Takhi: More Fur Hightlights

Continued on Takhi's fur today, bringing the highlights up a bit. I still need to go back and fiddle with the placement and getting some mid tone and mid-dark in there. I think I am liking the colors, though. I do plan to glaze over the highlights with the base color to get a little of the yellow out.

Yeah, definitely need to knock back those dark blue shadows some.

Also started on Juliette, the next quick Bones figure I'll do. She has some manufacturing defects; the surface is bad on one of her sleeves and part of her face. We'll see how much of a problem that is moving forward.

5!

Finished up Ezren today! He'll do just fine for the purpose he's intended for.

Also got back to Takhi. I started roughing in highlights on his fur. I think I might have too much highlight area, and need to go back and knock that back a bit. I was also having a hard time deciding just where to put the highlights. A lot of those fur surfaces are facing upwards. I may need to get some advice on this one.

I think I might need to bring back some middle shadows, too.

Ezren: Leather Bits

Started the various straps, pouches, and what not on Ezren. Got as far as shading it and highlighting the lighter parts. I'm hoping to finish him tomorrow.

Ezren: Robes

Finished off Ezren's robes - shaded, highlighted, put on the detail. I'm skipping some steps to save time here. For a high quality piece, I should shade and highlight the trim as well. Not going to. I'm trying to motor through this guy quickly, as I've got other projects stacking up.

Takhi & Ezren: Shaded Fur and Robes

Got back to Tahki today and continued shading his fur. I put in darker brown, and then blue.The shadow areas definitely have more contrast now, and I think the blue carries. I might have to go back and tone it down a bit on some of the edges, but I might highlight first and see how I feel about it after that.

And while I had Blue Liner on my palette, I put some quick shading on Ezren's robes. I will probably go back and put a darker shadow in a few places.

Adepticon Roundup, Class with Kiril, and Ezren: Robes

Yes, it has been a while. I went to Adepticon, went to a two day workshop taught by Kiril 'Yellow One' Kanaev, and just got home and back to painting today.

First: Adepticon. Had a good time, took a bunch of classes in various techniques that I don't expect to adopt wholesale, but will practice with and add parts in to my techniques. I took classes in wet blending, mini sketching, NMM, textures, scene composition, and weathering. As far as Crystal Brush goes, I entered Jaheda. I made first cut in the judging, but didn't make it in to the online voting. This doesn't surprise me at all. There were many entries and it was very, very competitive.

Next: Workshop with Kiril. This was a two day intensive workshop. The first day, we worked on painting a face. The second day, the class split into one group that continued on their faces and a second group that worked on textures. I went to the texture group.

We were working with a bust that is much larger than what I usually paint. Here it is with Trista for scale:

In the face segment, Kiril gave a short lecture on face details. Then we each chose a picture to use as a model. The task was to copy the colors and patterns of the face in the picture on to the bust. It led to a lot of faces being painted in colors that you wouldn't necessarily think of when you think 'skin tones' It was very much about paying attention to what you actually see, not what you think you see.

Here's my picture:

You can see that Tarkin there is surprisingly yellow/green, when you really look at him, with purples around his eyes and reds across his nose and cheeks.

Here's the bust:

The second day was textures - rough cloth, metal, fur, and leather. You can see the demo and practice sections on the bust. The cloth textures I think I get the idea of, but will need lots of practice to do effectively. The metal I think I got pretty well. Leather, I'll have to work with. The fur...I totally didn't get.

In any case, it's a lot to think about and work with. I'm not sure how much will apply to smaller figures, but I think at least some.

Lastly, I got back to Ezren tonight. Put details on his sleeves and started on the robes. I am continuing to power through him as quick as I can.

Tomorrow I might get back to Takhi. I'm re-thinking the fur a little bit in light of what I learned(?) at the workshop, but I'm not sure yet if I'm going to do anything differently or not. Kiril's fur didn't really click with me.