Barbarela Part 6

Happy holidays, everyone!

During the long weekend, I've had some hobby time.  One thing that bugged me about this figure was the sword.  It's got barnacles sculpted onto it (which, as a fantasy figure, is fine), but the rest of the surface is pretty normal.  Seems to me, if it's got barnacles growing on it, there would be a lot more corrosion going on.  I'd prefer either a smooth sword or one really crusty.  So, I decided to give it a little more texture.  I used a technique Sproket (David Soper) has used on Nurgle figures.  Baking soda is mixed with the base color and matte varnish to form a paste, then applied to the figure.  The base color is just there to speed up the painting, but the matte varnish is important to hold on the baking soda.  It gives a pretty secure bond when dry.

With the texture added to the sword, I went in with some stippling to further exaggerate the effect.  I left some exposed portions as still metal.

Since the figure is almost complete, I went back to work on the base.  The main structure was previously built using balsa wood.  To match the sword, I decided to add some texture to the side.  I used pro-create (grey stuff) to create some barnacles there as well.  Then I used the same baking soda + matte varnish technique to fill in the spaces around the barnacles.  I also added some rope and a portion of the rigging.  This was done using string.  I used superglue to coat the strings and lock them in the desired shape.  A bit of regular superglue can be helpful in attaching specific spots, but mostly I used thin super glue.  This quickly soaks into the string and is really useful for fixing large sections.  You've just got to be careful since it can get all over the place and you don't want to touch the strings as they'll be coated in glue.  Needless to say, I got a lot on my hands and there were numerous times I almost glued the myself to the base!

Additional Adepticon Class

For those of you coming to Adepticon, I wanted to let you know that we have added one more section of my Painting Realistic Faces class on Saturday, April 2nd.  The first two sessions sold out quickly, so if you weren't able to get a spot, now is your chance.  The class will be a combination of demo/lecture and hands on painting.

You can find the class by going to the Adepticon site and then clicking the registration button in the top left.

http://www.adepticon.org/

They've added extra sessions for several other classes as well.  I was poking around and saw another session of Kirill's Blending with Oils and Ben Komets' Loaded Brush.  So, if you missed out on classes the first time around, take a look and maybe you'll have a second chance.

Barbarela Part 5

I've had a bit of painting time this past week, but it's been spent on small sections.  With the other hand attached, I finished off the sleeve and then painted the hand itself.  I used the same pale sickly skin mix I did for the face.  I then moved on to the beard and, with that finished, applied some glazes to the face.  Now, normally I use red, blue, and purple ink for this work.  Since I'm tweaking the skin tone for a less natural look, I changed the glazes as well.  The mixes were shifted towards the blue.  So, red became two parts red to one part purple.  Purple became 50/50 purple and blue.  The blue glaze remained blue.

Barbarela Part 4

Well, I didn't do much painting this weekend but I did spend some time building the base for the dwarf pirate.  I used balsa wood to create a section of a pirate ship.  Thanks to some helpful internet searches, I think I creating something reasonably close to what a section of a real ship should look like.  I plan to add more details like ropes before I'm done.  I intentionally angled the deck as a ship would be constantly rocking from the waves and the angle makes a more interesting scene anyway.  Also, now that I have the ground where the dwarf will be standing, I was able to add his sword (so I could make sure it and his feet would all rest on the base).

Barbarela Part 3

I've made some moderate progress on the dwarf.  I finished off the pants.  They still needed some shading on the blue sections and more highlighting all around.  For the blue I used Reaper's Heather Blue as the base, Midnight Blue to shade, and Ashen Blue and then a bit of Vampiric Shadow to highlight.

After that I worked on some details.  I took care of his peg leg, his pistol and belt buckle.  I also painted his left hand.  An errant brush stroke left some skin tone on his coat.  But, it gave me the chance to fix a few other issues in the coat that had been bothering me.  There was a line in the front (lower left) that didn't sit right with me, so I worked that out.  There were also some shadows on his left arm I felt were too dark, so I lightened them up a bit too.

Barbarela Part 2

More progress on the dwarf pirate. I finished off the red on his coat.  I didn't want a bright red, so for the mid tone I used a 3 to 2 mix of Violet Red and Dark Elf Highlight (a grey).  The shadows were Burgundy Wine and the highlights were a mix of Fire Red, Dark Elf Highlight, and Vampiric Shadow (roughly 50/25/25).  I added a bit more Vampiric Shadow for the final highlights.

I've started to do some of the shading and blending on the pants, but they are still a work in progress.

Barbarela Part 1

I needed a break from the samurai, so I decided to start on this little figure from M Proyec.  He's a dwarf pirate at 1/35 scale so only around 45mm.  This is still at the very early stages.  The face hasn't gotten the glazes yet, the coat is shaded but not highlighted (and the bottom isn't even shaded), and the stripes on the pants are just sketched in.  But you get an idea of the colors and where this is headed.  It's a challenging piece.  The face is one of the trickier ones I've tried to paint.  He's got exaggerated features and small eyes that are almost completely hidden by the protruding brows.