While I rethink the Dark Elf base, I decided to go back to one of my longest running projects... my Knight of the Holy Sepulchre. I started this figure back in Nov of 2013 and it's still going. I've gotten stuck on this guy a number of times and moved on to other projects. But I keep coming back. The sculpt is fantastic, very dynamic, and it's a great piece for competition. I originally wanted to bring him to last years Crystal Brush but I wasn't able to make it (or finish the figure). So hopefully I actually finish him and take him with me this year. The rules have changed a bit, so this time around he will go into the (poorly named) Historical Vehicle or Monster category.
The biggest hurdle has been painting the horse. The knight is dressed mostly in white so I wanted to do a black horse for a nice contrast. But, while I feel pretty comfortable painting white, black is a color I don't have as much confidence doing. My last attempt at the horse was back in June. Since then I've done some projects that have given me a bit more experience painting black or near black (including the Dark Elf), so I'm ready to try again. While the Dark Elf is more of a brown-black, for the horse I wanted to try a blue-black. Maybe not hyper realistic, but I liked the look. I started with Pure Black, then went into Scale 75's Abyssal Blue, and then gradually mixed in Reaper's Fair Highlight. This is just the first step. I've got a few sections still to do. Then I'll go in and fix some of the transitions that need help or highlights and shadows that could be better. After that I'll give it some glazes to further help the blends and tie everything together. Then I'll redo some of the highlighting. It's a whole process, but the first step is definitely the slowest. The nice thing is once the black is finished, I don't see anything else causing me too much trouble.
Here was the previous attempt at the horse (just the head, neck, and front leg). As you can see, the new version is more dramatic
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