Laura’s first model!
Laura, my Mrs painted her first ever model this week. A friend of mine 3d printed a mouse as a test model for his printer and gave it to me, it sat in my unpainted models until Laura saw it…
Our evening routine after I have finished working on commissions or the website/videos, and she has caught up on her British soaps/dramas, we sit to watch a movie or show together to see out the day. But twice a week we have a date night where we come away from the screens and sit at the table where my hobby desk is and I paint/build whilst Laura sits with me and colours in colouring books. We talk about random topics or just have a laugh in general enjoying each others company.
She was helping me organise some drawers of diorama supplies and then she saw the mouse. She asked me straight away if she could sit and paint next time with me on our date night. Not going to lie I was smitten all over again when she said asked it.
So later the same day she was on her phone looking up paints to buy, I said she could use mine but she wanted something to officially start her painting journey. She settled on the AK Interactive 3rd gen basic starter set and AK Interactive pastels set.
when it came time to paint, she organised the paints like the colour wheel from the starter set preview video. She was worried about potentially not using all the paints and wasting them, but I assured her it is always best to have them ready on the palette.
I showed her how to load her brush to avoid the ferrule and how to thin the paints on the wet palette. She is left handed so it threw me off at first seeing her hold the brush but she settled in very quickly into painting. She is a big Disney fan and she wanted to paint the mouse like Gus from Cinderella. She took her time laying down multiple thin coats blocking in the colours she wanted, she had seen some videos about layering/shadows and started with darker colours working her way up to a brighter colours.
And here is her finished model! I asked her what she done to get the finished look.
She made a lighter brown with the AK paints and made tiny lines for the fur over the darker brown. For the ears, nose and mouth she used the AK Pastel Violet then the AK Pastel Pink over the top. The scarf was a dark brown yellow then the base AK yellow over the top, she also added some stippling to try show a worn look to the scarf.
I am so incredibly proud of her results, but also just being brave enough to try in the first place. She is really neat right out of the gate and wasn’t afraid to try things she saw online or thought of. Most people when you show them painted models say “I could never do that” and if you are thinking that, I encourage you to give it a go. She enjoyed it a lot and wants to explore more with painting, and also is looking at Warhammer, I suspect there is a trip to our local Warhammer shop soon…
Thank you for reading this blog about my Mrs. It isn’t a tutorial but more so a celebration of her creative side and how proud I am. If anyone reading this is thinking about doing a similar thing spending time with loved ones painting models together, you definitely should! It has added a new branch to our relationship and gives us more things to nerd out and do together.
If you want to see 360 photos of her model, please consider heading over to the gallery.
Thank you and until next time, take care!
