193 replies to this topic

[MonkeySloth]

Thankfully the arm should be a fairly painless fix (though probably still an hour of work).

I have this mini and a gobber I need to finish for an RPG campaign this month but I'm still playing Dark Souls and have Guild Wars 2 coming out in 2 weeks and then a few weeks after that Borderlands 2. I'm not sure if I'll get much panting done the next few months.

[MonkeySloth]

Haven't posted an update in a while, been lazy I guess. I learned a bit on how to better deal with highlights at Gencon and so I reworked a little bit of the steel, just the pauldrons, but maybe I should have waited until I got the technique down before jumping right into what could be argued as the hardest thing to blend. Anyway, the shoulders look better then they did before so I'm happy about that.

I also finished up the bronze and refined the colors a bit from when I used this on the Goblin from the last challenge and I think it looks better--though getting that final highlight blended is rather hard-- and have started the leather.

[MonkeySloth]

And he's finished. I'm pretty worn out after about 5 weeks on one miniature but I'll probably start prep work on another this Monday.

[MonkeySloth]

Well 4 weeks later and here I am. Guess I needed more of a break then I had thought. Also, wow, this board is busy now as I would have never guessed my thread would be 3 pages back in just a month. It's nice to see so many people doing WIPs as this area was sorta dead when I started my WIP thread.

Anyway back to what I'm working on. Nothing fancy just a Victorian gentlemen from Bluemoon's "Bump in the Night" line (Victorian Civilians) that one of my player's wants to use as his character in our Iron Kingdom's game This one should hopefully be quick--but we'll see if I can keep to that.

I'm trying out a new method for shading skin but since there's so little skin on him I'm not sure if I'm able to tell how it looks overall. In the past I'd base coat with a blueish gray and then paint over it with regular skin tones, well this required a really red overcoat of flesh as if I didn't have red then the figure would look sickly. So now I'm basing in my normal flesh and then shading with that blue and then a red flesh tone (P3 Kardic Flesh).

Also messing with my shading and highlighting as it has been pointed out to me that you're supposed to highlight under the eye and not shade as light reflects off of the cheeks into the eye.




Oh, and since I haven't posted it elsewhere on this forum here's what kept me a little occupied the past few weeks. I giant board for my players to fight undead on.

[Talae]

Great Terraclips layout! How many of which sets do you have?

Also, have you visited their (WWG) forums? Great place.

[MonkeySloth]

This is 2 streets and a little over 3 building sets. I've got 3 streets, 3 buildings and one sewers.

I haven't visited their forums, I try to limit the total forums I visit so I don't waste all day on the internet.

[MonkeySloth]

Pants and hat are done (except for the band on the hat) and I'm liking how they look. Started the jacket but I shaded my first color too strong and against that red you can't really see much of a difference between the reddish brown and the dark brown (same that are in the pants) and it's come off a little stronger then planned so I have more of a crimson look--which is fine as I do think it's looking OK. This will just mean I'll have to have some good highlighting to make the coat look good. I started to do a little bit but I'll have to wait till tomorrow to really get an idea of what it will look like.

Do need to decide what to do with the coat coaler, gloves and ascot though. Was thinking black\gray for the gloves and ascot and maybe the same brown as the hat for the color or go black\gray with the gloves and color but I wouldn't know what color I could make the ascot without it being too much of a focal point.



Was going to do a step-by-step with this guy as I realized I've never done one but then my light died on my last night (started making a tazer-like sound before I pulled the plug) and I was already pretty far along by the time I got a replacement. But I really should do a step-by-step on something I'm spending more time on instead of a quick paint job like this one.

[Argentee]

The color of the ascot should match the lace at the cuffs I think.. Maybe a yellowish-ivory color?

[Qwyksilver]

Is their a reason you don't want the ascot to be a focal point? They often were used as the splash of color in an otherwise bland wardrobe.

What about a very pale olive green? The pale olive MSP being the deepest shadows. Would compliment all those reds and warm browns.

Edited by Qwyksilver, 04 October 2012 - 06:34 AM.

[CashWiley]

The color of the ascot should match the lace at the cuffs I think.. Maybe a yellowish-ivory color?

Absolutely not! An ascot is a focal piece of a gentleman's wardrobe!

I'd go with a patterned green, possibly match it to the hatband. Possibly a gold.

[Argentee]

The color of the ascot should match the lace at the cuffs I think.. Maybe a yellowish-ivory color?

Absolutely not! An ascot is a focal piece of a gentleman's wardrobe!

I'd go with a patterned green, possibly match it to the hatband. Possibly a gold.

He did say he didn't want to make it too much of a focal point. I was trying to play it down which the matching subdued color would do.

I like the idea of a gold. Sun Yellow or palimino gold? Id worry about green looking Christmassy with the red coat.

[MonkeySloth]

No people are correct that ascots are supposed to be focal points, I just get hung on up color balance when painting but also didn't want to go something that was too strong like a bright yellow or blue as I think it would look out of place.

Green would work if I make it very muted which and Olive green would be if done right (would need to highlight with tans probably) and doing some dot patterns on it and the had band would be interesting and fun I think. I've gotten other recommendations for doing the ascot white with a blue shade as my figure is 100% warm at the moment. Will need to think.

[psyberwolfe1]

I bet you can achieve the cool down with blue-whites on the lapels and cuffs. Then use neutral cool colors for the hat band, spats, and shoes/boots.

[Nocturne]

The gentleman's rule has always been dark suit - bright ascot, bright suit - dark ascot. A subdued green should work well and avoid the christmas problem.

[MonkeySloth]

Thanks for all the suggestions. As it turned out I was showing this to my friend and he wanted a goldish-yellow for the ascot and like the idea of a pattern. It's probably not as "goldish" as he wanted but it was looking too much like mustard so I changed the yellow to a marigold. Also repainted up the white with blue shading, as suggested, and it looks much better.

Doing the dots was interesting as it's hard to get a consistent size and strength (in color) but did find that if I twisted the brush after having made contact with the miniature it was much more consistent then just trying to daub them all on. I didn't really notice this to the end, but it's something I want to try doing again.

The base was an experiment with using pigments to do shading and highlighting and...yea, I don't think this type of pattern was best suited for that. Got some decent shading in some areas but couldn't get my brighter pigments to stick to anything (using secret weapon) as it was clumpy as if there was some water in my brush.

Right now I'm pretty much done. Need to make the plastic rings that I'll use to show him casting spells Iron Kingdoms style and get them marked up, thankfully the guy who's character this is happens to be a decent artist so I'm going to make him draw\paint\whatever the runs on that plastic as I know my freehand would be horrible. Once that gets done, may add some OSL around the hand as well, I'll place him in the show off.

The blending isn't' the best but it's a warm-up piece and a gaming piece so I'm happy with him but I'm always open to suggestions.