Well, I think it looks fab. I guess choosing the right hue helps as well?

Aye, there's the rub... Medium browns to medium roses are usually good for average skin tones, but this is actually a darker brown because the fleece is a really saturated pink and I needed a darker color for it. Thank goodness I've almost used up that bad batch of fleece!

What can be done with paint... unbelievable.

This one is looking great as well. Your skill level is jumping by leaps and bounds in a very short time. I'm currently working on a opossum that I will need to airbrush some of the details. It's a combination of long white fur and grey/white tipped fur.  it' mostly to blend the two colors.

The Tamiya paints are mostly used for models?  Any specific type, flat, glosses?  Are you thinning them with water?

Julie

Thanks, Rikka and Julie. Yes, Tamiya paints are available at most hobby shops and can be thinned for airbrushing with either water or isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol). Be aware that even thin paint stiffens faux fur. I've tried all kinds of fabric, acrylic, latex, etc. paints. In the old days when it was still available, I found that lacquer paint worked the best. In lieu of that thinned Tamiya works as well as any other and better than a few. I usually use a mix of gloss and flat. The flat is too darn flat and the gloss seems to go on a little stickier. It's important not to put too much paint on a the same time or it acts like a glue, sticking the individual fibers together. Fur is even trickier to paint than fleece. It's hard to paint anything but the outer tips of the fur and as a result, the root color tends to show through. But it can be done and I stronger urge some practice on some scrap pieces of fur to get the hang of it.

Aye, there's the rub... Medium browns to medium roses are usually good for average skin tones, but this is actually a darker brown because the fleece is a really saturated pink and I needed a darker color for it. Thank goodness I've almost used up that bad batch of fleece!

That's really helpful to know. I'm not a very good painter and don't know much about how to use different hues to create a certain effect. I'm sure skin colour is one of the harder ones to get right.

Moving ahead with my tentacled monster build. With lots of good tips on tentacles, I still opted for going with what I had already. That was after I couldn't find any spandex or elastic thread locally.

This is barely a start on this one, but I feel confident enough with how the tentacles are working to proceed. I still have a few smaller tentacles to attach, but the movement is pretty much what I was hoping for (except for the lost curl in the tentacles which added more movement).  When operated quickly, they manage to look pretty active. I've gotten eight on and arranged them so that they all move well enough. The plan is to build the puppet in black and then paint it up with color and highlights. Not really sure if it's going to work or not, but it's a really good trial effort anyway.

Looks good so far

Cthulhu rising...

I like the shape of this fellow so far.  So is the puppeteer going to put their fingers in the base of the tentacles to operate them?