Lady Mechanika Part 1

I've hit a block on the Hussar bust.  I moved on to the black uniform and it's been giving me a lot of difficulty, so I decided to take a break and work on something else for awhile.  I've been meaning to start on one of the steampunk figures from Scale75, so I figured now was the time.  I'm working on Jessica Thunderhawk, however the sculpt is based on a piece of art for Lady Mechanika so that is how I'm planning to paint her.  Lady Mechanika is the main character in a steampunk comic.  The box art for the figure followed the original artwork exactly... so I felt like I needed to do something different.  I used some of the other artwork associated with Lady Mechanika and here is what I came up with, just a quick base coat and color sketch.

And here she is with a little more work on her.  I spent about 1 or 2 hours cleaning up the stripes on her pants (though they will obviously get more work when I start to shade and highlight them).  I also went to work on the skin.  The approach for female skin is a bit different from male skin.  While you can still have high contrast, you generally want softer transitions and to downplay the more minor features.  So the lines from the nose down to the corners of the mouth are subtle and lines under the eyes aren't brought out at all.  The darker you make features like those, the more masculine the face will look.

Announcements and Paint-Along

I've got a couple quick announcements, including a new paint-along I'm organizing.

First, I'm looking to take on some commission work in the next month or two.  If anyone is interested, drop me a line either at CMON or here (there's a contact form over on the right).  My focus is 54mm and 75mm figures, though I'll paint 28mm too if I feel like I can do the figure justice.  I don't normally agree to do that many commission pieces, so if you're interested now is a good time to ask!

Second, I've been talking with Caleb about teaching a painting seminar up in the San Francisco Bay Area.  The topic would be painting faces and skin tones.  Right now it's still in the very very early planning stages.  If it happens it will most likely be at one of the Game Kastle stores (either Fremont or San Jose).  There are also some shows coming up, so maybe I could do the seminar at one of those.  I'll post more details once we get things figured out.

Third, I'm doing another paint-along over at Cool Mini.  Here's a link to the thread.  The topic is steampunk and a number of us will be working on the Jessica Thunderhawk figure from Scale75 (although you can join in with any steampunk themed project you want to do).  The general idea is for this to run through April and May.  I won't have a chance to start for another two weeks, so plenty of time to get a figure and join in.

Here's a look at the Jessica Thunderhawk figure, in case you'd like to do the same one I'm working on.  If you're ordering from the USA, I recommend contacting Red Lancers.  She's not listed on their site yet, but they carry the rest of the Scale75 line and I'm sure could get her if asked.  Or you can order direct from Scale75.  Of course there are lots of steampunk options (Infamy, Guild of Harmony, Malifaux, etc).

The sculpt is clearly based on this piece of art from Olga Starodubtseva, which is a version of the comic book character Lady Mechanika.  I plan to use that character as the inspiration for my paint scheme, though I won't necessarily be following the colors from this image.

Gokan/Slaine WIP 3

I've been doing a lot of detail work on Slaine.  I started out on the leather, using a base of Brown Liner.  I then took Blackened Brown and mixed in Leather Brown.  At roughly 2 or 3 parts Leather Brown to 1 part Blackened Brown I began to mix in Khaki Highlight.  I also attempted to give him a few tattoos.  For that I used Soft Blue and mixed it with Fair Skin.  I varied the amount of blue for darker and lighter areas.  I also switched out Fair Skin for Rosy Shadow for some of the darker areas.  I touched up the design with pure skin tones to clean up the lines.  Then gave it a few glazes of skin tone and GW's red glaze in some of the shadow areas.

With the hair, fur, and shoulder pad finished I could finally add the arm and sword.   I did the initial layers on the sword first (a little easier without the head in the way).  But it still needs some more work before I'm done with it.

