Mini-Paint: Ming the Merciless

Ming the Merciless

For no reason, here's a Mini-Paint of Ming the Merciless.  The cult-classic, 1980 movie is over-the-top in camp, but I do have a warm fondness for it.

Here's the palette I used:  Titanium White, Zinc White, Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Red Deep, Terra Rosa, Cadmium Yellow, Naples Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Raw Umber, Burnt Umber,  Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine Blue, Anthraquinone Blue, Dioxazine Purple, Paynes Gray, and Lamp Black.

For the past couple Mini-Paints, I've decided to just paint until it is done, rather than trying to stop at an arbitrary time limit.  I figured I'd rather have something done which I'm not too embarrassed to post, and give me more of an opportunity to work out and problems and try to focus on improving painting a likeness, etc.  In this case, it was about 7 hours total for the painting, give-or-take.

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STEP ONE:  On a 6" x 8" piece of gray gessoed hardboard, I vaguely laid out the colors and shapes using a #10 flat brush for the first 90 minutes or so.

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STEP TWO:  When the first layer dried, I noticed the eyes looked a little low on the face, so repainted them and moved them up about a half-inch higher.  I used the #10 flat and #10 round brush to keep painting.  This is about 4 hours into the painting.

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STEP THREE:  The last few hours were spent painting and re-painting the face, as well as the highlights, shading, and the textures on the collar.  And, of course, the guy-liner around his eyes.

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This was done with acrylic paint on 6" x 8" gessoed hardboard.

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