28th April.
Before I started on the other side I thought I should test some finishes. I had a feeling I would be spraying it with acrylic lacquer but wanted to see, for future projects, what other finishes would do to the paint.
This first one looks ok from a distance and in bad lighting. It's an oil-based varnish. It doesn't smear the paint and I'm sure will leave a good protective coat. The only problem is it looks like a tramp urinated on it - on a hot day after a really long walk in the sun.
Second attempt. Oh dear. This didn't go well. This is brushed on acrylic varnish. It mixes right in with the paint. Nope! I did try sealing the paint layer first (sorry no pic) in another test. I used a cheap aerosol hairspray, this actually worked reasonably well and prevented 90% of the smearing. Still not good enough. I did seal all the cabinet artwork with this hair spray before I sprayed it with acrylic lacquer.
I'M BATMAN.
I had intended to use a batman from the animated cartoon. It would have been a lot easier, with no blending and fewer colours too. At the last minute, I came across this one. Once I saw it projected on the cabinet I knew I was going to have to try to paint it. After the success of the Spidey side I was full of confidence. What could possibly go wrong?!
Oh bloody hell. Again, crushing disappointment. I mean LOOK AT IT?!?!
Having learned from the last try I just took a deep breath and started chucking paint at it for a few hours. Unfortunately, probably because I was convinced it was going to be painted over anyway, I didn't take many pics of the process.
It wasn't till I got to this stage I realised it was going to actually be ok! The black was a lot harder to do on this one than spiderman. There is a lot of detail in the shadows. I was a little stunned, to be honest.
It all came together really nicely. I liked the background so much I wanted to put one on the other side behind spiderman. I relented in the end. Leave it alone as soon as you can, is a good motto.
And so I did. Again, I went to bed very tired but very happy.
As I said before, I had intended to put a lot more, smaller logos etc. on the rest of the cabinet. But time was against me, also I now knew how much work that would entail. I had put at least eight hours into these two paintings. It was worth it, but painting A B X Y START SELECT really isn't that important.
So all that is really left is all the inside gubbins and the final coat. Easy peasy?
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