Gokan/Slaine WIP 2

I decided to tackle the tartan pattern on Slaine.  He's typically wearing on in the pictures I've seen.  Although the pattern isn't always the same, it tends to involve brown stripes on an orange background.  These colors are consistent with an ancient tartan color scheme (red becomes orange, black becomes brown).  I did a little searching and found the pattern below that I thought looked good.  It hits the main colors and has enough going on to be interesting.

Painting a tartan seems really tough, but if you break the pattern down it's surprisingly simple.  If you can paint stripes then you can paint a tartan.  I've posted a detailed write up in the Gokan/Slaine tutorial on this website.  The short version is you break down the pattern and start with the largest stripe.  Paint the horizontal and vertical stripes, trying to keep the spacing consistent and follow the contours of the cloth.  Then, where the stripes cross, go in and add the dark square.  With those finished, pick the next most significant stripes in the pattern.  Add in the color variations wherever those stripes cross over other colors.  And then the next stripes, and the next, etc, going from the biggest stripes to the smallest.

 

Gokan/Slaine WIP 1

I'm taking part in a paint along competition over at CMON.  We're all painting a 54mm figure from Olivier Bouchet called Gokan, the Guardian.  The paint along project will be going on for a while (we don't have a deadline yet) so there's still plenty of time to join in.  You can get the figure from Olivier's website: http://ob-sculptures.blogspot.se/2014/09/gokan-guardian.html .

The figure bears a striking similarity to the comic book character Slaine.  I wasn't familiar with the comic, but once someone pointed it out (and I looked up some pictures) I decided to paint the figure as Slaine.  As the CMON project is sort of a paint along I decided to put together a step by step tutorial as I work on the figure.  The beginning of the tutorial is already up on this blog.  As I continue to work on the figure I will keep adding to the tutorial until it covers the full figure.

http://powellminipainting.blogspot.com/p/painting-gokan-slaine.html

After base coating the figure I got to work on the face and body.  In most of the images I've seen Slaine has red markings on his face, so I included those here.  I'd like to include some Celtic style tattoos as well, but I haven't decided on a design or figured out exactly how I plan to do it.  I haven't painted any tattoos yet, so it will be a new challenge.

Organizing a Paint-a-Long

So a friend recently asked if I had ever thought about organizing a paint-a-long.  It's a neat idea so I'm trying to see if I did one would enough people be interested.  The basic idea, as I understand it, is we all paint the same model or a similar model.  I'd be a pseudo-instructor and post a lot of step by step photos and details, but everyone shares their work and gives and receives feedback.  There are a lot of talented painters out there, so it'd be great if others are willing to go into more detail on their approach and post step by step photos as well.  If we can get a number of co-pseudo-instructors that would be awesome.

I was thinking about what sort of figure to pick.  While I like 54mm and larger figures, I think a lot of people would prefer 28mm.  Plus they're quicker to paint and cheaper to buy.  I also want to do a figure that focuses on something I feel reasonably competent painting... so I thought how about a project involving skin tones.  I haven't selected a specific figure yet, but I'd like to do one of the barbarians from Red Box Games.  They are 28mm, reasonably priced, and plenty of room to paint skin tones, maybe we'll even try out some freehand tattoos.  I personally like the RBG figures, I think they've got a lot of character and the proportions and anatomy seems to be a bit more realistic than other figures (though still stylized).  Plus it's always nice to support a small company.  While it'd be great if we all did the same figure, really any barbarian or gladiator style figure would work.  RBG has some Norse figures that would work too.  If there's enough interest I'd be willing to do both a male and female figure so people have even more options on what they choose to paint.

I'd most likely create a special thread for this over at Cool Mini and perhaps one at WAMP too.  I'm not sure when we'd do this, but if we can get it going soon then people would be able to submit their finished work into the RBG contest over at WAMP.  The deadline for that is August 24 or August 31 if you're a WAMP supporter.  

What do you all think?  Like the idea?  Interested in joining in or even being a co-instructor?  Let me know by leaving a comment here or over on my Cool Mini WIP thread.