Faragdar the Wise
Commander
3547 Posts
    
Albuquerque, NM, USA
 | | 05/14/2007 7:36 PM |
| I've long wanted to get into painting miniatures, but it took the Magical Mystery Trade (TM) to encourage me to finally do it.
The new Large Ice Elemental inspired me to repaint one of my Bonded Fire Summoners. I've reimagined him as a Bonded Ice Summoner. I was pleased with the results, though the close up photos are cruel. I'll probably go back to touch up the face (which was crappy to begin with, on this particular mini), remaining red spots and work on my "dry brushing" technique with the light blue highlights, but here it is:
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Pedro
Commander
3926 Posts
Czech Republic
| | 05/15/2007 8:22 AM |
| | I think it looks good! Nice work. | |
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yack
Commander
3321 Posts
Gatineau Canada
| | 05/15/2007 9:09 AM |
| | It looks good keep up the good work...... nice idea. | |
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Faragdar the Wise
Commander
3547 Posts
Albuquerque, NM, USA
| | 05/15/2007 11:17 PM |
| | Thanks. Maybe I'm too much of a perfectionist. | |
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zenthrus
Warlord
5132 Posts
SLC, UT
| | 05/16/2007 5:01 AM |
| The color scheme is very nice. It looks great next to the Large Ice Elemental.
Some feedback if you don't object:
1) Thin your paints. I would suggest adding more water to the paint mixture. Some of the brush strokes are visible which should be reduced by thinner paint mixes.
2) When drybrushing, use a dedicated brush (since it will be ruined for detail painting). Dip into the paint then brush off onto a paper towel or your palette until there is almost no paint left on the brush. That should put more paint on the high areas and help the paint look a little less thick.
3) I would suggest a very thin (mixed so it looks like runny skim milk) blackwash to further bring out the details. | |
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jacksonm
Warlord
5560 Posts
River City
| | 05/16/2007 7:17 AM |
| Nice work. Thanks for sharing.  | | | |
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Cthulhufnord
Warlord
11113 Posts
Umass Amherst Baby!
| | 05/16/2007 11:10 PM |
| For a first minature it's quite good. | |
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Thenameless
Warlord
12507 Posts
The Fortress of Solitude
| | 05/17/2007 2:14 AM |
| | Hey Brian, that's pretty good. Keep running with it. | |
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Wolfgang
Warlord
6637 Posts
Milton, Ontario Canada
| | 05/17/2007 11:40 AM |
| | way to go my friend just don't expect something that good when you get my part of the MMT!!!! | |
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Faragdar the Wise
Commander
3547 Posts
Albuquerque, NM, USA
| | 05/18/2007 3:55 PM |
| Posted By zenthrus on 05/16/2007 5:01 AM
The color scheme is very nice. It looks great next to the Large Ice Elemental.
Some feedback if you don't object:
1) Thin your paints. I would suggest adding more water to the paint mixture. Some of the brush strokes are visible which should be reduced by thinner paint mixes.
2) When drybrushing, use a dedicated brush (since it will be ruined for detail painting). Dip into the paint then brush off onto a paper towel or your palette until there is almost no paint left on the brush. That should put more paint on the high areas and help the paint look a little less thick.
3) I would suggest a very thin mixed so it looks like runny skim milk) blackwash to further bring out the details. Thanks. I knew I didn't really do it right when I tried to add the light blue highlights. I just got my hands on a Games Workshop painting guide, so that'll help improve my technique. One thing I didn't know was that dry brushing would ruin a brush. I was told by a local miniature painter that I should just use a cheap, crappy brush for dry brushing. That reminds me that I need to get over to Hobby Lobby while their brush sets are 50% off.
