STS Model Painting Month 2022 - post your FINISHED works here

Ana wrote:

Anyway, meet Silver
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Silver is just perfect Anna ! I love the softness of the coat and the way all the colours just go together. Plus I love the dark patch on the right eye and the lighter left eye! I love your painting technique too :)

A-J wrote:

and then lastly the tiger family. They turned out really lovely! I also like the last photo, it makes me smile :)

thank you so much, I'm glad you like the last pic. It makes them look more real I think

A-J wrote:

Here are the pictures of my finished Maltese tiger  

Here is is meeting my other tigers      

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your Maltese tiger is beautiful Anne-Joke! Wonderful shades of greys, silvers and blues all blended so well, and I love the light coloured eyes on him:)
I really like the greetings in the last pic too

A.R.Garcia wrote:

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the blue jay looks super! Well done! I really like this photo amongst the flowers. You've done the eyes and surrounding area very well, and such an improvement on the original version.

A.R.Garcia wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] : The shapes and placement for those tiny tiger stripes looks challenging, but they turned out perfect. It’s nice that you created a whole family with matching colors- the cubs look quite playful/alive and almost seem like they’re moving around in the photos despite being attached to a base. (Also, I never thought of using nail art brushes before- I should look into those!)

thank you very much @A.R.Garcia! I just went with the flow when I was putting the stripes on and I was using my watercolour paint brush so it made the stripes more erratic and splotchy which I think suited the coat rather well
Yes, I got the idea from [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] about using nail art brushes. He posted a pic in last years Work in Progress thread about them. Excellent insider info and so kind of him to share :)

Birdsage wrote:

I’m a little late here and didn’t post a “before” photo (there is a photo on my New Additions page, though), but here is my Schleich Peregrine Bat Falcon.
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the Bat Falcon looks really nice [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]! well done on your work and good to see you taking part in this :)

George wrote:

I can only echo those above, the tigers really have turned out lovely, the striping patterns are so neatly applied and realistic in design, from all angles. Did you copy a different reference animal for each one, so they'd turn out realistic but not the same, or just study a lot to 'learn' the likely patterns then invent your own? Cos I follow both those methods when I'm painting pintos : sometimes it's a pattern taken from an individual whose markings I really like, other times I make it up as I go along based on the feeling I've learnt the shapes patches tend to be, and where they're most likely to happen. It'd be interesting to know if one way or the other works better for other people, or if I'm in the minority in going free-hand as often as I do

And the Megaloceros I just commented on in your custom thread, but I'm enjoying the extra pictures in here, too. His eyes do look neat and fully detailed, but I can see why that's been a struggle if your brushes are all a little too big to apply the smaller specks of colour.

I recommended them somewhere else recently, possibly even in the Painting Month thread, but by fair the cheapest and easiest way to get hold of tiny paintbrushes in handy shapes and sizes for fine detailing is to look for nail art supplies. Online, or if you go to shops they'd have them too, I used to buy them in a pound shop (like a dollar store) when I worked in a town, now I just order them off Ebay cos I don't go to real shops any more.
You get a pack of 8 or 10 brushes for less than you'd pay for a single tiny paintbrush from a specialist art or model shop, and SO much better quality too, cos the bristles are firm and springy but not scratchy or stiff. The art ones tend to be too flimsy and soft, so you don't get full control of the paint even though they're small enough at the tip, and they go fluffy and ragged really quickly, like one or two uses. The nail art ones will eventually get messed up and wear out, but they're good for a lot, lot longer - and they're cheap enough to just get a new pack every couple of years, without regretting what you've spent on them

thank you [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]!
I used a few reference photos from google about Bengal tigers and once I recognised the typical coat patterns for them I knew what I basically needed to plonk where
I made up the coats from about 3 base photos, so just taking a few rough stripes from them that I felt fitted onto these tiny tigers. So, yes I 'learnt' the pattern style then made my own similar versions of them.
Some things became very noticeable for me, such as under the chin area it was mainly white but the sides of the neck had a few sparse very thin strips tapering down. And the sides sometimes had larger hollow elongated jaggedy diamond pattern pieces, but that was only a couple (if at all) on the side areas. I posted some reference pics on my Collection thread of the tigers.
Freehand works perfect for me because it means I'm not hard on myself (I gave up on perfection a long time ago), and I like going with the flow like making the mum's tail all white.
I've seen so many crazy, out of this world imperfections in real wild animals living in the wild that I've been watching, that I know anything visible is possible!

Here they are all together! 11 finished projects!
9 mammals, 2 birds.
2 domestic animals and 9 wild.
Tigers and Megaloceroses were the most popular species this year

Thank you all for participating! Cheers!!

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Oh well, I totally missed Silver and the tiger!!

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], this is such a nice dog, love the blue merle color!! Interesting how you tried different techniques with this cutie! For me he looks perfect!

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]: the tiger looks stunning! Never saw a tiger in this color before but it looks just amazing!!

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]: the Bat Falcon looks wonderful too!

And [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]: thank you for this wonderful collage!!

Ahhh, they look wonderful all laid out together like that, what a beautiful variety of animals and inspirations and art styles. This month is such a good idea for encouraging more of us to get painting, and to actually get on with things we'd been putting off, or just vaguely hoped to get round to one day

What a wonderful collage ! Great job everyone.

So many wonderful painted figures this year! I love each and every one of them! So many creative artists on this forum

It was a very successful initiative considering how small is our village. Many talented members and I really enjoy this kind of projects.

Absolutely superb work everyone!

thank you for the collage Anna! they look great together

Great collage Anna!
So nice to see everyone's works together. Congrats on finishing everyone

Very late to see the final collage, but it looks wonderful! What a great collection we've made this year! Well done to all the artists, and thank you Anna for encouraging this event.