During Shades' (and friends) Hobby Hangout last night I decided to start working on something new. I've got a couple projects already in the works... but they're all either at a tough spot or just not inspiring me at the moment. I decided it was a good time to go back to a 54mm figure, they tend to be quicker projects for me and the scale is much more in my comfort zone than the larger ones I've been doing recently. I was also on the lookout for something I could bring with me to the Bay Area Open next month for the Draconic Awards. I settled on a fantasy piece from Andrea called Sorondil, Dragon Hunter. It's not the most popular one from that range, it took quite a bit of searching to find any other versions of it online. But I think it's an interesting sculpt and I've got an idea of where I want to go with it. I'd actually prepped and primed the figure over a year ago but for some reason got distracted by other work.
It's a bit of a tricky build. Hanging from his body are a quiver and a horn, but will be added later so it's easier to paint his main body. I also left off both of his arms. The left is holding a bow and, again, was left off to make painting the details on his clothing easier. The right arm doesn't really block the body... but it's holding a spear with a huge blade and a very thin shaft. If I tried painting this figure with that in place, I'm fairly confident I'd have accidentally broken it before I was even done base coating the figure. So for now he will look a bit funny, but I will begin to add those remaining pieces before too long.
I began (as usual) with the face and skin. I made some small adjustments to my usual mix. Normally it's Mahogany Brown with ~10-20% Rosy Shadow and Chestnut Brown with ~10-20% Rosy Shadow for the darker tones, then into pure Rosy Shadow, Fair Skin, and finally Fair Highlight (all Reaper paints). To shake it up a bit, I mixed in 25-33% Imperial Purple into the Mahogany Brown and Chestnut Brown. It's a fantasy figure so there's more flexibility in the color choice and I'm planning to use a lot of red and purple tones throughout the project. On top of that I use some red and purple glazes to further develop the colors on the skin. I ordered the Inktensity set from Scale75 and it arrived today. So I used the red and purple from that to make my glazes.
I began (as usual) with the face and skin. I made some small adjustments to my usual mix. Normally it's Mahogany Brown with ~10-20% Rosy Shadow and Chestnut Brown with ~10-20% Rosy Shadow for the darker tones, then into pure Rosy Shadow, Fair Skin, and finally Fair Highlight (all Reaper paints). To shake it up a bit, I mixed in 25-33% Imperial Purple into the Mahogany Brown and Chestnut Brown. It's a fantasy figure so there's more flexibility in the color choice and I'm planning to use a lot of red and purple tones throughout the project. On top of that I use some red and purple glazes to further develop the colors on the skin. I ordered the Inktensity set from Scale75 and it arrived today. So I used the red and purple from that to make my glazes.
Smooth! Excellent colors, too.
ReplyDeleteOh no! I think the internet ate my comment... Or maybe it was wildly inappropriate.
ReplyDeleteIn short, I love this guy looks very cool with all those reds. I wonder if a snow base is in order and I bet a big steaming decapitated dragon head would look pretty cool on the base.
Thanks, Shades and Demi. A snow base would be interesting... although this guy is definitely not dressed for that weather. I was initially planning for a desert scene. However, now I'm starting to ponder doing a jungle one instead. He's wearing some scales around his waist which I first pictured as dragon scales, but now that I'm painting them I thought it could be dinosaur scales instead. Combine that with the stone spear head he's got and maybe I should put him in a prehistoric jungle setting.
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