Mermaid of Warsaw - Part I

 

Strictly speaking a siren, not a mermaid.

This particular model hails from the Kontrast Festival, and it's taken me a year to start to figure out how I want to paint it. I was held back for a long time deciding the basic colours, and also looking for an appropriate plinth on which to mount it. Ideally I want a square plinth, and I'd like a backing plane to paint something else on - or I could simply use the excuse of oils on canvas at some point.

The brief overview of colours is for blues on the tail, golden hair, and tanned skin. Although it might appear to be oceanic to most, this should really be a river mermaid (syrenka) and I figure more sunbathing or time spent near the surface would apply. Colours are not everything for miniature painting of course, but more on that in a moment.

The model as seen is just a very quick impression to guide through later steps. There's every chance of the tones currently visible being completely masked by later steps, but it nevertheless serves to set the foundations of those steps. Everything so far is with an airbrush: priming, zenithal, tints. The zenithal was white ink heavily thinned - and the result was incredibly smooth. Multiple passes as necessary, and very little speckling as can sometimes happen with white. Always thin your paints. The zenithal set the volumes up with Dark Oath Contrast on the flesh, Aethermatic Blue on the tail highlights, and Talassar Blue in the darker areas. Those two "blue" paints from the Contrast range are seemingly very diverse for my uses, and work well with the scales: blue reflection from the water, yellow from the sun, and I hopefully setting up shimmering scales to work on later.

Golden or blonde hair I've attempted a few times on much smaller scales, and what I've learned is that yellow is probably not the best colour to be using. Ochre, browns, with very small hints of green (actually done by mixing in blue) and red are what I'll be looking at instead.

As mentioned before, this miniature isn't just about picking colours that look nice. It should mean something, it should try to evoke some particular feeling. Rivers aren't a deep blue like the ocean, but can reflect greens from surrounding trees, grasses, etc. The rock, well it doesn't particularly fit a river theme, but water flowing around it won't be foaming. Warszawska Syrenka is the symbol of Warsaw, and an important cultural icon. The expression on the face of the model is almost one of sadness, and coupled with the sword and shield could perhaps focus not on glorifying the symbol of protection of the city, but on the continuing strife that means protection is needed, and memories of a more peaceful time. A reflection on that theme however is that I'd like to portray the mermaid in a ray of light, surrounding by otherwise bleak weather; memories of a better time, but hope that weathering the storm will bring peace once more, and that future generations might not live under such dark clouds.

This theme will inform how I approach highlights, where I draw attention, how saturated colours will be in various locations, and even what kind of mood I'll need to be in when painting the model. This is not a tabletop game miniature, it's a display piece, and while I may not achieve the desired effect (from lack of experience if nothing else), it doesn't mean I won't give it my all to do the model justice.

-- silly painter.