"Fastastic" - Master Fox

...His shapeshifting abilities and penchant for
'artful wealth redistribution' made him quite

unwelcome in official circles...

-CMoN

We're on to the final busts of The World of Smog On Her Majesty's Service! It seems I always leave my favourite pieces for last - and between this and next week we'll be looking at the characters that my wife and I use most often. Today it's my wife's meeple: Master Fox!

Master Fox is the only non-human "Gentleman" (i.e. good-guy) in The World of Smog, but he fits perfectly into the lore as having been banished from Faerie. I really like this character, his full-body sculpt has the great pose of a secret agent, while the bust has the nice added detail of the pince-nez. I'm not a fan, however, of how the ears of the bust are rounded, instead of pointy. It softens him quite a bit. In retrospect, I should have just cut those puppies off and started afresh with greenstuff. 

As with the full-body sculpt, I used the same photo of a fox as reference as to the colouring of his face and ears. One issue that I faced, was that the white of his shirt joins the white of his fur. I didn't want him to fade into a blur of white, so, while I started both sections with White Scar, I differentiated them in the shading process. For the shirt, I gave a thin wash of Drakenhoff Nightshade before working it back up with white. This gave a nice cool white to contrast the warmer white of the fur (washed with Seraphon Sepia).

The orange was a bit trickier to paint than before because it was over a broader surface, with less molded detail. Like purple, I like to mix my own orange (typically with Evil Sunz Scarlett or Mephiston Red + Yriel Yellow) for this orange I used Evil Sunz, Yriel Yellow and a little Doombull Brown for the base-tone. Over this base orange, I applied a wash of Agrax Earthshade, but I think Reikland Fleshshade would have been a better choice - for a warmer tone. 

Additional Yriel Yellow was used to provide highlights. I tried using Ryza Rust, but always end up remembering that this paint doesn't really work very well as a layer paint. Too clumpy. 

His little beady eyes were picked out with Yriel Yellow, Agrax and then Ushabti Bone. The Unicorn Club tie pins and rims of the specs were painted Liberator Gold. 

I tried to match the blue of his vest with my previous efforts on the full-body sculpt. I completed the original miniature 2 years, a month and a week ago, so I tried to transport my mind back there to remember the blue I had used. It was actually easy enough, because, while now I have a million different blues (to expediate my Barak Mhornar Kharadron Overlords, and their ocean bases) back in the day I only used Altdorf Blue. So Altdorf it was, then Drakenhoff then Altdorf again mixed with increasing amounts Lothern Blue!

Yikes! We're getting frighteningly close to finishing ALL of The World of Smog On Her Majesty's Service miniatures! Only ONE MORE TO GO!! After Silver Tower, this will be only the second ever box set that I've fully completed. Where then shall we shift our gaze? Only time will tell...Join me then on The Art of Caesura!

Watching: Behind the Curve

Reading: Slaine: The Horned God

Next Week:

Going Home one last time...