Astronaut on the Beach – Part 2
As I wrote in the first part, just painting a little astronaut without context and ambience was not considered sufficient, nor an excessive challenge, so in this part, the part about painting, I will put the emphasis on some other things.
Here I will emphasize the freehand of the globe and the accentuated direction of the light.
I will further emphasize the source of light with the shadows I will write a word about, two.
And a third emphasis I will put on the liquid resin that I worked with a little more seriously for the first time.
To draw the earth, I divided the sphere into zones horizontally and vertically. Looking at google earth continent by continent I traced in light color across the black undercoat. It was difficult for me to decide on my scale which element, peninsula or continent would be which majority, but since I did not strive for hyperrealism, I took a breather to swallow a couple of islands and peninsulas. With a couple of corrections the sketch was done.
Since one side will be much darker than the other I started with the darkest tones of the chosen colors.
The coarse layers that I later merged got an accentuated brighter part from the direction I imagined the light coming from.
Adding a shadow was one of the tasks I thought would elevate the whole effect. After the sand in 4-5 layers was painted and drybrushan the dark color remained in depth and it was a good foundation for what I further intended. The shadows had to match the ratio of light and shadow on the sphere. I felt that they did not have to fully correspond to the real situation, so I emphasized them a little. If it was to look at the ball, the light source for the shadows would be a bit higher, but I extended the shadows a bit because of the effect. This is especially noticeable with shadows created by balloon rope and sand. Realistically, these shadows would be almost imperceptible, but they are noticeably extended. I worked the shadows with diluted black paint in multiple layers and further darkened them at the root of the object that creates them.
Now half the base needed to be topped with rubber. I knew what I wanted, but I had no experience with performance. I wanted a slightly turquoise color of the rippled water, and maybe a few waves. I used a two-component liquid rubber from Pebeo, and I used Idea VETRO glass paint to color the rubber.
With careful and precise use, I got a fine mix, and with a drop of turquoise, a fine shade. Since the sea was only supposed to be in the corner of the base I fenced off only those two sides, a mistake! On the sides where I glued the plastic partitions I first put a spike tape so I could take it all off later more easily. That proved to be a good decision.
Not wanting the rubber to leak down the side of the partition base, I glued it with super glue, and I passed the first thin layer in the grooves between the base and the partition with UV resin.
It can be done without it, but I was too afraid that the rubber would spill all over the table. And despite the successful procrastination, the moment came when I had to pour my slice. I went little by little avoiding the bubbles, and if they did appear in a short stream from the burner I would throw them out. Tedi, about 15 kuna, before you ask.
Obviously I didn’t do well and calculate the slope and depth of the base so that mistake from above came to charge; overflow on both edges. With emergency intervention and cramming UV resin to the edges the flood was stopped and resin finally came into place. After drying overnight I tried some slight wave and ripple effect however on first attempts I realized it wouldn’t go like on youtube tutorials and gave up on further attempts. For this project. The partitions were easily removed and with a scalpel I removed the parts where the rubber was leaking, I sanded a little and painted it black.
In the whole scene, the only thing I might emphasize is the reflection in the astronaut's visor. As reflection represents the vision the boy is looking at it is different from the reality the viewer is looking at. That is why there is no rope in reflection and behind the Earth is the universe. As the light comes from behind him there is no strong reflection but only a glare spilling over the edges of the visor.
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