In love with Melissa

Long time no hear, time to change something. 

For some days there's a strange hunger inside of me, that wants to blog and share my projects and thoughts again. So here's the first post in line of some others that I've already prepared for you. 

Currently i am working on Melissa, a nice miniature of the Darksword Range. 

For me it's the first time to paint such a small true scale miniature. And I have to admit: I love her :)

For the last finished projects there was always something I've tested out. First there was artificial water (I'm using 2K water produced by NOCH) and snow (used a mix of several components) followed by creating a deep jungle using paper plants and selfmade ones.  There'll be a separate post about that jungle project later. 

On Melissa it's more a painting experiment then something that has to do with basing. I'm giving NMM a serious try for the first time. 

I'm struggling a bit with contrast, which is a very important part of NMM. So...push push push the contrast! "Don't be afraid Arne! You can do it!" 

A (painter-)friend of mine has kindly shared his recipe for his NMM gold. I've taken this as a base and will refine it to my personal taste. You can find it right here. 

Here's my progress so far:

As you can see there's a LOT of work to do. From now on I'll concentrate on single areas till completion (or at least as close to as I can to leave some final touches for later). 

Here's the first step of further work on Melissa after I've made the pictures above. Worked on her face and hair:

I hope you like it and will visit this blog again to find out how the progress goes on. 

Enjoy your day and keep in mind to always paint with & for joy and happiness!