Sunday, November 30, 2014

Copper: Highlights

Put some highlights on him. They're very sparing. I did 2 rounds - plain metallic medium, which is basically white metallic, mixed with the copper, and then just a touch of the metallic medium. They looked better under directional lighting than they do in the light box.


Saturday, November 29, 2014

Copper: Tints

Put a bluish purple tint on the thin side of the shadows. Not sure if I like it or not.


Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Copper: Shadows

Put some shadows on Copper today. His left side is Red Liner. His right side is Red Shadow. I think the red shadow works better. More opaque. Less shiny. I think I'm liking it.


Sunday, November 23, 2014

Copper: Base Coat

Put the copper base coat on this guy. Not a huge difference between the red and green sides once there's a solid base coat of copper paint on. I think the red side is a bit brighter, and the green side has...I'm not sure how to put it. The shadowed areas seem a bi darker/duller. Or it might be my imagination. However, there's a big difference in how much effort it took to do that base coat. The red side took two coats, and I might have been able to get away with one. The green has about 3, and in a few spots green still shows through (No, I don't mean those very green spots on the back of his belt. Those are just pouches and things that I didn't bother covering.)

The blade of the sword had no base coat on it, and you can just make out a couple spots where the coverage isn't all it should be. I'll go back and hit that again once it's had some time to dry; I ran out of time to wait for it.



Saturday, November 22, 2014

39!

Here's the ghost, finished.



The colors on the base don't look that 'ocean-y'. It can be a pool of aether or evil dreams or...well, whatever. She's done, and I am content with her.

On that base, here's how it looked without paint. The purple carried through really strongly - more than I expected. It was less transparent than I expected. It held its shape quite well, which is nice. The only problem is that the stuff shrinks when it dries, so there were a couple cracks in it. I put some dark paint in them to hide them, but it would have been better to fill them in with more paste.


Next project is this guy. I'm going to use him to run some experiments on painting copper, which I'll be using for real on another figure. I'll tell you why he's red and green (hint: not for Christmas).

 If you take a class on metallics with Michael Proctor, he will tell you to base coat under a metallic with a plain color, because the metals tend not to cover very well, and the base color will give some depth to the metal. So, I've base coated (via airbrush) with red and green to see which under coat I like better, or if it makes a difference at all.



Wow, that red is bright.

Friday, November 21, 2014

Ghost Lady: Final Skirt Highlights, Base

Put a last, very limited round of highlight on her skirt. Or dress. Whatever it is. Also started on the base. She has kind of an ocean theme going in the colors, kind of, so I'm giving her a water base. I put some water effect gel colored with a little purple and green. It's starting to dry in these pictures.



Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Ghost Lady: Skirt Highlights

I put a first round of highlights on her dress tonight. Forgot about smoothing that line on the bodice. :p What I learned was that I've pretty much lost my mid-tone - I put the shadows in over to much area. Which I do a lot. I'm debating between whether I am going to go back and put more midtone in, or if I'm going to leave it like this. I'm kinda liking the look...well, better in person than in the photos. Either way, there's going to be a lighter rough of highlights added next time.



Sunday, November 16, 2014

38! (Nom Nom Nom!)

Finished off the beholder. There are most interesting paint jobs for this guy out there, but for quick and dirty I'm pretty happy with it. I hear he only lived for a round, though...very sad.

First picture is him next to a human. You know, just for scale...





Saturday was Paint Day. Thanks to Thrym for hosting, as always. While I was there, I put in some time on the ghost lady again. Did the bodice, and shaded the green dress. I like how it's brought out the purple tones in the shading of her skin. Might need to smooth some of the shading on the bodice, though.



Thursday, November 13, 2014

Beholder: Teeth, eyes

Finished his teeth. Put irises in the eyes; they still need some work, though. But he's pretty far along.



Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Beholder: Highlights, tongue, teeth.

Put some highlights on him, did the tongue and base coated the teeth. Also put the dark base over the eyeballs. I was originally thinking I might give this guy some stripes or something, but now I'm wondering if he might have enough going on. Hmm...maybe make the tentacles a different color...I could glaze them with a nice green or purple or something.



Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Beholder: Where did that come from?

Quick sharp turn to the left, here. Turns out, my husband's D&D group may fight a beholder in their next game. Turns out, I have one of those. So I started working on that. This is going to be a quick job, not super high quality.



So there he is with a base coat by air brush and a couple washes, one brown, one blue, for shading. He's definitely in the 'ugly' stage. Next will be cleaning that up.

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Ghost Lady: Skin, Hair

I added some more shadows to her skin around her chest and a couple spots on her hands. Also did the highlights. Then I put shading and highlighting on the hair. I think I need to pop the highlights on the skin a bit more. They looked OK live, but in the pictures they don't show enough.



Sunday, November 2, 2014

Ghost Lady: Wait, didn't it look like that yesterday?

I worked on the ghost tonight, though it might be hard to tell. I went over her hair with Dark Elf Shadow, which is a bit more purple than the Dusky Shadow I had before. I also went back over the skin and then re-shaded it with Dark Elf Highlight and Skin. I made the shadows a bit smoother and also gave them that more purple tone. I need to work on them a bit more, maybe. Some that are pretty apparent in person are not showing up well in the photos. Some don't look like they're in the right spot, but I think that's an effect of the photo lighting.