I tried something a little different this time; where in previous gilding stages I had tried to lay the gold down quickly in an attempt to avoid bare spots, I had unfortunately ended up with the adhesive shrinking a little as it dried, leaving the gold above it with minuscule wrinkles in the finish. Miniatum advertises a "mirror smooth" finish if it's done right, but my impatience has really affected that.
So today, I slowed back down a little bit, and gave the miniatum more time to dry. A couple of hours, I think. But I also went back and "reactivated" it by breathing on it really really heavily, like fogging a mirror, prior to laying the gold leaf down on top of it. I had been remembering to breathe on it in previous sessions as well, but either I wasn't doing it enough, or I was moving too slowly and letting the fog evaporate before I could get the gold laid down. In any case, that was how I was ending up with bare spots. Today, however, a combination of the ares being both smaller and easier to mask meant that I could fog them thoroughly, lay the gold down in one go, brush it away, and have almost no bare spots to speak of.
I'm actually really happy with how today's work turned out:
The only real downside I see here is that, to my eye, there is a noticeable difference in brightness between today's gilding and the areas I'd done previously. It's not horrible, and since I didn't let the miniatum sit overnight, it may still wrinkle a little further as it finished drying, in which case the areas will all match.
But I'm so close to being done! All I have left to gild now is the outer border, and then go back and touch up some of the white gold and copper, where they've gotten mottled by other metals. After that, I'll be ready to paint, which I'm really looking forward to.
As always, your comments and questions are welcome and appreciated. Cheers!
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