Arena Rex and MV

I've found some time to do a little painting this past week and it was focused on my entry to Massive Voodoo's Banalicious contest.  For anyone who doesn't follow Massive Voodoo (and you should, their site is great!), they're running a contest which wraps up April 22nd.  They have categories for Fantasy and Historical entries, along with a few other special categories.  In Fantasy and Historical you enter a display (3-5 figures) instead of a single figure entry.  The rules are that one of the figures is new (ie has not been shown in completed form online yet).  Previously posted WIP pictures of the figure are fine.  As for the rest of the figures in the group, there is no restriction so they can be previously finished and posted work.

The competition is tough, lots of great entries, but they have a ton of random prizes.  At last count there were 45 random prizes so, if the number of entries is the same as their last contest, you've got a 1 in 4 shot of winning something just by entering!  There's only a few days left so finished whatever you're working on and submit something!

http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.com/2014/11/mvs-bananalicious-painting-contest-2.html

On second thought, the more entries there are the worse my chances of winning one of those random prizes... so forget what I said, don't enter.  It's totally not worth it. =P

Anyway, my entry into the Historical Masters category has been officially accepted, so I can now share the pictures.  Here is my display

The 'new' piece is Otho Mentulus from Arena Rex.  I'd started painting him a while back, but never finished him.  Partially that was because Crystal Brush took priority.  But it was also so I could use him in the Bananalicious contest.  Since I last posted pictures, I painted the feather crest on his helmet, took care of the base, and then applied blood splatter and a little bit of weathering pigments.  I also tweaked some highlights on his clothing.  Here is a closer look at the now finished Otho.

This figure was from the Arena Rex kickstarter.  They are currently shipping the final wave from the kickstarter and, after that, all of the kickstarter figures will be available in their webstore.  They've got a few non-kickstarter figures there now, but check back in a couple weeks and hopefully the rest will be there then.
http://arenarex.com/

Arena Rex

The figures from the Arena Rex kickstarter arrived this past week.  I've been looking forward to these for a long time so I put my other projects on hold and started on one of my favorite sculpts from the project, Otho Mentulus.  He's got a ton of detail and it's one of the more historically accurate sculpts.  I've gotten used to working on larger scales, so it's been an adjustment to paint a gaming miniature again.  

For the skin I stuck with my usual mix, Reaper's Mahogany Brown, Chestnut Brown, Rosy Shadow, Fair Skin, and Fair Highlight.  I made a small adjustment in the shadows, instead of going pure Mahogany to pure Chestnut to pure Rosy Shadow, I mixed Rosy Shadow into both browns (about 1 part rosy shadow to 3 parts brown).  You wouldn't normally notice the difference, but in large shadow areas I think it helps.  Because of his pose he's got some large shadow areas like his chest.  As usual, after the regular shading I went back with red and purple glazes to add a little more variation to the skin

The metals are the Scale75 metallic paints.  I've used these on my last few projects and really enjoy working with them.  The bronze is Necro Gold mixed with Reaper's Burgundy Wine, then that into Elven Gold and finally into Thrash Metal.  The iron is Black Metal mixed with Reaper's Pure Black, then that into Heavy Metal and finally Speed Metal.  In both cases I use a matte paint to help darken the shadow areas and reduce the shine from the metallic paints.  The helps keep the shadows dark even when the light hits them.

I used the Burgundy Wine color as my shadow tone for both the red and the blue sections.  I haven't quite decided what I want to do with the feathers, red, blue, or split the difference and go with purple.