16 replies to this topic

[Silas Coggeshall]

This is my second Werewolf and I myself am very pleased. I felt while painting that my paints and brush were some of the bigger obstacles and were kinda holding me back. Fortunately that will be remedied soon.

Thank you.

[Darius Glenwell]

Is this the BONES version or the metal one? I have the metal one and the arms were a PITA to glue on even with pinning.

I would highlight the skin one more time to make it stand out from the fur. They seem to similar. Unless that's what you were going for. :)

[Silas Coggeshall]

Is this the BONES version or the metal one? I have the metal one and the arms were a PITA to glue on even with pinning.

I would highlight the skin one more time to make it stand out from the fur. They seem to similar. Unless that's what you were going for. :)

lol Yes it's the Reaper Bones line. :P Very fun to paint. I'm glad that I went with the Bones. I may use a lighter color for the highlights on the fur, but I think for now that he's pretty good. I actually only have one tube of brown paint. :P Soon I'll be taking care of the lake of paint. :)

[MonkeySloth]

I can see in improvement with this figure over the previous werewolf, good job.

What I like about this paint job is that for the first time I'm really seeing some defining features via shadow and highlights in one of your miniatures and that just makes it stand above most of your other work.

I also took the liberty, I hope you don't mind, of adjusting a few of your photos for clarity.



I used Paint.net, which is free app for windows and really easy to use, to adjust the brightness and color saturation a bit so people could see the brown more.

[Silas Coggeshall]

I can see in improvement with this figure over the previous werewolf, good job.

What I like about this paint job is that for the first time I'm really seeing some defining features via shadow and highlights in one of your miniatures and that just makes it stand above most of your other work.

I also took the liberty, I hope you don't mind, of adjusting a few of your photos for clarity.



I used Paint.net, which is free app for windows and really easy to use, to adjust the brightness and color saturation a bit so people could see the brown more.

Thank you. I was very pleased with this one. I'm glad you like it. Those pics look very good too. Maybe a little sharper? I myself use GIMP, but always forget to mess with the brightness. I usually just auto color correct them.

[ObsidianCrane]

Looks good.

If you want to pull out the highlights on the flesh more you can add a little bit of white to the brown you have used for the flesh, just enough to make it a little bit lighter, then paint this in as a highlight. Repeat adding more white each time, but painting over a smaller area each time. This is a quick and dirty way to blend highlights onto a model, expecially if you thin the paint a little as you go.

[Kuro Cleanbrush]

Well done again!

If you want to pull out the highlights on the flesh more you can add a little bit of white to the brown you have used for the flesh, just enough to make it a little bit lighter, then paint this in as a highlight. Repeat adding more white each time, but painting over a smaller area each time. This is a quick and dirty way to blend highlights onto a model, expecially if you thin the paint a little as you go.

A lot of people go with adding straight white to their base color for highlights and get great mileage out of it. However, this can make the new color a little "pastel" and not bold enough for my tastes. In view of this, I suggest adding an appropriate off-white instead (such as Reaper's Linen White or GW's Bleached Bone) and only do this as your very highest of highlights. But this is totally just a stylistic difference, so I don't wish to sound like I'm contradicting ObsidianCrane at all. Play around with both tactics and see which works better for you!

[ObsidianCrane]

Oh absolutely! Getting a good blend is more complicated than just adding increasing amounts of white. White happens to work for your flesh colour and for blues and yellows. For other colours you need to experiment more to get good highlights and avoid that pastel effect. This is why having a 3 or 4 shades of a given colour is a good idea; get a mid tone and a darker and lighter version of that same colour. This whay you can blend through those colours and build good shadows and highlights, only adding lighter colours like white to build absolute highlights.

Studying art and the way artists use colour can be very informative for miniature painting and reveals that the shadows of a colour need not necassarily be that colour (eg using purple or blue in shadows of green). However this is moving into "advanced painting" and really only starts mattering if you are aiming for competition/professional standard painting.

