8 replies to this topic

[arosenwald]

As a teacher, I look at lesson plans I did in my first few years of teaching and I sit back and slap my forehead as I reflect on how poor of a job I feel I did. Even though I'm still new at this, I feel the same way when I look at this paint job (but I'm putting it up anyway, at the wife's prodding).

I play an alchemist in one of the campaigns my group is in, and so naturally I painted this fig as soon as possible. That said, I'd appreciate any advice you could provide, especially in the areas of painting eyes (I've ready the "Bette Davis eyes" article, so anything else would be good) and hair. I will go on record as saying that I feel like the picture doesn't do it justice, but I'm working on that ;)

As always, feedback is appreciated.

[MRyka]

Trust me- the wife- that this picture doesnt do the fig justice. The vials are amazing as is the shading overall.

[Gailbraithe]

That's pretty good. Needs more shading.

The Bette Davis Eyes technique is pretty good, but its real easy to ruin the eyes while painting the face. A little runaway wash can spoil your whole day. I like to save eyes for last.

The technique I use most often works like this:

1. Paint the entire eye and eye socket area (eyelids, etc.) with the base color of your model's flesh tone. Since I use Reaper Master Series Paints, this would be the Shadow for whatever flesh tone I'm using.
2. Paint the eye and edges of eyelids with black or dark brown. I can usually accomplish this with a single short brushstroke using a 0 or 00 brush. Black if I want a very bold eye, brown if I want something more realistic and natural looking.
3. Paint the eye with white or an off-white. Reaper's Leather White works well for this.
4. Let the whole thing dry thoroughly.
5. Using an ultrafine sharpie marker, I place a dot along the white line so that there is some miniscule amount of white space below it and none above it.

[jbarron2006]

Great conversion on giving him a back pack. When I started painting him I looked at what color of coat he was wearing so I went with a leather coat. I found out that the secret to great looking mini's realy quick is to wash them. For example base coat the flesh parts elf flesh than wash them in earthshade wash and look at how that turns out just for the flesh parts.

[Gailbraithe]

Great conversion on giving him a back pack. When I started painting him I looked at what color of coat he was wearing so I went with a leather coat. I found out that the secret to great looking mini's realy quick is to wash them. For example base coat the flesh parts elf flesh than wash them in earthshade wash and look at how that turns out just for the flesh parts.

That's not a conversion. If your Damiel didn't have a packback then you were missing a piece from your package.

[jbarron2006]

That is how the customer sent it to me.

[arosenwald]

@Gailbraithe: I never thought to use a Sharpie. Thanks for the idea!

@jbarron: Thanks for the compliment, but my mini came with the backpack - no modding by me!

[ObsidianCrane]

There are problems with using sharpies.

The only thing that stands out as strange on this mini is the eyes. These days I use the Bette Davis technique for quick easy eyes & though a stray wash is a danger I'm yet to have an incident with stray wash that is not easily solved with quick application of a dry brush to suck up the extra paint.

With all that in mind you may prefer the methods described by Jen Haley here: http://www.paintrix-...p?&art=7&page=1

[klyons99]

Doing great, and your wife was right to prod you into posting. I like the vials, all the interesting little splashes of really fit with the way I view the alchemist character.