Taking a break from orcs and monsters like Frank von Stein, I decided to shake things up with the half-elf Vesha, a bust from Bold Miniatures. My goal here, aside from painting a pretty model for a change, was to improve my use of light and shadow as well as work on my skin tones.
So far I've focused on the face and hair, then moved onto the weasel around her neck. The rest is just a sketch for light and shadow placement (though the fur around her neck has started to get a bit more refined). I just attached her left hand and it's only base coated so far. Her other hand has some very delicate figures which I'm sure I'll accidentally break while painting her, so I'm leaving that one off until the very end.
I've learned several things (or reinforced previously things learned) with this project:
- First, the importance of reference pictures. Especially if you want realistic light and shadows, take pictures of the figure under the desired lighting conditions.
- Second, I need to be braver with my light color. While I understood the idea of using a specific colored light for the entire figure I would go with an off white rather than a more saturated color. I think I got too focused on making sure the highlights were bright and as a result they'd end up looking white regardless of the color I intended. On this figure I'm using much more yellow in the highlights with just a bit of white mixed in. I also need to switch to the highlight color sooner. If the skin tone paints get as light as the yellow before I start to add in the light color, it forces me to use more white to lighten it up. I think I was much more successful here getting those warm lights, especially on her skin. This is something I want to continue to work on with future projects and push for stronger effects with my lighting.
- Third, working with colors in my shadows. The idea here is to bring in some of the ambient colors, in this case blue from the sky. You can see it most easily in the sketched on shadows in her shirt and the fur, though it's also in the coat, her hair, and her skin. I'm sure I could have done a lot more with the blue, especially in her skin. But this is still a step in the right direction and one I'll try to build off of on the next project.
- Fourth, I'm starting to try to paint cast shadows with this piece. Yeah, there aren't any super dramatic cast shadows, but you should be able to see some under her nose, under the hair on her forehead and cheek, beneath the weasel's head, and on the back of the weasel. I'll continue on with them as I paint more of her. This is an area I've been tentative to try, but I'm glad I did on this project. While I'm certainly still learning, I can see the importance of making sure those shadows aren't too dark. They're still getting hit by ambient light, just not the main light source. This also means you should include the color of the ambient light in those shadows. And I want to balance the relative darkness of those shadows, so the shadow on the coat has the same step down in light relative to the base color on her coat as shadow on her face or on the fur beneath the weasel. The shadows don't need to be the darkest spots on the figure and making them too dark will look off. Save the darkest tones for areas that are blocked from the primary light and would also get minimal ambient light (like a combination of cast and occlusion shadows). And finally reference photos are extremely helpful in figuring out the placement of cast shadows.
Well, those are my main take aways from this figure so far. I plan to continue to keep those ideas about light and shadow in mind as I paint and refine the rest of the bust. But overall I'm very happy with how she's going.
