Back to the Genie

Went back to Naseer today. Put shading and highlights on his vest, turban, and belt. I may do some freehand on the back of the vest, but first I need to pick a pattern and practice it. So, I might start on the smoke first. One of the painted versions on the Reaper site does it as glowing smoke...I may also try something like that. Haven't decided yet.

Higher Highlights, Deeper Shadows

More on the lizard men today. I remembered some advice I got at ReaperCon for pushing shadows and highlights - go to what you think it right, and then push it one more level and see what you think. So, in honor of that, I took the highlights on their skin to bright yellow. It's better.

Also put the shading on their heads and did some of the detail work - eyes, teeth, claws.

Lizardmen Closeups

Brightened up the highlights on the lizardmen. I mixed some yellow with the lighter green to get the color. Could have gone to straight yellow, too. The idea is, with cool purple in the shadows and highlights made warmer by the yellow, it adds contrast and interest. I also brought more of the base color back in with some targeted glazing. Last, I put the red on their crests and heads.

Since these are the only thing I worked on tonight, I got some close-ups instead of the group shot.

Lots 'o stuff

More texture practice. Tried different spacing, length, and depth of the marks.

Darkened the shadows on the lizardmen's skin, and put on a highlight. I think I'll probably hit it with a brighter, narrower highlight, then maybe glaze the whole thing with the base color to smooth it out a bit. They're meant to be gaming quality, so I don't want to spend a ton of time on it.

And, base coated the Djinn's clothing. I looked him up on the Reaper site, and it turns out his name is Naseer.

Lizardmen, mostly

I did a tiny bit of work on the djinn, just highlighted his beard and eyebrows.

Spent most of the time working on the lizardmen. I was shading the skin.

I haven't done a lot of work on their heads. I'm using a color scheme I had on a previous lizard man, and when I went back and looked at the photo, it turned out I'd made his head read and orange. Here's the model I'm using for my colors:

So, the head, crests, and texture on the arms and legs will be going to red/orange.

Djinn progress

Worked on his skin. I hesitate to call it finished, but it's pretty close. I might do a little smoothing and touch-up, but that's it.

I'll finish his hair (well, eyebrows and goatee), and then I have some color choices to make. He's got a belt, turban, and vest. I'll probably make the belt and turban the same color, if not all three. Then there's the smoke cloud he's forming out of...I'm kinda thinking some kind of dark bluish or purplish gray for that. For the belt, vest, and turban, I'm thinking maybe red/blue, red/purple, or red/orange. Blue or purple on the vest would let me tie that color in with the blue or purple in the smoke. And, he's already got purple in the shadows of his flesh tone.

I did not paint today

But I did work on stuff. I pulled out the Green Stuff today. Did some work on textures. This is meant to be tree bark. I have to work on it a little more, but it could be worse. I'm working on tree bark in preparation for a little sculpt I want to do, one of these days.

And, I used a bit of the green stuff to fix casting problems with a couple of the vestals. The little green bitsare the parts I repaired - it was just a sword tip and a tip of the other vestal's crown that didn't quite cast correctly.

I also cleaned up a couple recently purchased minis, but that's not terribly interesting to look at, so no pictures there.

40!

Finished the critter. He is the Eye Slug, a sidekick by Bombshell Minis. I brightened up the red and put in the eye, which has been covered with a bit of gloss sealer. I'm pretty happy with him.

Also started some new stuff. First, the djinn that I'd started in preparation for ReaperCon and never worked on. I'll see about getting him finished up and off the table...he's been sitting there this whole time with that vaguely disapproving stare...

I've shaded his skin with first RMS Dark Shadow, then Dark Sahdow + RMS Nightshade Purple.

And, some lizardmen. I did a bunch of lizardmen a year or two ago that were swamp dwellers. These are jungle dwellers, so I plan on giving them bright colors. I have a whole tribe's worth of them, so I will be doing lizardmen for a while.

Critter

I was debating what color to make this guy, and my husband said 'make him look like my car'. Said car looks black, or purple, or burgundy, depending on the light and how you look at it. So, this is my attempt to replicate that. It's a base purple with darker, almost black shadows, and red highlights. I think I need to bring the reds up a bit.

39!

Worked on a lot of stuff tonight, including finishing the vestal. But first, a familiar. Not much to this guy - he's tiny.

And the bat next to the vestal for scale.

And, the vestal herself. Still not thrilled with the NMM on the horn, but fussing with it did not seem to help much. So, I finished her base and will move on to the next one.

And this is the new vestal next to the first one. Differences should be noticeable in the skin (higher contrast, particularly in darker shadows), hair (higher contrast, different treatment of the highlights), and base (higher contrast). Not sure how much it shows in the pictures. I need to spend some time comparing them in person and deciding what worked and what didn't.

And started this little guy tonight, another sidekick from the Bombshell line.He'll get dark shadows, probably going to black, and highlights going to red. We'll see how that looks.

Vestal almost done

Only worked on the vestal tonight, but she's mostly done. Just gotta finish the base tomorrow.

I may go back and work on the horn a bit more. Some of the highlights look a bit too much like stripes.

37!

Blood vestal at the bottom.

Finished up the zombies. They seem suitably grotesque to me.

And, the next highlight on the blood vestal's gold armor. I think this armor is not going to come out as well as on the first one.