Catz, the Flower Girl
1/16th Unknown 3D print
Painted in 2026
So I’ve named this one Catz, because of the mask pinned to the side of her head.
I’ve no idea about who produced this model, as it was a slight mis-print from Mike Dodds, the fault line runs horizontally across her chest, although most of the time it’s not very visible.
It’s a beautifully rendered face though, and I thought I’d paint it simply because size-wise it fits in with a lot of other small-scale female busts I’ve done recently.
I said small scale, she probably would make a 120mm tall figure if she was a whole model, and Photo #1 shows just how small she is compared to my large fat thumb.
Photo #2. I’ve recently taken to airbrushing flesh tones on larger figures, it’s quick if I’ve a few pieces to do at once, the comours can be varied by mixing paint in the airbrush cup, and the finish is very smooth.
In this picture I’ve added a mix of Tamiya Nato Brown to a large amount of Tamiya Flesh colour, thinned the mix a little with Isopropyl Alcohol, and sprayed the bust from underneath to catch all the shadow areas.
Lightening the same mix with more flesh colour, I then spray from the top, angling the airbrush slightly so the spray is hitting the model at about 60 degrees, rather than from directly above.
Finally some white is added to the mix and a gentle mist is added from directly above.
The eyes are undercoated with a pale oyster colour – blue, scarlet and a lot of white acrylic, and then the pupils and iris added in with oil colours.
With the other female busts of similar scale that I’ve painted, I’ve attempted to stick to a different colour scheme for each, and in this case chose blue, so the eye shadow and lips are painted with Phthalo Blue, thinning the mix to make the fading effect on the eyelids.
At this point I’m thinking “that looks a bit like the actress Eva Green…… Nice !
Photo #3 shows a side view at this point, doesn’t look much like Eva now.
I’ve put some blusher on her cheeks – a very soft brush with a miniscule amount of Carmine oil paints, and the brush is almost scrubbed around to spread the paint in the area below and just onto the cheekbones.
Photo #4 The inner blouse has been undercoated with several thin layers of White Primer from MP Paints, and then a couple of layers of GW Sunburst Yellow acrylic applied as an undercoat. Over this I used Chrome Yellow oils, adding shadows with very small amounts of Mars Yellow.
These need to be blended together very carefully, because it’s extremely easy to make the brighter colour turn muddy with the darker shade of yellow.
Photo #5 and a real leap forward with the blue shawl having been painted and the lave edging done in white.
I’m finding the same problem occurring in a lot of 3D printed models is that any detailed surface texture is almost always rendered too lightly by the designer, and whilst it looks cool on a screen, the print process only hints tt he detail – in this case the lace – and makes it quite difficult for the painter to bring it into focus.
I’ve tried here initially with a couple of very thin washes of a mid brown, but the texture effect isn’t even enough over the whole lace collar, so some areas take the washes well, the darker paint settling in to pick out the recessed detail, and in others there isn’t enough depth to the texture for the paint to pool properly.
Photo #6, in this and the previous shot I’ve continued with the theme of Phthalo Blue, using it to add colour to the blouse. It’s an easy colour to deal with, adding small amounts of Titanium White to gain highlights, and a little Prussian Blue to deepen the colour for the shadows.
Photo #7. For some reason, and I really don’t know why, the Mars Brown, Light Red and Mars Yellow used on the hair has retained a lovely gloss finish, even when fully dry.
usually these colours will dry completely matt, or at the worst with a very slight sheen that is ideal for hair or leather areas of models.
I’d have to deal with this once the model was finished, and attempt to calm the gloss finish down with a couple of light dustings of Mr Model Matt Varnish.
In the final shots, I’ve painted the flower decorations in her hair with more blue, along with the cat mask, that is rendered in a very pale blue – Phthalo Blue and a greater ration of Titanium White – and than added the markings similar to those on a Tabby cat with a mix of the Phthalo Blue and some Mars Black.
In an effort to make that lace collar stand out a little more I added some spot washes of the Phthalo Blue / Mars Black mix, carefully spotting on to the areas I wanted it to bring out, and then initially drying off the White Spirit with a hairdryer set to a high heat setting.
It’s not perfect, but it does bring out the detail a little more, and allows the dark colour to be controlled a little more easily than an overall wash would.
Final thoughts
Although there is a slight fault line across her chest, I still like this model. The painting was done relatively quickly for me, and it certainly isn’t perfect, but it was simply a case of experimenting with the airbrush for skin tones, which has come in useful for several other projects since.
Whilst I admire anyone who has taken the time and effort to learn how to sculpt via computer program, there is still some way to go for a lot of the people who use this method.
The face is superb, as too are the flower details in the hair, but the refinement of the lace collar lets the model down, and although I admit that in comparison, traditional sculpting would probably be vastly out of scale to reality, the fact that the latter gives the painter a chance to make a decent finish from it, means that caricature or no, the finished piece looks a whole lot better.
However, returning to the good points, it is a very, very nicely rendered face, and I think that possibly carries the day when people look at the model overall.
Thanks to Mike Dodds for passing this on, glad I could make something of it.