16 replies to this topic

[Captain jOE]

Another mini for some D&D. I'm quite happy with this one. He was quite the adventure to paint, but at the end I think I learned quite a bit. I'm especially happy with my metallics. I learned quite a lot.

The sword took me WAY to many tries but I'm pretty happy with the final results. Sadly it was kinda hard to photograph. It's really a combination of the "front" shot and the "back" shot. The top of the blad is silver, but the rest is NMM exept for the highlight on the lower edge of the second side of the sword (the middle one).

My most recent pics have improved quite a bit though. The new camera really helped.





Comments and criticisms are welcome.

[Silas Coggeshall]

That's a very clean job there. I love the contrast between the purple and white. Excellent work. :)

[Inarah]

Very nice. I like your use of the purple, and I love how your white came out. Would you share the technique?

[Captain jOE]

Thanks for the compliments everyone!

Very nice. I like your use of the purple, and I love how your white came out. Would you share the technique?

The white was kinda funny for me. I bought the reaper ivory triad for the job. But that didn't work out...I was too yellow. So I used the out of production GW Dheneb Stone. I don't know what the appropriate reaper color is, but I think it would be in the bone triad over the ivory triad. The biggest thing is it has to be more "brown" and more "cold" than ivory. I think Dheneb stone has some cool colors in it, hence why it worked out.

Basically the white is layers of Dheneb Stone mixed with GW Skull White. Dheneb Stone is how dark you start, and pure white reside on the VERY top of edges/surfaces. When necessary, very deep shadows were created by mixing a bit GW Khemri Brown with GW Dheneb Stone.

[Jordan Peacock]

A very nice effect! Thanks for the specifics on the white progression. There are a number of colors that I can fairly easily figure out what I should use for shadows and highlights with, but when it comes to WHITE, I usually find myself restricted to just flat grey, or maybe blue-grey. I really like this "bone-white" look to the shadowed areas, though. It works nicely with the golden trim, as it kind of reads as if some of the gold is reflecting off of gloss on the white armor sections nearby.

[Captain jOE]

A very nice effect! Thanks for the specifics on the white progression. There are a number of colors that I can fairly easily figure out what I should use for shadows and highlights with, but when it comes to WHITE, I usually find myself restricted to just flat grey, or maybe blue-grey. I really like this "bone-white" look to the shadowed areas, though. It works nicely with the golden trim, as it kind of reads as if some of the gold is reflecting off of gloss on the white armor sections nearby.

Now that you mention it, yeah the gold sorta does. Unintended cool effect :D . Might have been the result of using Reaper New Gold combined with Pearl White for the highlights.

[MonkeySloth]

I'm especially happy with my metallics. I learned quite a lot.

It's always a great paint job when you learn something.

The metal on the shield looks good and the sword is getting there. The big thing to try next time is to go darker, like really dark. Metals only work if you've got extreme contrasts. Also adding a smidge of blue, purple, or brown into your shading will help the highlights stand out more.

[Captain jOE]

I'm especially happy with my metallics. I learned quite a lot.

It's always a great paint job when you learn something.

The metal on the shield looks good and the sword is getting there. The big thing to try next time is to go darker, like really dark. Metals only work if you've got extreme contrasts. Also adding a smidge of blue, purple, or brown into your shading will help the highlights stand out more.

Thanks for the advice MonkeySloth.

Yeah the sword might could use a bit more shading, but it really depends on how the light hits it. If you look at the sword straight from the side the shading it pretty dark (GW Codex grey if you know how dark that color is). I didn't want to go too dark on the middle side of the sword because I didn't want it to look "depressed" from the rest of the blade when it's really not. But we'll see. I got so frustrated with the sword at one point I was ready to fling the mini against the wall (and believe me, it's very hard to get me to that point). I finally got the blade to a point where I feel at adds and doesn't take away from the model so I'll probably leave it and move on to avoid adding more frustration.

[Captain jOE]

Double post. My bad.

[joshuaslater]

dig!

[MonkeySloth]

Flat object, like swords, I think are the hardest to paint as it's hard to make them look good from multiple directions.

I agree that you shouldn't adjust this figure. I just wanted to point out something you could try for your next one.

[Captain jOE]

Ok, per MonkeySloth's advice I went back and worked on the sword a bit. Had some time to kill anyway. I know this isn't a WIP thread so I just reposted the pics with the updated sword. They weren't quite as photo genic, but still good.

[Kuro Cleanbrush]

He looks awesome! I really like how the armor and cape turned out, and the sword was worth the effort! Now I need to get busy on my character for the campaign...

[MonkeySloth]

That sword looks way better. For one you can see that it's not flat in the middle but concave. Nicely done.

[Captain jOE]

That sword looks way better. For one you can see that it's not flat in the middle but concave. Nicely done.

Thanks for pushing me to go the extra mile and for the compliments, MonkeySloth.