[cookjimjr]

I really like what you did on this mini, and I agree that it is one of your best. The area where you take your pictures needs a little more light however, either from above or in front. I use a lamp at left front about 4 inches higher than the mini, then another at the right front about even with the mini and another about 24" directly above the mini. I still end up adjusting the contrast a little though. Your background can also affect the color saturation and sometimes wash out colors depending on what your camera seems to like. My camera does not like Greens or Yellows and will over saturate them. Experiment with different back grounds and lighting to try to get a photo where it looks close to what you see in hand under normal light. As for the highlights people have suggested, I would agree, but keep in mind that blending them up to the brightest highlight is key so they do not look like layers of paint but a smooth transition. This is easier said than done and takes practice. I still have trouble doing it in some areas of the miniatures. Larger areas are easiest. Keep up the good work and I look forward to watching you progress as you keep painting.

[Silas Coggeshall]

I really like what you did on this mini, and I agree that it is one of your best. The area where you take your pictures needs a little more light however, either from above or in front. I use a lamp at left front about 4 inches higher than the mini, then another at the right front about even with the mini and another about 24" directly above the mini. I still end up adjusting the contrast a little though. Your background can also affect the color saturation and sometimes wash out colors depending on what your camera seems to like. My camera does not like Greens or Yellows and will over saturate them. Experiment with different back grounds and lighting to try to get a photo where it looks close to what you see in hand under normal light. As for the highlights people have suggested, I would agree, but keep in mind that blending them up to the brightest highlight is key so they do not look like layers of paint but a smooth transition. This is easier said than done and takes practice. I still have trouble doing it in some areas of the miniatures. Larger areas are easiest. Keep up the good work and I look forward to watching you progress as you keep painting.

Thank you. :) I have to agree getting your photos to turn out right can be a real pain. :P lol

[Silas Coggeshall]

So I think I may have screwed this up. lol I tried highlighting, but haven't really done it like this so as I expected I did a bad job. Now don't read into the pics to much below because they are really bad. Tomorrow morning I'm going to re mix the original light brown highlight that covered most of the mini and star over on the highlights. I ending up just putting to much off white/brown on him, and what I put on it was going on too thick. Anyway don't fret over the pic to much. I'll post a better one tomorrow once I redo the highlights. If you guys have any highlight 101 advice please share. lol ty. :)

ya.. These pics are really bad. :P lol You can examine it more tomorrow.

[ObsidianCrane]

You are right. You just need a more gradual transition of colour. Its about 1 drop of brown to 1/4 of a drop of white (maybe less). Thining it down also helps because it lets the lower level of the colour shine through better. Keep in mind this is still the "easy way" of blending.

For the real way to blend check out Ali McVey's videos here (note she uses 2 brushes, 1 for each colour she is working with, and pretty much everything that has been said about colour and paint thickness still applies).

[Silas Coggeshall]

All right so it took me longer than I wanted, but I've done a few things since my last post here. For one I went over and cleaned up the lousy highlights.

Note I took care of the white that you see after I spotted it in the picture. The brown highlight was also a little brighter than I wanted, but it still looks good.


I had one more werewolf left, but before I tried out blending I first practiced it on my first werewolf I painted a while back.
Honestly I thought these highlights look better than the next werewolf.

So ya. I didn't expect my first attempt at blending would be so great, but I'm still excited to learn how and practice. :) I had a hard time smoothing and blending the highlights, but I still think it's okay. Still need to touch up some of the final mini, but anyway thank you all. :)

[ObsidianCrane]

Yup nice progress. Just need to work on smaller colour transitions and it will come together nicely.

[scipio.au]

Nice work on both wolves you've posted here. My local place didn't have any of these in stock when I was there last, but I'll definitely be picking a couple of them up when they get some in. Without needing to pin and glue arms on, I can actually see myself getting them painted! :)