Dragoon WIP 2

Managed to make some more progress on his uniform.  I started out by cleaning up a couple of the shadows on the pants (two of the lines on the right side didn't make sense so I smoothed them out).  From there I wrapped up the dark green and moved onto the yellow sections.  I went with more of a pale yellow, I wanted to avoid anything too vivid and I also liked the contrast it made with the dark green.  After that I began on the white belts/straps.  I tried to get some nice subtle transitions on these.  The ones across his chest remained pretty bright but there's more variation on the back.  Up next I will probably try to wrap up some small details like the metal on the belts and then do the hands before I move on to the black for the horsehair crest and his boots.  I've still got a few bits to add like a plume for the helmet and his sword.  Once the crest is finished I'll add the plume.  As for the sword, I'll probably wait until after I finish his musket as it would make painting that a bit more difficult.

Dragoon WIP

Work on the Dragoon has been a bit slow and I've been a bit distracted.  I recently received a kit from Industria Mechanika, something completely different for me, and I've been busy cleaning and assembling parts.  Not that I'll be painting it anytime soon.  Going to be a lot of airbrushing and vehicle weathering techniques that will require some practice first.  Still, fun toys to play with. :)

Anyway, back to the Dragoon... I base coated the rest of his uniform and took an unsuccessful crack at the dark green on his coat.  I don't work with green a lot, but I was able to pull off a nice dark blue on my Officer of the Navy Guard and I figured I could do the green the same way.  Unfortunately my paints did not want to cooperate.  I started out trying Reaper's Green Shadow and Green Liner, two of their really dark green colors.  One was chalky and didn't cover well and the other had a super satin finish.  Ugh.  They're old bottles so perhaps that's part of the issue but whatever the reason they won't work for me.  So instead I switched over to a lighter green, Grass Green, and darkened it with Burgundy Wine.  From there I mixed in a medium grey to highlight.  In theory it should have worked but the results weren't good.  As you can see below the contrast doesn't pop much and the blends weren't smooth.  So I took a break and worked on his shirt and pants, something I was confident I could do without issue.  The shirt is an off white, Bone Shadow, Weathered Stone, and Leather White.  The pants are a khaki, Black Brown, Terran Khaki, Khaki Highlight and Weathered Stone.

Happy that I could at least do something right, I returned to the dark green for another attempt.  This time I abandoned the Reaper Greens and pulled out on my new Badger Minitaire paints (thank you Draconic Awards!).  Their Dark Green is deeper than Reaper's Grass Green but still not as dark as the Green Shadow or Green Liner.  So I again used Burgundy Wine to create some nice shadow tones.  My midtone was maybe 2 or 3 parts Dark Green to 1 part Burgundy Wine.  That ratio was reversed to create the deepest shadows.  To do the highlights I picked a lighter grey, Reaper's Misty Grey, and slowly added that into the Dark Green - Burgundy Wine mix.  On the left you can see the old version and on the right this new attempt.  I still need to do the right arm and make some minor adjustments here and there.  But overall I am much happier with the contrast range and I feel like the coat still reads as a dark green.  Up next will be the larger yellow sections followed by the finer green and yellow piping and details.

Painting Faces

Here is a quick step by step on painting faces.  I'll be writing a much more indepth tutorial on this figure, this is just a sneak peak.

That are a lot of different approaches to painting faces, this is one that has worked for me.  The following example is a 54mm face (for Pegaso's French Dragoon) but I follow the same general idea when painting 28mm, 75mm, and 90mm faces.  The main difference is the level of detail I can reasonably expect to achieve.  Check the Roman work in progress to see a similar approach at the 90mm scale.

The following numbered steps correspond to each row in the image series seen below.  Unless otherwise specified the paint names refer to Reaper Master Series paints.

