Karzoug: Shoes, staff, buttons

I've started working on the fiddly bits on this front. Today, that means his shoes, buttons, staff, and ends of...I'm going with 'scroll case' on his belt. Why those? Because I made them the same color.

Karzoug: Robes Re-re-redux.

But hopefully, I'm done with this part now. At least at the moment I'm much more content with the way it looks.

I glazed the highlights down to make them more orange instead of yellow. I darkened the shadow purple just a hair with a glaze, and also worked on smoothing the transition from mid-tone to shadow in that spot under his knees a bit. The robe actually reads much more like orange now, rather than a weird mix of colors. It still may turn out to be a poor choice.

Also did the gems on his forehead and the backs of his hands.

Why isn't the back of the outer robe painted? Well, this guy isn't very stable on the film canister, so I end up bracing the back of the figure against my finger as I work on it. So, there's been lots of primer rub-off. So, instead of doing what I'd usually do and paint the whole outer robe all at once, I'm going to do everything on the front side of the figure, then come back and do the robe last so hopefully I can avoid having to fix rubber-off paint later.

I think next I may do his staff.

Karzoug: Robes, Re-redux

Tried again. Also, put the base color I plan to use on the inside of the outer robe so I could see how the orange and purple looks with the surrounding color. Sometimes that makes a big difference.

Still not loving it. I think I need to either move forward anyway and let the chips fall where they may on this one, or abandon the purple shadows. I may try darkening that purple a bit with a glaze.

Karzoug: Robes, Redux

After getting some feedback from friends, I totally redid the shading and highlighting on his orange robe. The shading I did in a lighter version of the same blue/purple. The highlighting, I moved a bit and took up a little brighter. I think there's still a little touch-up and smoothing that can be done in a couple places (I'm looking at you, left sleeve), but I do think this is better. Still not sold on it; that purple is still an awful lot of contrast.

Karzoug: Robes

I put the deeper shadow and some highlights on his robe. I dunno, I'm not loving it. That patch of shadows below his knees is a little muddy. I haven't finished the highlights  - they need to be smoothed and brightened. But I'm really wondering if I'm going to right direction with this.

Had more success with tree-making over the weekend. I put some heavy gel on the trunk, wrapped it with gauze, then put more gel on top of that and over the wire branches. There are definitely some flaws; the diameter of the trunk and the branches is out of proportion. Also, the gel surface is a bit rougher than it should be in some places. But for a first try, I don't think it's too bad. Next one, I'm going to try using foam as the basis for the trunk, try to make the top look like it's broken off, and try to fix the proportion problems.

Karzoug: Hair, Robes

Finished his hair, base coated the robes and put in a first rough round of shadow. Looks like I got a bit of orange on his face. Going to have to go back and fix that. Still not sure about the highlights on his cheekbones. I keep thinking they might be too light.

I also realized this figure demonstrates one of my pet peeves - bits that go nowhere and attach to nothing. That scarf thing on his right shoulder? Doesn't go anywhere on the back side. Going to have to take a look to see how other people have handled that.

Also worked on tree building. The goal for this one is just to see if I can get the shape I want and make it look decent. It's not the one I intend to use. I'll have to be a lot more careful with placement of branches on that one.

I think the overall shape is decent. I'm going to cover it with heavy gel and gauze to hide the wires and hopefully give it the appropriate texture.

Karzoug: Eyes and Hair

I spent most of my time on his eyes tonight. They're still not great. Also base coated his hair. I'd been hoping those things would help start pulling him together, but I don't think that's happening yet.

Karzoug: Skin highlights

I cleaned up the shadows a bit and made them less dark in a few spots. Then I put on the highlights. I think I need to smooth a couple more spots. I'm hoping that once his eyes and hair go in he'll look a little better.

Karzoug: Flesh with Shadow

Started Karzoug. Put a base coat on his skin and started on the shading. I'm going to have to go back and adjust it - the deepest shadows are too broad, and I need to bring back more of the intermediate shadow. I also put some - okay, a fair bit - of purple into his deepest shadows.

Man, but he has a craggy face.

Also started on the practice dummies. I'm going to paint them both then decide which to use.

5!

Here is the lizard man, base and all.

Now I'm done with this batch of lizard men (yay!), and I can focus on my ReaperCon pieces.

Lizardman: Mount Part 2

I've finished the paint on him. Next will be his base.

Lizardman: Mount

Start working on the lizard man's ride today.

Next, I'll shade the areas that are going to stay purple as well as the green scales.

Lizardman: Saddle & Shield

Actually did this yesterday. I've finished off the lizard man himself. He's pretty rough, but done enough. Now I have to move on to his mount.

I also made a crystal for Karzoug's staff, and replaced the flaming blade. He's also been primed. There is still some cleaning a prep to be done on this guy - next I'm going to hit some of the rough spots with sealer to see if that helps.

Lizardman: Saddle

Remember this guy? Still trying to get him finished. Still to table top at best quality. Today I worked on his saddle. I still have to do some detailing on it.

I also did some work on the floating wizard today, but I was just cleaning him up and putting him on pins. Not terribly interesting. I'll prime him tomorrow, but I'm still going to focus on trying to get this guy done.

Competition Pieces: Refining the Layout

So, based on some feedback on the floating mage piece, I worked on making the base smaller. There was going to be an awful lot of empty space around the figure with yesterday's layouts. These are all a partial pentagram on a 1.5" square base, with the candles and figures in different positions.

Of these, I like the second and third best - figure in from with tall candles in back, or figure in back with small candles in front.

Competition Pieces: Rough Layout Studies

I didn't paint at all today. Instead, since some of my materials for my competition pieces for ReaperCon got here, I was playing around with layout for those items.

This is just blocking in rough layout so that I can determine the size and shape of the bases that I want to use, decide if I need more/different components, and determine what sizing I need for items I'm going to build. None of this is final, and it definitely isn't pretty.

First, the diorama. This is going to be this ranger in camp, practicing sword play while her raccoon familiar was poking around in her pack for food. The familiar has noticed that an imp is about to attack the camp.

Of course, since everything is still metal, white, or green stuff, it's pretty hard to see. The round bit is not the base I'll be using, it's for sizing. The tree and related parts are definitely not the final, but still there to show rough location.

What I've learned from this is that I probably can get the imp in the tree in a way that will be reasonably sturdy. I wasn't sure. But that figure isn't very heavy and I think between his tail, foot, and spear, I can get 2 or maybe 3 points where I can attach him, if I'm careful positioning him and the tree branches. Which brings me to the other things I learned - I'm going to have to be careful how I position him and what angles the tree branches are at. I may even have to kind of build them together.

Second, I've got a single figure I'll be doing. Again, it's kind of hard to see everything.

I'm going to swap out that flaming blade for something else. There are going to be two of the tall candlesticks in the back, it's just that I've only made one so far. It originally had three candles sticking up, which I cut off. That gave me the little candles I've picked out in the front, at the corners of the pentagram. I wasn't originally going to do anything like that, but since I ended up with those little candles anyway, why not?

I may or may not put the little cat familiar in. It might be too much.

This one is going to be much simpler to make. I think I'm pretty happy with the layout here, I just have to do it.

Lizardman: Spear, Saddle

This is actually work I did on this guy both Sunday and today. He's pretty much there. I need to shade and highlight the saddle and then do his shield, which isn't pictured. I'm also going to have a ton of touch-up to do around that saddle. It's very difficult to get the brush in around it without slopping paint all over.

That means I'll need to start working on his mount pretty soon. I base coated that with my airbrush. When I'm done with him, he'll be less purple, but I may still regret this color choice later.