Class Figure (Gurkhan) Part 4

 I got back from KublaCon the other day and had a blast at the show. I had a workshop on painting large scale figures using Gurkhan which I think went really well. It's such a fun figure that can be used to discuss a lot of topics (lighting, skin, leather, cloth, metals, etc). I'll be teaching with it again at NOVA Open in DC this Aug/Sept. That class will be a bit longer (6 hours instead of 4), so we'll be able to go even more in-depth in some areas.

I also entered this piece into the KublaBrush awards and got the Big Child manufacturers award for the best Big Child piece at the show. There were quite a few Big Child pieces entered and I thought David Diamondstone's painting on their Idril bust was particularly nice. So I felt very fortunate to end up with the win. I also took my Vesha bust which ended up winning Best of Show.

Getting back to Gurkhan, I wanted to share the version I brought to the show. I could say finished version, but since I was trying to get all my class figures prepped, I ended up being pretty rushed to finish the base. Since I plan to bring the piece along with me to NOVA too, I'd like to send a little more time refining the work on the base and maybe adding a bit more detail in spots. But I think these images still give you a pretty good idea how the finished piece will look.

One of the topics I discussed in the class (and plan to spend time on at NOVA too) is creating focal points on your pieces. There's a lot of detail on the sculpt, a lot going on, so how do you help the viewer focus? One way is by using brightness. If we strip away the colors and just look at the light, you can see there are some brighter spots in the piece that draw your eye and create some focal points in the scene. I tried to also use color to reinforce this, so you've got multiple things helping direct the viewer around the scene.

I might take a little break and try to finish up my Neko Galaxy project (Nancy) from a few months back. But I don't want to leave this sitting too long, as I'd like to get the quality of the base in line with the quality of the figures before NOVA.