1 - The face is base coated with Rosy Shadow

2 - I rough in the shadows with mostly Chestnut Brown (I like to use a reddish brown for the shadows) but then a bit of Mahogany Brown in the darker shadows around the eyes, in the nostrils, under the chin, and a bit in the left cheek (his head is slightly tilted so the left side will be darker). The main reason I do this is to get the shadows around the eyes finished before I go in there to do those fine details.
3 - Start on the eyes
I first lay down a reddish pink layer (Rosy Skin + Violet Red) and cover up most of it with an off white (Weathered Stone). Ideally a little of the pink will remain in the corners.
4 - Eye details
I went in with a dark blue (Ritterlich Blue) and tried to get the shape of the irises. Because his head is slightly turned to his right I also painted the eyes looking a bit to the right. Straight ahead would have been fine, but to the left would have looked awkward. I then went in with a light blue (Ashen Blue) and tried to lighten up the irises near the bottom half, while retaining the dark border. Then, as carefully as I can, I add a black dot for the pupils and a dot of pure white for the catch light. Pretty tricky to do at the 54mm scale, so if you left the eyes at the dark blue stage you'd probably be fine. But if you can get those extra details that's great. On a larger scale, like 75mm or 90mm, I'd really try to get those in there.
5 - Returning to the skin, I go back with various mixes of Chestnut Brown and Rosy Shadow to smooth out the shadows I'd roughed in.
6 - Now I add in the highlights, with blends of Rosy Shadow into Fair Skin, and then into Fair Highlight.
7 - Details and Tweaks
Based on the previous picture I thought the highlights needed a little more pop, so I went from Fair Highlight to Linen White on the tops of the cheeks, tip of the nose, and a touch on the chin. I use a mix of skin tones and red for the lips, then repeat steps 5 and 6 for the ears. I also add in the eye brows with a dark brown.
8 - Glazing
This final step helps to add a little more life-like quality to the face.  I take some of the GW glazes: Bloodletter Red, Guilliman Blue, and a mix of the two for purple (although further thinned down with water). I add some red to the cheeks (pushing away from the highlights into the shadows), tip of the nose, and ear lobes. The blue goes on the lower part of the face to change the tone for a subtle stubble look. And the purple is used to deepen the shadows in the cheeks, under the chin and jaw, and a bit around the eyes. Lastly I go in a touch up a few of the highlights as needed.

Jack - Part 1

Well, my next project will hopefully be coming with me to the Crystal Brush competition.  It's not until March... but the way I've been painting I better start early!  I'm planning to bring a couple historical figures, but those categories haven't been too tough the last couple years.  So I'd like to also enter some of the more competitive categories and see what happens.  For the large scale (54mm and up) I thought I'd paint Jack in the Plucker from Terrible Kids Stuff.  This figure is 75mm scale and based on the cover art for a illustrated novel by Brom.

It's a great kit, very close to the original art and it even comes with that creepy background.  I was lucky enough to get a copy (they only made about 150 and it sold out fast) and I've been really looking forward to painting it.

I'm really trying to follow the original art as closely as I can, from the colors to the lighting.  I even made a few minor changes to the kit, like adding the nails in the background, using a bit of wire to add the wisp of hair down his forehead and the thread on his right arm, and adding the ribbon to his baton (metal foil).  For now I'm leaving the arms separate.  The joints are well hidden and it's going to be a lot easier to paint the stripes without the left arm in the way and the hair without painting around the sword.  Below you can see them just held on with sticky tack.

My focus so far has been the face.  Below is my first pass using Chestnut Brown, Rosy Shadow, Tanned Highlight, and Linen White.

 

From there I went back in with a variety of GW glazes (red, blue, and purple).  I also carefully added some freckles to the nose and cheeks (a mix of Chestnut Brown and a little Rosy Shadow)

I'm having issues with the far side of the face.  As with the cover art, I'd like the light source to come from above and to his left (as opposed to just straight above the figure).  So the right side of his face will be mostly in shadow.  However there's also a bit of OSL with that purple glow coming from below and to his right.  I've painted and repainted the right side, but I'm still not satisfied.  Unfortunately if I do much more I'm going to overwork it.  So I think it's best to put it on hold for now and paint more of the figure.  Hopefully once I've got his hat and upper body finished I'll have a much better idea how to do the rest of the face.

OcGRE - Gaming and Painting Event in Orange County

Just wanted to give a quick post about OcGRE, the Orange County Gaming Regional Expo.  There's a group trying to setup this event for November of this year.  Right now they're running the project through Kickstarter, trying to raise enough funds to make this a reality.  They're almost halfway to their goal but the project deadline is 11:59 pm on August 8th, so not a lot of time left.  In addition to the gaming this will be another event in the Draconic Awards circuit, so expect a fun competition and some good painting/modeling seminars.

If you're in the Southern California area, nearby, or have always wanted to visit, then check out the project and help support a new event.  You can pledge for a 3-day pass to the event and/or a variety of other perks.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/272734025/ocgre-the-orange-county-gaming-regional-expo

For anyone not familiar with Kickstarter, you are only charged for your pledge if the project successfully meets its funding goal.

