STS Model painting month 2022 - Sign up topic

Hello friends!
Like last year I would like to open this special forum event, the STS Painting Month! And like last year we will start painting in May.

What is this event and why would you participate? It is a whole month dedicated to painting one of your projects - painting or repainting a model animal. We will start painting in May and hopefully finish our projects within that one month. If you just like me have a growing collection of unpainted projects to paint or repaint "someday in the future" and you're waiting for a good moment to start working on them, then it may be a perfect time!

There will be 3 topics dedicated to this event. This first one is only for the BEFORE pictures of your chosen model. The second one will be for all discussion and work-in-progress pictures and I will open it on Sunday 1st of May. The last one will be only for the photos of your finished work (also opens in May). If you finish your model and post the photo of your finished model on the special topic you'll get a congratulations card (real or digital, to be decided later) early in June

Please, choose one official model and don't change it after committing to that one. All extras and side projects can go to the general topic. Of course, we'll be happy to see them too!  

This first topic is only for posting a photo of your chosen model before repainting it. You can also tell us about your plan for the color and technique that you want to use and inspiration for your project.
When I see your post here I'll write your forum nickname on the list of participants, together with your chosen species.

Important: we don't start painting the official model before May. But you can start prepping your model in April already. Prepping the model means removing seamlines, and any annoying elements. It's also a good time to resculpt your animal if you had such plans. You can also cover the model in primer or gesso before the event start.

If you have any questions, please send them [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]  

Please note, it's not a competition! The idea is to find time to paint, encourage each other, and have fun in the process.

What a great idea. I have a figure in mind

So glad to see it's happening again, last year's was a lot of fun, both to take part in myself and to watch what everyone else was creating.

I have four models (two prehistoric, two wildlife) which I've been quietly stockpiling for custom painting plans since joining here and getting tempted out of my only-equine focus, so now I need to make up my mind which of them would be the most interesting for people to see all the way through the process. Choices, choices!

Hmm, I really enjoyed last year, but have far less time now. Let me see if I can find something that would be relatively quick before I commit.

I haven’t ever painted a model before so I probably won’t participate but I can’t wait to see what other members do!!

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I can’t wait to see what you come up with! Your wildlife repaints are some of my favorites

But that's the ideal time to try your first repaint - you can ask as many questions as you can possibly fit in a post, and plenty of people will answer with their own tips and techniques and advice. We all talked about our painting as we went along, from beginners having their first go to people who've been doing it for years, and there was a lot of discussion and helpfulness and encouragement from all directions.

This year I hope I will be able to do the job at last 

I might be able to join this year, if I can dig my supplies out. No clue what I'd do yet!

Great to see so many of you want to participate again
And for the first-time painters, I agree it's a great time to start! You can get many good tips from others

I still need to choose my victim but I hope to make this decision in the next few days. I feel like I want to paint a dog this year

Yay!! Will look for a victim!

Ana wrote:

Great to see so many of you want to participate again  
And for the first-time painters, I agree it's a great time to start! You can get many good tips from others

I still need to choose my victim but I hope to make this decision in the next few days. I feel like I want to paint a dog this year

That would be wonderful!

So tempted to join this year! Annoyingly it clashes with my exams so if not I will enjoy sitting back and watching everyone's amazing creations!

I found two possible victims yesterday on a flee-market: a tiger and an oryx (both schleich). I'll be away for the weekend so I have to make a decision tomorrow and show a before picture in time.

Bonnie wrote:

Ana wrote:

Great to see so many of you want to participate again  
And for the first-time painters, I agree it's a great time to start! You can get many good tips from others

I still need to choose my victim but I hope to make this decision in the next few days. I feel like I want to paint a dog this year

That would be wonderful!

So tempted to join this year! Annoyingly it clashes with my exams so if not I will enjoy sitting back and watching everyone's amazing creations!

Same here. I'm graduating college in May and have final exams during earlier in the month so I doubt I'll find time but I'm very excited to see what others do

wonderful! I am excited to take part again, thank you for running it Anna

Oooh, still haven't decided on a victim yet... Need to hurry!

I've made my decision, this year's project is the wonderful Papo Megaloceros

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I thought this one would be most fitting, both as a former winner the STS Figure of the Year award, and with so many forum members having an interest in prehistoric and wildlife species.

My plan is to work out a paintjob which combines what we know of the Megaloceros coat colour and markings from cave art, with modern relatives to help inspire the tones, shading, and details. I also think I might have to do a digital art mock-up to play with beforehand, to get the colour design working and give me something to reference when I start on the model, as I'm so used to painting only modern species and breeds, which I've met in person or can easily look up in photos

Do need to top up on paints before I can start, though, my black and cream have set nearly solid in the pots and those are both colours I'm going to need!

I have decided to go for this model:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
But I'm not going to paint it a traditional orange. I've done that many times before so that wouldn't be a challenge. I also don't think it will be much fun painting it as a white tiger, since that is what it is already. So that leaves the special colouration options. I've painted a golden tabby tiger before too, thought that was on a cub, but when I was looking through colour variations like melanistic I came across the elusive Maltese blue tiger. There have been reported sightings in the past, but there is no photographic evidence of it's existence. I was very intrigued to read about the possible genetics of this colour and that it might have died out nowadays but did exist in the past. We only have written descriptions of people chasing it in the past, so that will be interesting reference material. I'm looking forward to diving deeper into this topic and to create my own interpretation, of the information I come across, on this model for the painting month

Long story short: I'm gonna paint this tiger blue, and figure out if and how it is realistic

Wonderful projects!!!

Hmm, thought of another dog but they're all earmarked for Bonnie. I did find a Chinamal donestic goose and thought perhaps it could make a decent victim.

So wonderful to read about everyone's interesting choices! Very exciting!
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I don't mind at all if you want to paint it, it would so so wonderful to see a dog! As long as it's not one of the rarer dogs I reserved with you I am more than happy for you to paint it and keep it!

The blue tiger idea is fascinating, I hadn't heard of them before and just spent some time reading up on the past sightings and possible genetic theories behind it. I really look forward to seeing how you interpret the colour - a challenge indeed without any photographic/taxidermy evidence to go from!

Great projects everyone! Tomorrow we can really start working on them Although I'll join a bit later as I'm on holiday right now.
My project will be this Papo Collie. I want to customize it slightly to make it look like a Sheltie (1/9 scale) so it would have a correct size for my 1/9 Shetland ponies
Sorry about the quality of the photo, this time I had to use the camera from my phone
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

My paint is still in the mail so I can't start tomorrow, but hopefully it won't be too long! I wonder, I've started work on some drawn plans so I have something to reference when painting, should those go in the progress topic tomorrow so we can see I've made a start, even though they're digital sketches rather than actual paint-on-model customising?

I think it would be lovely to see your digital sketches! And they can go into the work-in-progress topic.

I'll open it at midnight or tomorrow morning.

this is my model - a tiger family
but if it only has to be one model then I will choose the walking tiger to paint. I haven't decided what species of tiger it will be yet.

But because I will be painting it in colour batches I will be doing the others at the same time, to save time and hassle with the different paint colours when I open the tubes.
They are all Britains models 1/32nd.
The cubs are lions as they never made plastic tiger cubs (that I know of) but I've wanted to make tiger cubs for a long time now

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]