40!

And here's The Shadow, all finished. I used a pre-cast resin base of a cobblestone street and sewer grate.

Shadow: Everything but the base

Pushed to get this guy done before the end of the year. All that's left is his base, so I think I'm in good shape.

I purposely kept the highlights not very bright. It's the subject matter - he's supposed to be out at night, keeping to the...well, shadows.

Black Mist: pants, shoes, gloves, coat

Put some highlights - very sparing highlights - on his shoes, gloves, pants, and holsters. Of those, they're all meant to be leather except the pants. So, I tried to keep the highlights on the shoes, gloves, and holsters very narrow and sharp. There was hardly any highlight area on his pants at all, but I tried to make those highlights softer. I also base coated the over coat in Nightmare Black, which is really a very dark blue. Looks like I might need a couple more coats of that; in the photo booth it's not quite as opaque as I'd like.

Shadow: Pants, gloves, etc.

Today I put a base coat of Noir Black on this guy's shoes, gloves, pants, and the holsters. Noir Black is just a hair lighter than a deep black. His hat and cloak are going to be purple that's not quite black, and the coat will be blue that's not quite black.

Also worked on a base for a different figure. This is going to be a 'beach' base. Part sand, and some water. I used sandy paste to fill in the base, but put it on a slope. I'll fill in the 'shallow' end with water effects. Haven't decided what water effects to use yet.

Black Mist: Face

Finally, back to it. This is the guy I was using to do some blending lessons for friends a couple months ago. Now I'm going to go back and finish it up. That's going to involve painting the cloak...not bright blue. I have note-quite-blacks of purple, blue, and at least one other color. I'm going to use those and see what happens.

But for now, I just did his face and hair. I made the skin on the dark side and kept the highlight to a minimum because his face is in pretty deep shadow under that hat. I'm probably not going to highlight the hair at all.

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.

Copper: Tints

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Beholder: Teeth, eyes

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Back from Reaper ArtistCon! (And, 37!)

So, I spent the last few days at Reaper's ArtistCon. I taught a couple of classes and worked on various things while I was done there. A good time was had by all, or at least, all that I talked to. I did come back with a fair bit of work to do, though. A number of the figures I took down were damaged in transit on the way back. So, I have some repair work to do there. :(

While I was at Reaper I did this little guy:

Also started on this ghost lady. She's all base coated, but no (well, almost no) shading has been done. Usually I do a bit, shade and highlight that bit, then go to the next bit. Well, I started working on her near the end of the trip when I was very tired and not up for detail work. So I just base coated.

I'm experimenting here. I'm going to try shading everything with the same color, and possibly glaze the whole thing with that same color to give the whole figure the same sort of tone. We'll see.

36!

Finished the base for the lizard man, so he's done. Only one more of these guys left!

Lizard Man: armor, spear, basing

Just a bit of work tonight. Finished of the painting; all that was left was the armor and spear. Then I started with the basing and glued on the wings. I'll need to wait for the glue to dry on those things before continuing.

Lizard man: Armor, leather, spear

Finished his loin cloth and started on the last bits - the armor and the spear.