then oils. I also find that the possibilities are more divers with acryllics than with oils : thinner layers, concentration of the paint is stronger, the paint covers better. Thanks to this one can make much better detailled drawings and designs and the drying time is just a couple of minutes. Especially the drying manner needs a lot of attention, sparigness and skills. The main rule is: never apply paint on a dry base, humidify the surface on which you're about to paint first with water. This will extend the period the paint needs to dry and will belnd the colours more softly, so without any stripes or spots. Always thin acryllics before using them. You'll need thicker paint when drawing a design , but you won't be able to draw your design at once. I always make my design in 2 or 3 sessions with thick paint so the paint won't flow where I don't want it. If you want to give a hue to a colour or to shade then the paint must be very dilluted, almost like water. Try it, and don't rush it ! Another question that's often asked : What kind of brushes do you use ? I only use round brushes. 000 by Habico for small details and drawings. By the way, I don't think that the brush makes a perfect painted figure. I think that working with acryllics asks more sparigness for the brush then working with oils. Acryllics dry very fast, so if you want to keep your brushes in a good condition then never fill them with paint up to the base. The paint should stay on the tip of the brush. It should become a habit that you rinse your brush about every two minutes, and that you load the brush every time with fresh paint. Dried acryllic paint at the base of the hairs of your brush will turn it into a little broom, which makes working with it close to impossible. Cleaning your brushes means that you will be able to use them for a very long time. Small, detailled designs I paint with an old brush which has no more then a few hairs left. So never throw away your brushes, they always come in handy.

The bust was, of course, first primed since acryllics don't adhere very well to resin. I then painted with a large (I used a n° 2 brush) brush I painted the face, the torso and the hand with a flesh colour. I applied this in 3-4 layers which resulted in an well covered area with the same colour everywhere. For flesh parts I use 3 tones: middle; shadow and deep shadow. The first two colours where home mixed, and I keep them in well closed jars. For the third tone I use Armory GE-017 New Bay. After that I started to work on the white effect on the face. I used Jo Sonja's opaque paint. Working with very thin layers I painted the entire face, except for the shadows, these I didn't touch. The final result are about 20 layers of the opaque paint. One of the parts that involved the most work. After that I cover the hair with black paint to see if the contrast is strong enough. Next I lighted the nose and eyelid even more to get more volume. Next came the eyes: Jo Sonja's smoked pearl is a light grey paint used to paint the white of the eyes, brown earth was used for the iris. Armory New Bay was used for the lower eyelid and for a light contour around the eyes. Once the basic colours are applied I start working on the shape. I make the middle of the eyes lighter and a light shade of black. I wash the white of the eyes with the light shade of black to develop a shade. I then draw a black lens and in these I paint small white points to represent the reflection of the light. The eyeliner make-up was first painted black, and highlighted with grey. I general I would say that you need at least three tones: basic colour, light and shadow. An exception to the rule is black, where I use black as base and gradually paint in the highlights.

For the colour of the lips I have chosen a red colour from the Humbrol range. First layer, to build my basic colour, I humidify the lower lip with the same colour and immediately I paint in the highlight with pure white. One can get very interesting effects when mixing two colour on the figure. There where the paint meets each other it will mix and blend, while this isn't the case in the centre of each colour. This trick can be used in several cases like the painted of very pronounced folds. The difficulty of this technique lies in the fact that you need to apply your paint in one go. I'll advise to first have a go on a piece of paper, plastic card or an old figure. The shadow on the lipstick is Kraplak. The lips are then covered with satin varnish. I then started to work on the body. I mixed some white with the basic skin colour and applied these in several thin layers. The shoulder, breast and upper part of the back were highlighted this way. Then came the shadows which were painted with a home mixed colour. I painted shadow between the hair and the face, the neck, the lower part of the back and the part of the breast that is covered. The deep shadows were done with New Bay and were applied on the face, neck to blend the hair in the skin colour and in all areas which are covered by the dress. I painted the hairs around the face and in the neck with very small strokes, which resulted in a very smooth transition and it gave my figure a very natural look. For the nipple I used Barnyard Red by Folk Art. To accentuate the parts of the body I used Brown Earth. The hand was painted in exactly the same way. The nail polish was painted as the lips. The nails were covered with gloss varnish. Enter the dragon

