Finally Aion is Painted!

Well, 3rd times the charm, right? After a lot of frustration... I had to repaint Aion three times. I wanted to paint him as a mossy stone, remember? Well, here is a photo of him, and I'll explain and rant about everything under the cut!

I painted him the first time on the first weekend after I got him. I was really happy with how he came out looking! But when I took photos it was... meh. The dark pastel I had used was really grainy and he looked dirty. It was my first faceup ever, and I even used the whole can of Testors for it, so I felt pretty bad about this.

I talked to hubby and I bought two more cans of Testors. I decided to first paint Nyx and, thankfully, she came out looking gorgeous! Hubby got me some dark gray pastels, and after talking with Tsukiyono she suggested me to add lines like stone cracks. It was a great idea, actually!

And I did it for the second time I painted Aion. He was looking great while I painted him! But when I assembled him again he was... not feeling it, honestly. I went to take photos of him to my mom's, and she told me I had the same pissed off face than Aion's.

Being honest, yes, I had a small crisis. Good thing is that I had learned to use less Testors, and still had some to use. Hubby (10/10 will marry again) sat we me thinking concepts for Aion.

First, I had thought of doing something "safe" and painting him like a wormhole/blackhole to be Nyx's opposite... but I didn't want to paint another galaxy. So we started looking for stone ideas, and thought of a granite with blue. Hubby insisted and I tried it first on Photoshop and, since it looked nice, I tried it on paper. It was ugly af.

So hubby came up with another idea: why not to make Aion like magma/molten stone? I wasn't convinced, so again made a mockup on Photoshop and then on paper. Something was missing, so I tried the same lines as before, but with paint. I had this intuition feeling of "hubby already picked perfect wigs/eyes for my other dolls, lets hear him out" xD And so, we spent the night watching a series and cleaning Aion together.

I had two holidays, so I had a chance to paint Aion again... sadly, I had an "accident" with a silly cutter while making props for Coco (I will share that anecdote another day) and had to paint him with my left index stretched without touching anything hahaha!!

I was really insecure, but poor guy he came to check my dragon when I asked him. He wasn't convinced by the lines on paper, but I insisted. After painting Aion I was so happy!! But (there is always a "but"), that afternoon I took a photo for Instagram and I started panicking. He didn't look nice, and a lot of details were missing... granted, I had taken the photo late on the day without natural light.

So after that, I left him in pieces on my dolly closet, because I was afraid. I hadn't liked him before (twice!) and now I was afraid of not liking him again. Two days later, I just thought that I would assemble him, and then judge if I liked him or not. And after assembling him... his pissed off face is just too cute!!!

SoI rushed to my mom's to take more photos of him -again- and appeared at her door with all my photography props and Aion in my hand. She looked at me like: "¬¬ the potted plants, again?", but then she willingly hold some leaves for Aion to burn xD He is magma after all!

And oh well, my inhability with paint is supreme. "Let's make crimson red!" I said. I so I ended up with brown (red + black), brown (red + blue), brown (blue + red), and another brown (red + blue + black). Pissed off, I mixed one of those browns with red, and got something reddish that ended up on his forehead with the runes. And the golden touch had to be there. He has two golden dots on his cheeks, but I don't think they are that visible. But I love him!!! FINALLY!!!

I'm so sorry forso much rant, but I had to vent xD A special thanks to Tsukiyono, AnoriChan, DaggrySaga and TalesFromTheShrike who gave me support and critiques at different stages of Aion's painting adventure xD

A conclussion to this? If husband has a concept for a doll, he will hit the nail xD So far, I'm terribly happy that I have both of my dragons, and hope to make some short stories, lore, and character questionnaires soon-ish! :D