Olfo Completed

It took about a month but I've finally completed Olfo, or as I'm calling it now 'Lost in the Dark.'  I liked the forest setting but still felt like it needed something more, some ominous presence in the dark to add some drama to the piece.  In the end I drew inspiration from the Mirkwood scene from the Hobbit (and Shades' suggestion) and went with a giant spider.  It took a bit of searching online to find a figure I was happy with.  The GW ones tend to be too cartoony and I wanted to be able to pose the legs.  Somewhat randomly I found this giant spider kit from Otherworld Miniatures.  Truly massive on a 28mm scale, even at 1/35 scale this guy is pretty huge.  What really sold me on the kit were those long slender legs.  I used a small pin to attach the main body of the spider to the tree.  Then I posed the legs with a little bit of bending, some filing, and some green stuff.  Their attachments aren't quite as secure as I'd like, but with the pin supporting the weight of the spider they should be okay.  Just don't want to drop this one or knock it over!

I found a nice tutorial on making spider webs from UHU glue over at the 5th Dimension blog.  Surprisingly simple and I really like the end result.  In the tutorial they apply the glue strings to a pair of tooth picks and then to the base, I skipped that intermediate step and went directly to stretching them around the trees.

I've submitted this guy to the contest over at the 5th Dimesion.  Submissions are accepted until September 5th, so it will be a little while before we see how he does.  In addition, this past weekend I took him up to San Jose for the Bay Area Open 2014.  I was lucky enough to win Best in Show with him!

I wanted to give a quick blurb about the painting competition because they're trying to start up something new and I think it's an interesting idea. The group running it is trying to create a circuit of painting competitions culminating in their Dragonslayer competition which will pit winners from the different circuit events against each other for the Dragonslayer title. They've got events planned for OcGRE in Anaheim (Nov 21-23 if the show happens), Templecon in RI (Feb 6-9), Las Vegas Open (Feb 20-22), G&GCon in London (sometime in 2015), CaptainCon in MA (2015), and Califaux in Sacramento CA (2015). This is all still pretty new and I'm guessing they're looking for more conventions where they can sponsor competitions. The entries are judged using the open system, so there's not just a 1st, 2nd, 3rd. All entries are rated against a set standard and they hand out as many gold, silver, and bronze medals as are earned (not just one of each).  You can enter at the master level or the journeyman.  Another neat feature is their scoring system.  You're rated out of 10 points and your total score is the average of the 5 judges.  It's all on the computer so you get a print out of your scores along with any comments the judges make.  I thought the comments were especially nice.  Always helpful to hear what they liked, what they thought could be improved, etc.

After all the scoring they pick an overall best in show that wins a special trophy (this will be unique to each event and fit into the dragonslayer theme), some other prizes (the BAO had a Badger airbrush and the complete set of minitaire paints), and entry into the culminating dragonslayer event. I think it's all an interesting idea, they just need publicity and people to go enter their work! So keep an eye on their website for more info

http://draconicawards.com/

Olfo Part 7 - Testing out the Airbrush

Time to start putting some color on the base.  While I could use a regular brush, this seemed like a good time to dust off the airbrush and try it out on a real figure for a change.  For a while know I've known that I needed to add an airbrush to my set of tools.  There are a lot of instances (like right here) where it can make painting a lot easier.  Unfortunately I haven't devoted the time necessary to really learn how to use it.  Hopefully in the next month or two I'll set aside some time to run through some tutorials and practice models.  But for this mostly dark base I figured I couldn't screw it up too badly so I decided to jump ahead a few lessons and give it a go.

The first thing I needed to do was cover up that horrible satin black.  I took the blue-grey tones from Olfo's dark side and covered the base.  I applied several coats to create some simple highlights.  With the base a little more in tune with the moonlit feel I switched over to my lamplight color (the mix of Polished Bone and Lemon Yellow).  Now I tried to lighten up any areas that would be lit by the lamp.  I tried my best to spray from the direction of the lamplight, so plenty of rotating the base so I'd hit it at the right angles.  I kept this paint pretty thin so I could gradually build it up.  I wanted the areas closet to the lantern to be the brightest, so I applied more layers in those areas.  So, for example, the tree on the right is intentionally brighter than the one on the left.  After I'd finished with that I switched back to the darkest of my blue-grey colors to fix some of the shadows.  Olfo's body blocks some of the light so I had to darken some of the ground behind him and fix some of the overspray on the trees.

Overall I'm quite pleased with the results.  This would have taken me the better part of a week with the brush and I was able to do this in less than two hours.  That's good motivation to devote a few weekends to actually learning how to use the damn thing.  Anyway, now I will go in with the traditional brush to clean up the OSL a bit and add some colors to the lit areas.  I kind of like it as is, with only Olfo in color... so I will probably try to use some more muted colors for the parts of the base in the lamplight.