Throw in how tedious this process can actually be and it feels like the results are not delivering on the effort expended to achieve them.
That said, the second set of bone highlights has both reaffirmed some of those feelings and reminded me to not judge a model until it's finished.
Because, although close inspection shows brush strokes I am less than happy about I do think it's an overall improvement. Furthermore, from a distance [tabletop standard] it looks pretty good.
But the bone is done now and I will add some additional tonal variations and shading down the line but next up is the turquoise on the chitin - lets see how onerous a task this will be...
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Very onerous is the answer, but not actually more than I could stomach. But overall it looks great and it looks much more impressive than close scrutiny reveals but I'm OK with that.
All of the turquoise took about 3 sessions, it was much too labour intensive for me to cope in one sitting. Now I did do some bits on my sentinels and even Leviathan Tyranids, which may seem odd to break up painting a Tyranid by painting more Tyranids but I assure you it made sense at the time. Unfortunately the sentinel progress was not worth taking pictures of so there's no update for them this week.
However, the challenge here was made harder by the choice of paint. For this side I was using a cheap craft acrylic I've used before, but it's dries quite quickly, meaning it becomes quite gloopy. Unfortunately thinning it down with water makes it flow too much. I end up with big globs of opaque thick paint on my brush while the watered paint soaks in the bristles and travels up to the ferule. Getting fine feather stokes is almost impossible.
So for the other side I switched to Miniature Paints aquamarine, which is almost identical [I know the colours look wildly different, but that's different exposures on the camera]. You can see a subtle difference when the aquamarine is next to the turquoise but when it's painted on like this the difference is indistinguishable. But the main difference is in the application. It's slightly thinner, more consistent and thins better. The second half was a much more rewarding experience, which was a relief.
I've already started the next set of highlights and I've done the base, legs, torso, head, and arms. All that's left is the carapace - the crests have two sides each and then back mound has left and right sides which are everso fiddly to get into. I hoped to have got it done, but fell short, maybe over the weekend?Second highlights are a little easier because you can see where you are going to paint. But, you have to be more careful with the brush stroke to get the lines thinner and not obliterate all the painting done here. I don't always manage it but it's looking OK. At least at this stage I am much happier. This will be as good as my Screamer Killers and High Rule Dude from DreadTober 2023, so whatever disappointment I did feel hopefully I've come to terms with it.