To place the tattoo of the dragon correctly I first test fitted the parts that form the dress, so I could position it the right place. If you find it risky to start painting directly on an already finished surface then you can first draw the design with a soft pencil which has both the advantage of being easy to correct and also to overpaint. As acrylic is a quit thick paint, you won't notice a trace of the pencil once finished. The dragon is a product of my own imagination and can have different colours. I've chosen to paint him green as this gives a very expressive effect in combination with the red dress. Dress

The two parts that form the dress were painted with Humbrol red until I had an even coverage of the whole dress. Shadows were painted Wine red (Dacwi Acrylic) and pure black for the deepest shadows. I always make the contrast between highlights and shadows quite strong, otherwise the design will look very flat. Once this was dry I begun painting the chaotic motif of flowers. Of course I used an Japanese style of motif. I constantly checked that the design was continuely on both parts of the dress by placing them together while I was painting. To draw the pattern I used Jo Sonja's yellow Oxide and True Blue by Armory (for the blue little flowers) . I had to repeat each line of my drawing 2 or 3 times since the paint was quite transparent. After this was dry I highlighted with pure white paint in the middle of each flower, the edge of the leaves and all branches which are situated in a highlight zone. The yellow parts were highlighted with Jo Sonja's Gold colour and the blue flowers with Blue Iridescent. The highest highlights were done with Pearl White from Jo Sonja. The edge and the shadow parts of the drawing were done with Brown Earth en for the shadow of the blue flowers Humbrol Blue was used. To give the dress a silky effect I used Iridescent Orange by Jo Sonja. This was applied with small diagonal stripes over the complete dress. This gave the effect I was looking for. All this was shaded with Jo Sonja's Burgundry. The white material on the inside of the dress was first painted Smoked Pearl by Jo Sonja, I then highlighted these parts and shadows were painted Nimbus Grey (Jo Sonja). Now that the two parts of the dress were painted, they were glued in place. The seams were covered with white glue. This was applied with the tip of a brush, and was done is several light coatings instead of one heavy. This glue dries transparent en can easily be overpainted once dry. An extra advantage is that it leaves no traces of glue what so ever. Accessories ( hand, comb, little sticks in the hair, fan)

The hand was painted in the exact same way as the face and body of the figure. To paint wooden parts of the fan, little sticks and comb I use a colour from Armory: BRN-04. This is a dark sand colour. Highlighting is done by adding white, especially the top of the comb as there will be placed two green dragons. Two extra highlights were placed on the top of the comb, and two shadows on the bottom. I painted an imitation of wood on the surface of the fan and stick by using very diluted Brown Earth. The blue ribbon was painted with the pearlblue Blue Iridescent, which was blended to pure black in the dark shadows. All wooden parts were covered with satin varnish. The drawing on the fan is the drawing of a real Japanese painting of a heron. The back of the fan was painted as if the front drawing is shining through. This was done on a wet surface, using a few brushstrokes, so the paint can mix with the water previously applied to the fan. Conclusion To conclude I would like to say that working with acrylics demands more skills and caution by the painter. But on the other hand, acrylic paint does give more possibilities when painting figures than oils. Don't be afraid to try over again when you don't succeed from the first time, you can even try it on the same figure. Since the paint is applied in thin layers, you can easily overpaint these. In the worst case: hold the figure in warm water, let it rest for a couple of minutes and scrub over it with a brush. All paint will be wiped of! Finally I would like to thank Military Modelling for publishing my article and for the nice comments they gave on my work in previous issues of Military Modelling. Best of luck in all your future paintings! Larissa Tanberg

• Artist Larissa Tamberg • Text by Gino Poppe • Pictures by De Wijs Marcel • Member of www.amss.be