15 replies to this topic

[ZabbyMonky]

The instant I saw the Darkreach Dark Elves miniatures I thought they would be perfect for the Genasi race in Dungeons and Dragons:




Here's an in progress take on transforming 14598: Erdolliel Saerwen, Dark Elf Glaive Thrower (http://www.reapermin...ve/latest/14598) into a Fire Genasi Desert Wind Monk:


Introducing Mara-Kai. She's a little over half way done.

Armor - Concept is to be fire themed, but a little more muted to look like a worn desert traveler. I only have a partial base coat down at the moment as I was playing with colors. It needs a lot of little touch-ups before I start shading and highlights. Still deciding on the color of the boots, belt, and a few other small armor pieces.

Hair - Living flame. I need some help with making this look more realistic. There's a lot of layers, but not much depth so it's proved challenging achieving a 'white hot' center that flows to red tips.

Base - Magma rock. I glued some pebbles onto the base, thinned down some fire colors to paint between the cracks, and went over the pebbles with several coats of black. This took hours to finally get the look I wanted.

Skin - The skin tone is two parts fire orange and one part carnage red. I really want to include the bright etched energy lines, but having trouble with the tiny details. Even using my smallest brush the brush stroke seems too thick. This is only the 2nd hero miniature I've tried painting, so I'm still learning.

Thoughts? Tips?

[chaosscorpion]

Looks good so far.

Boots, a dusty tan from walking in the desert.
Belt, black with coppery or brass hardware.

Base looks great, any chance at a shot from above to see its full effect?

[ZabbyMonky]

Base looks great, any chance at a shot from above to see its full effect?

[chaosscorpion]

Wow, that did come out nice.

[Bloodsbane]

Great stuff!
Darkreach dark elves as genasi is quite genious, I feel a bit bad for not thinking of it until now :P

Hair - In case you haven't seen it before, here's Laszlo's musings on fire: http://hot-lead.org/...fire_theory.htm
There's a link to a step by step tutorial on a miniature at the bottom as well.

Skin - What size is your smallest brush? I use a 000 for tiny details like that. You've chosen quite a difficult miniature to practice freehand on the skin on though! Not much of it is showing, and much of it looks quite hard to reach.

[ZabbyMonky]

Bloodsbane - Thanks for the fire tutorial! I had the general idea right, but the step by step page is exactly what I was looking for to pull it off better. Right now I'm using some cheap brushes from Michaels. The smallest I have is a 0, but it's not durable and the brush hairs have already started to split. Buying some Kolinsky Sable brushes from Blick is on my to-do list once my bank account recovers from the Bones Kickstarter. Since most of the skin is covered in bandages I'm only going to try painting the etched energy lines on the face. I'll try to post some more in-progress pictures later this week.

[joshuaslater]

This isn't the D&D I know, but you sure make it look good with that paint.

[Metalchaos]

The art print is awesome and your mini is already promising.
Looking forward to see the next steps and final result.

[dwarvenranger]

I think that you could get those bright lines in there, it would remind me alot of this guy Who just happens to be a genasai also

[ZabbyMonky]

Didn't have as much time to paint tonight as I would have liked. Took awhile deciding on the colors I wanted for the boots. Eventually decided on a dark sand base coat with dark gray straps. Need to touch up the line work of the straps a bit, but a bit too tired to keep a steady hand tonight. Pure black was a bit too sharp for the belt so I settled on the same dark gray used on the boot straps. Next step is filling in the remaining white armor bits and touching up a few things so I can start shadows and highlights. I need to get this mini done by next week for a campaign, but don't want to rush through it. Thanks for the advice so far!

[chaosscorpion]

Looking very nice.

Maybe some flame looking glyphs or free hand flames on the face of the base would set it off.

[haldir]

Cool idea with the genasi theme.

Great work so far.

[ZabbyMonky]

I loved this cloak until I started painting it. I've only painted one other cloak before and it was a smooth flowing cape on a wizard. The left side of this cloak is full of so much texture, but the right side is so flat that it was challenging balancing the paint styles. I'm happy with the shading, but wish the highlights didn't look so speckled in spots. Then again, it's supposed to be travel worn and shredded, so perhaps it works?

[chaosscorpion]

I think you did a great job with the cloak.

[buglips*the*goblin]

This isn't the D&D I know, but you sure make it look good with that paint.

I recognize Genasi from Planescape.

Fantastic basework, ZabbyMonky. I wish my fire/lava bases turned out like that, instead of semi-monochrome candy canes.

Mmmm . . . devilicious.



ETA: The work is doubly impressive seeing's how you're using a cheap Michaels 0. I went there recently with a friend, and thought I might pick up a few cheap brushes for hard duty - but when I saw what they had my face locked into a grimace that lasted hours.

When you get them Kolinskys, I bet your paintjobs will get mindblowing.