Medieval Raider (Workshop Figure)

 At the beginning of this month I attended a workshop with Ivan Hortal in the bay area. It was a 2-day class where we worked on this bust sculpted by Lucas Pina Penichet (Spira Mirabilis). It was a fantastic class and I learned a lot on painting textures as well as some nuances of light placement that I will definitely be using in my future work. I (and most of the class) painted the majority of the bust during those two days. I was very happy with the progress and, since he was almost done, I wanted to complete the figure at home.

Here's a look at the piece after the class. I had done a little more work on the hair the night I got home, but otherwise this is what I finished during the class.

And here is the piece after more work at home.

I painted the leather belts and redid the NMM. I really liked the approach to NMM taught in the class, I just spent a little more time refining those parts and adding a little more ambient and reflected color. On the skin I painted the neck and made some tweaks to the face (reflection under the nose, redoing the area under the eyes, adding some light reflection on the lips, some glazing, some highlight adjustment, etc.). I also worked on the chest, adding a little more hair texture and then using glazes to develop the shadows and add a little more color nuance. I wanted to add a bit of weathering on the shirt, so I add some small flecks of dirt. Finally, on the fur cloak I worked more on the highlights and did a little more ambient color glazing on the right, shadow side.

I'm extremely pleased with the end result. Here are a few additional views of the final piece.

Zoraida

Here's a look at this nearly finished project I'm doing as part of a miniature exchange. Back at the beginning of the year I started on Zoraida, a 75mm figure from Ares Mythologic's Draconia line. A bit of a older kit, though I guess that's relative, but one I've been wanting to paint since I first saw it. I stuck with a green theme for her clothing and equipment and then put in a pop of contrasting reddish orange to create a focus around her face.

She's got some cast shadows and NMM, as I'm continuing to practice both of those techniques. I'm pleased I've been able to get her nearly completed in just a month and half, since I feel like I normally work rather slowly. I plan to do a little more sculpting on the groundwork. With any luck, I'll have her finished in another week or so. 

Olfo Part 4

Just a quick update.  I've started working on Olfo's back, the part not hit by the lamplight.  I wanted to go monochromatic with this and do it all in shades of blue-black.  Make it seem dark with perhaps a bit of moonlight giving some contrast to the shapes.  It's still pretty rough, I need to clean up a lot of the transitions.  I'm trying to decide what else it needs.  I'm thinking I should add a little more contrast in the back by taking the highlights up a bit.  I'd also like to do the few other metal parts like the 'dark' side of the dagger.  However that seems a bit too bright, so maybe bring that down with a couple dark glazes.  I'm open to suggestions and thoughts on what I should do with him.

The back was done with the same Black, Marine Teal, and Tanned Skin mix I used for the Praetor.  The 'dark' side of the dagger was done with the Scale75 NMM Steel paint set.  That set has 4 neutral grey colors which I used on the 'light' side and 4 blue-grey colors which I used on the 'dark' side.

Olfo Part 3 and NMM

I've just about finished the portion of Olfo lit by the lamp.  With the pants and legs finished I could finally attach the cape and backpack.  Not too much to paint here.  The left end near the lamp would be brightly lit, so the highlights were pretty close to pure Polished Bone and Lemon Yellow.  Some light would also hit the bottom of the cape between his legs, so that got some color although not quite as bright.  For the scabbard I used the same leather mix as for the belts.  Lastly a little light would hit the bedroll just above his shoulder, a portion of his walking stick, and the edge of his mug.  I went with a mix of black, mahogany brown, and chestnut brown for the walking stick and mug.  For the bedroll I also took a couple browns.  While I could have gone with something a little more colorful, I really didn't want to introduce any new colors especially since only a very small section would be lit.  A purple would blend in with the hood and cape too much and the green from the pants just didn't seem right, so brown was the only reasonable choice.

The section I've been avoiding was his dagger.  With the strong OSL I did not want to use TMM.  You can make it work, but it's difficult.  Instead I thought I'd give NMM a try.  I've had the Steel NMM paint set from Scale75 for a while but never actually used it to paint NMM.  In all honesty, probably not the smartest purchase.  After all, steel NMM is just made up of grey and every line offers those... but NMM had me so intimidated I got suckered.  What you're seeing here are the white and 3 neutral greys from the Scale75 set plus a bit of Reaper's Pure Black.  The Scale75 set also has 4 more blue-greys for a slightly different NMM effect.  I'm planning to use those for the other side of the dagger to give it more of a moonlit feel.  This is my second attempt at the NMM dagger.  My first one didn't look too good.  I did my best to fix it, but the more paint I layered on there the bigger the mess I had.  So finally I just carefully sanded all the paint off and started again from a smooth surface.  For the hilt of the dagger I pulled together a couple of the Reaper colors, Blacked Brown, Chestnut Gold, Palamino Gold, and Pure White.  I may have mixed in a little bit of black too.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the metal.  I'm far from an expert in NMM, but I think it turned out about as well as I could have hoped.  Next I have to work on all of the unlit sections and somehow make it all look good together.  That should keep me busy for the next few nights...