This is the Chibi Halloween Sophie from Reaper Miniatures. She was a special edition model available at the 2014 Reaper Artist Conference. She was a gift from my dad in 2016. I kept her in her blister pack for many years until late 2020 when my dad was diagnosed with Huntington's disease. I wanted to do something to remind me of him and show him my love and appreciation. There isn’t too many progress photos of this model but I wanted to tell it’s story, I hope you enjoy.
I began by using milliput for her base, I envisioned her sitting in a flowery forest environment to keep it playful so this gave me a good texture to start the ground cover from. I primed her black started blocking in colours.
I done multiple thin coats of Citadel Pallid Wych Flesh for the base of her skin. For her dress, pumpkin and hat ring I used Citadel Trollslayer Orange being careful not to touch the skin. For the black I used Citadel Corvus Black, I prefer it over Citadel Abaddon Black as corvus has a very subtle blue grey tone to it. This was applied to her cape, wings, gloves, boots and hat. I used Citadel Phoenician Purple for her hair.
I used Pro Acryl Dark Umber for the mud on the base and also her broomstick.
After blocking in the colours, I used Pro Acryl Tan Flesh for her skin being extremely careful to not catch her eyes. Using the wych flesh already on my palette I start making thin wear lines on her hat’s creases and also to highlight her hair and dress. Now to carry on the base I used Citadel Kabalite Green being very loose with coverage, making sure to leave brown showing. I added this to the pumpkin stem and earring also. I used the green to carefully paint her Irises in the cartoon chibi style. Followed by the corvus black for the pupils.
For some reason I was feeling particularly ambitious and carefully painted corvus black around the inside edge of her eyes to make them pop more in the cartoon style, also adding running makeup lines down her cheeks for some added details.
After the nervous part of painting her eyes, I decided I needed a fun moment, I decided to work on the base. I got out my tuft box and started adding tufts and flowers in various places around her base making sure not to cover the pumpkin.
To add a few closing details on her, I decided her wings needed something else as they looked very flat in detail. I used the same purple for her hair and made little lines on her wing’s membranes to show the folds they have when closed. I kept the lines very rough and stylized to keep the cartoon theme of the model. Then to finish I added a little wood chip to her base to be a forest log, added a quick Citadel Seraphine Sepia wash over the log and called the model done!
I was very pleased with how this model turned out, I had never painted a cartoon chibi style before so it was bit daunting for me. I planned to give this model back to my dad as a gift so I took it with me when covid restrictions let me go see him in his nursing home. He absolutely loved it but he wanted me to keep it in my display as he gave it to me first and painting it for him was enough of a gift. It will always hold a special place this model in my heart, every time I visit my dad who deteriorates each year I am reminded of this model plus all the memories I have of him in the hobby.
I hope you enjoyed reading this blog and the progress photos. Thank you all for the support you give me. I appreciate every single one of you here! Take care.
