fmalexander

I think I mentioned my plan to do a tribute to Caitlin R. Kiernan for Women in Horror Month some time ago? If not, I’m going to be painting a few minis and making up a diorama inspired by her story, The Fish Bride. I don’t think I’ll finish during February but I’ll try. Some of the challenges:

There isn’t a lot of description of the Fish Bride

• She lifts her right hand from the damp sheets, and patches of iridescent skin shimmer ever so faintly in the morning light. The sun shows through the translucent webbing stretched between her long fingers. Her sharp nails brush gently across my unshaven cheek.

• Her grey eyes have gone almost entirely black, and I can no longer distinguish the irises from the pupils

• She has teeth like those of a very small shark, and they glint wet and dark in healthy pink gums. I have often wondered how she manages not to cut her lips or tongue on those teeth, why there are not always trickles of drying blood at the corners of her thin lips

• I look away from the ceiling, at her throat and the peculiar welts just below the line of her chin. The swellings first appeared a few weeks back, and the skin there has turned dry and scaly, and has taken on a sickly greyish-yellow hue.  Sometimes, there are boils, or seeping blisters. When she goes out among the others, she wears the silk scarf I gave her, tied about her neck so that they won’t have to see.

I asked for some help from more experienced painters on the Reaper Mini forums, which gave me some ideas. That said, this might really stretch me out as a painter.

Patches of iridescent skin – I’m going to try using washes of a pearlized paint, and maybe an interference paint.

Figuring out how to do the dry and scaly skin – I’m planning on a blue-grey area, with a little red irritation outlining it (and white for any flaking, scabby skin), with washes of yellow to fade it into the regular skin color. As if the old skin was scratched off, and the new skin was underneath? By far the most complex paint job I’ve tried on skin.

Which mini to use? So far I’ve decided on the Reaper Sea Hag, but I might have to find another arm to replace it, I don’t think the octopus fits. However, the webbing is an issue. I don’t necessarily want to do too much modification so I can keep the hand.

Do I include the narrator or not? Do I include some Deep Ones?

Building the diorama – I haven’t done much of this, and I’ll handle it in a separate post when I get to it.