Blade ZERO

I have been painting this bust as a commission inbetween Dec 4th 2025 and July 1st 2026. The productive painting time should roughly clock in around 110-120 hours.

For the paintjob I went with a synthwave colorscheme as a baseline, with deep blue, purple and warm orange. The neutral tones for skin, hair and banners are a cold off-white, to draw the eye to the center and frame the face. The green OSL lighting her up from behind and her right, came in later and added the challenge of making all the different materials read accurately through the green filter.

I also embraced the cyberpunk style sculpt with some painting choices, for example I painted the eyes as green on black reticule lenses, added cyberware detail to the nose and added thematic typography and icons fitting the gang of the Mox - all details from the game Cyberpunk 2077.

I had so much fun with this piece and hit a number of challenges through which I believe I took a lot of valuable experiences and lessons.