Knight Part 2

Well, once again I'm jumping from project to project.  This time I'm returning to a 54mm knight I started back in June.  This is really just about relaxing and having some fun painting.  My other big projects (Count Melenth and the pirate scene) are at points where I either need to sculpt something or build the base.  But I haven't done much painting lately and I really wanted to work on something that could get me back to that.

I decided to simplify my vision for this piece and reduce the amount of freehand I had initially planned.  I still intend to do some, but won't go overboard.  I'd like to keep this a relatively quick project so that I can get back to those other longer term ones.

When last I left this piece, I'd base coated the surcoat in red with a yellow stripe along the bottom.  So that's where I continued to work.  I'm taking it in sections.  First the upper body, then the waist, and now the parts around the legs.  The belts and splits in the coat break it up, so I can just focus on one region at a time.  For the red, I used Violet Red, shaded with Burgundy Wine, and then highlighted with Fire Red and then a mix of Linen White and Buckskin Pale.  The yellow is Palomino Gold, shaded with Burgundy Wine, and highlighted with Buckskin Pale and then Linen White.

I still have the lower right section of the surcoat to do, but you can get a good comparison between that region where I just have sketched in shadows and then the more finished sections of the figure.  I need to do a bit of tweaks to the highlights on the top.  I also plan to add some sort of design to the front of the figure.  Right now I'm thinking a lion's head... but I may change my mind before I get to that part.  After I do whatever design I choose, I'll need to do some clean up with the background red, so I'll take that opportunity to fix the highlights up top.

By the way, if anyone wants a real close up look, here's the full res version of the last image.  Just click on it for the big version