I'm still hopping from project to project. A while back I agreed to do a figure exchange with a friend. I didn't want to take forever to finish (or even start) this, so I'm putting my personal projects on hold for a bit to make some progress on this guy.
The figure we chose was a 70mm Celt from Art Girona. It's a neat sculpt, though the casting leaves something to be desired. A bunch of pitting that I had to fix. I've got a couple figures from Art Girona and they've all had one issue or another. I like some of their sculpts, but the quality of the casting on the ones I've received means I probably won't buy from them again.
Anyway, this is a cool sculpt of a barbarian holding a severed head, presumably a Roman's head. I gave the figure a quick base coat and then started shading and highlighting the face. I wanted to try a different skin mix than I typically use. I thought this would work better for a barbarian. Instead of my normal base of Rosy Shadow, I used a 50/50 mix of Rosy Shadow and Bronzed Shadow. For the shadows I used a 60/40 mix of Chestnut Brown and Basic Dirt along with maybe 10% of the base color. For the deepest shadows I added some Walnut Brown. The highlights were a 50/50 mix of Fair Skin and Bronzed Highlight, then some Pure White for the final shine on the skin.
Here's a close up of the face. I included another face I did with my old skin mix for comparison. I'm not done with this new face yet, will probably make a few tweaks and then apply a number of glazes. But I like how the new mix looks. I'll definitely keep it as an option for future projects.
Excellent color choices.
ReplyDeleteSomething else jumped out at me, when I first saw the photo. I was thinking something else shifted in your style, but I can't put my finger on it. It might be that the blends and highlights are even better than before (if that's possible!). For whatever reason, the face looked even more realistic, and it drew the eye immediately.
Thanks! Yeah, I'm trying to take lessons I've learned from the orc project and apply them to this historical piece. I've pushed the contrast a bit, but what is probably standing out to you are adjustments in how I did the highlights. I did two things here. First, I kept them more limited in area. On the light skin they can spread out too much and don't quite have the same pop. Second, I added little dots of white (blending up to them) and put them slightly off center to create a sort of reflection from the sun. The most noticeable one is on the forehead, though I did this on the nose and chin as well. Might go back and put one on the cheek too... still undecided if it should be there or not.
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