Using the smallest two of the micro bodies I did these up to help pass time between hospital visits and think they're not too bad.
Pumpkinseed Sunfish have always held my attention with their cool colors. Finding a format to paint something even remotely looking like one has been a challenge for me and I finally just tossed in the towel and decided that pattern painting wasn't going to happen given my skill level so I started digging in things to use as random templates. I finally settled on an old 5" embroidery hoop, a copper Choreboy and some Florist's moss. I pulled the Choreboy apart to get to a double layer of copper mess with a hollow in between them. Between the two layers of copper mesh I placed a chunk of the moss that had an open weave so to speak then pinched the whole nine yards in the hoop. After doing the orangish base coat I held the hoop up to a bait held in a tying vise and gave the blue a shot on both sides of the body....worked very well. After heat setting the blue I mixed equal parts of Do-It brown and watermelon airbrush paint and thinned it down well and gave the backs a shot. Heat set again, then using clear gloss top coat I mixed some bronze hi lite into the well thinned paint and hit the backs again with it. After heat setting the top coat I added the eyes and gave them a sealcoat bath and left them to hang dry.
The orange base coat is equal parts of Createx Tangerine Pearl and Pineapple Pearl, well thinned. The blue is Createx Light Blue opaque.
Given the size of these tiny bodies I don't think I can get it much better than what you see. I'm happy with it and as I paint the other, somewhat larger bodies I'll be doing at least a couple of each in this format as I see an awful lot of tiny pumpkinseed sunfish puked up by major-league crappies and I'd sure hate to short those slabs a meal.