You recommend a "blackwash"? Advice I've gotten locally and from the painting guide is to do a wash with a darker version of the base coat. | |
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish." - Albert Einstein
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zenthrus
Warlord
5132 Posts
SLC, UT
| | 05/18/2007 6:59 PM |
| Posted By Faragdar the Wise on 05/18/2007 3:55 PM
One thing I didn't know was that dry brushing would ruin a brush. I was told by a local miniature painter that I should just use a cheap, crappy brush for dry brushing. That reminds me that I need to get over to Hobby Lobby while their brush sets are 50% off.
You recommend a "blackwash"? Advice I've gotten locally and from the painting guide is to do a wash with a darker version of the base coat. The reason everyone recommends cheap brushes is because the brushes are going to be ruined (drybrushing causes the bristles to seperate, thus rendering the brush useless for painting detail).
Blackwash (extremely thin mix of black paint or ink and water) is useful for bringing out highlights and emphasizing shadowed areas (such as the folds in the BFS's robe).
In most circumstances washes are used to quickly blend colors which is why the most common practice is to wash using a darker version of the base coat. Your colors are blended decently enough, however, greater contrast between the depths and relief would be striking.
Slightly different uses for each type of wash. If you're particularly daring you'll get superior results from washing with a very dark version of the complimentary opposite from the color wheel (wash red if your base coat is green). This is rather tricky but yields phenomenal results. I don't know if I'd try this with a Blue color theme, however, since I'm not very comfortable mixing oranges.
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guacamole
Sneak
134 Posts
| | 06/14/2007 8:09 PM |
| That is a valiant first effort. Dry brushing human sized 28mm figs can be hard work without messing up alot of your painting. This is how I would approach this figure with the color scheme you want to use:
1. Base coat entire figure dark grey. I would paint this right on using grey thinned to the consistency of milk. It will take a couple of coats to get a smoothly colored base coat but it will be worth it to not cover up the details.
2. Use a wash of black to darken the deepest recesses.  I use a wash made up of 50% water, 50% acrylic solution (future floor acrylic), 1 tiny drop of rubbing alcohol to break up the water tension and only a couple of drops of black ink. The wash should be really thin. This is frequently refered to as "magic wash" in other places. I find the base mix, without the alcohol, to be useful for thining paints. The acrylic solution will give a shine to your figure but a flat varnish will fix that. Don't suck on your brush once you use it in rubbing alcohol.
3. "Over brush" your base coat again, making sure to leave the black showing in the recesses. Overbrushing is similar to dry brushing except that you leave obvious visible paint on the brush.Â
4. Dry brush a lighter shade of grey onto the higher surfaces over the entire figure. Make sure to leave your base coat showing in the recesses.
5. Dry brush an even lighter shade of grey onto the highest recesses.Â
6. If you want, use white for the highest highlights on figure. The overall point to steps 1-6 is to create a grayscale model over which you will apply further thinner shades of paint. When overbrushing and drybrushing, try as much as possible to go at as close to a 90% angle to the texture of the figure. That way you keep your highlight colors on the heights rather than in the recesses.
7. Use blue ink and go CAREFULLY back over the robes. You'll find that the blue ink will blend the gray scale together making a nicely shaded blue robe.Â
8. Re-highlight robes using lighter shades of blue as much as you like.Â
While that is 8 steps, they go by fairly quickly if you are patient with the dry brushing. Remember, it is easier to add more paint than to try and go back and fix too much paint.Â
The rest of the figure will still be in gray scale, brown inks/paints thinned to let the gray scale show through will blend hair and wood textures. Flesh colors appropriately thinned will make the grey scale skin tone appropriate though this might require a little more fiddling. Anything you want to be metallic should be repainted black because metallics go over black better than grey or white.Â
I'll try and put up some of the figures that I've used this technique on. If I have time this week, I will do a tutorial with a large blue dragon.Â
cheers,
guaca.
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vanrulzz
Commander
2778 Posts
¯\(°_o)/¯
| | 06/15/2007 11:20 AM |
| | nice! | | | |
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WakeXX
Warlord
10152 Posts
Edinboro PA
| | 06/15/2007 11:44 PM |
| | Not half bad | | | |
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