Flora - Flower Girl Work in Progress (Mildly NSFW)

 Well, it's been quite a while since I've posted anything, but I'm hoping I can get back into the habit of sharing updates here.

I picked up the 80mm Flora model from Golem Miniatures' kickstarter quite a while ago and I've been tempted to start her a couple of times over the years. I was looking for a somewhat straightforward project and decided to finally start on her. I say straightforward because she's got a small-ish number of sections to paint (skin, hair, skirt, sash, flower pot, and flowers) as opposed to sculpts covered in different objects and equipment to paint. And, at this point, I feel pretty comfortable working with skin, hair, and cloth so I didn't foresee any big hurdles I'd have to figure out on this piece. That being said, I still see it as a good piece to learn and practice on. Specifically I wanted to work on nuances with the skin and also work on capturing a more realistic light, working with primary light and cast shadows, ambient light in the cast shadows, and bounce light on various parts of the figure. I'd also gotten the feedback at NOVA last year that on my entries certain areas, like the faces, looked like I'd spent a lot of time on but other areas weren't done to the same standard. I still managed to get golds in Masters Large Scale Single and Bust, but my goal on all my pieces this past year has been to remember that comment and work to have all the parts of the figures be done to the same level of refinement.

Here's the progress I've made over the past 3 weeks or so. For the skin I've tried out some slight changes to my normal mixes. I started with a base of 3:2 Reaper Rosy Shadow and Bronzed Skin. For the shadows I used AK's Dark Rust and some French Greyish Blue. As I worked in mixes from the shadow up to the base, I did add some extra red at about halfway to capture that warm transition in skin as you move into shadow. For the highlights, I used Reapers Bronzed Highlight plus a little AK's Lemon Yellow (to portray a warm primary light), then started to add in some Ice Yellow before finally switching to adding Ivory for the final specular highlights. I then used some glazes of Mindwork's Magenta to add more warmth in the cheeks, chest, and hands.

For the ambient light in the shadows, I worked from the shadow (Dark Rust + a very little French Greyish Blue) up about halfway to the base (3:2 Rosy Shadow and Bronzed Skin). Then I started mixing in a ~1:1 mix of Bronzed Highlight and Grey Blue. The trick here was to avoid getting the skin to be too grey in the darker tones, so staying away from adding too much blue to the skin tones (clearest on the back of the figure). But when I got to the lightest colors, I pushed more of the blue allowing it to turn more grey. However, with the contrast of the warmer shadows and midtones, the desaturated highlights read as cold even though they are mostly grey.

Bounce lights were done with a mix of the base plus some of the shadow, then going into a mix of bronzed highlight and a little grey brown. I plan to go back over these with some glazes to help the bounce light regions reflect the color of the source of that bounce light (as it can vary from place to place on the figure).

As a small aside, I wanted to say again that I find the use of reference photos to be extremely helpful for painting light and shadow (especially cast shadows). Before I start any painting, I'll place the figure under a single light and move it around until I find a light direction that I think works well. I then take pictures of the figure from multiple angles so I can reference them as I paint the piece. Here's one example next to the painted piece. It's helpful to go back to these again as you paint and double check your light and shadow placement. As I spot differences, I'll continue to make adjustments to improve the lighting on the figure.

New Tutorials

I've got several new tutorials up on FigureMentors.  Here's a list in case you're interested in checking them out:

Painting a Shiny Black (with Matte Paints)
The most recent work looking at how I did the black sections on the Dragoon and the hair on the Fallen Angel

Step by Step Painting of a 54mm Saxon Warrior
This is an older project, but I only recently got around to writing it up.

Knight of the Holy Sepulchre
A summary of my work on this.  Not a true step by step, but still an in-depth look at the project.

A Reference on Crusading Knights
Not a true tutorial, but a good summary reference for anyone interested in painting crusaders.

Travels and references

For the past two weeks my wife and I were traveling in Italy, which was a ton of fun.  While I was there, another modeler, Davide Rainone, showed me around a few of the model stores in Rome.  Both had some great models on display, so I took a few pictures to share.  The first place we visited was the Roma General Store.  They had a real nice selection of figures and I picked up the Origen Art's Boudicca bust.

I unfortunately forget the name of the second store, but it had a couple display cases worth of models.  I also grabbed a figure while I was here.  This time is was the Cavalry Office of the Companions from Alexandros Models.

The trip wasn't all about figures of course, but I also took some nice reference photos while touring the ruins.  We had a few days down in Naples and I took a tour of Herculaneum.  People are much more familiar with Pompeii, but Herculaneum was on the other side of Mt Vesuvius and buried at the same time.  However, the difference in location caused it to be buried in a slightly different way which lead to some of the wood and furniture in the city being petrified instead of burned like in Pompeii.  It also seemed like more of the art on the walls survived.  I don't know about you, but since most of the ruins we see are plain rock, we get the impression that these ancient cities were very plain.  However, the reality is that almost all the surfaces would have been covered in decoration.  Here are a few examples from Herculaneum...

First, a nice mural

And here are some wall paintings...

 

 

We also stopped by the archaeological museum in Naples, where many of the artifacts from Pompeii and Herculaneum are stored.  They took a lot of the murals and wall paintings including this amazing mural of Alexander the great.  I'd seen pictures, but it was so neat to see it in real life.  I was not prepared for the shear size of this thing!

If you're working on historical figures from the Greek and Roman eras, don't be afraid to add lots of color and detail to the scenery.  Their world was a much more colorful place than most of us think.