Very kind of you all to say
Very inspiring Kara. When my kids aren't biting my ankles I'd love to get myself a work desk and do the same.
This is really slow going for me because I only get a couple hours of dedicated time a night to work on something like this, and I'm not always in the mood for it. When you are doing paintwork, I find that working 10 minutes, going off to feed or console a baby, coming back for another 15 minutes, etc. doesn't work. Because the paint on the palette dries.
And part of my interest in starting a thread was to help get others who may think this is intimidating to realize that it's doable. I did practice quite a bit before coming up with some stuff that I thought was worth sharing, and picked up tips from across the board that were integrated into my efforts here. If you do want to give it a shot (which you should), then there are a couple of things that really help--a variety of acrylic paints obviously, a variety of paint washes, pretty small hobby brushes, and a magnifier/visor deal that lets you see detail up close:
I'm constantly brushing water onto something I just painted, wiping away the paint, and trying again. A lot of trial and error like that because one little mistake can really distract from all the other work you put into something.
My earlier efforts never came out the way I hoped they would because I was missing some of those pieces. The small brushes part is critically important (I think I need even smaller brushes for eyes than I currently have). If not, you just can't get a decent level of detail in eyes, for teeth, etc. And integrating some shading makes a huge difference.
Regarding Slimer for example, for most of the body I painted him a greenish yellow color, applied a darker green wash to highlight the wrinkles and to give him some general shading detail, then I came back with a more yellowish green to highlight areas like his cheeks and several of those lumps. Even there, lots of trial and error. Took me a few attempts to get the shade I liked best. It makes a big difference, even moreso in-hand than in those pics, which tends to hide some of that detail.
