New Project: Shannon

So, this is the other figure for my diorama for ReaperCon. This is Shannon Stormhand. I've been working on prepping her, which is why I haven't posted - prep doesn't photograph well. Now, obviously, I've started painting her. This is just a base coat of her skin tone, which is RMS Tanned Highlight.

The back looks a bit funny because there's another piece to the figure - the back of her throne, which I'm painting separately.

I think I'm going to need to start on the base for the diorama as well. First will be sizing it, which I'll work on next time, hopefully.

Dena: Done!

Or close to it. I have a bit of touch-up to do in a couple spots, but I think that's it.

Demo Reds Done

Put some highlights on my demo red guy today. Definitely not my best red ever, but not really meant to be. I used a couple different colors to highlight with.

Demo Reds

I wasn't up for working on pieces I wanted to do a real good job on tonight, so I went back to my sample reds piece for my ReaperCon difficult colors class. I've shaded different parts with different colors: blue-ish purple, brown, and darker red. The different...doesn't show that much.

Later I'll highlight him a couple different ways.

Dena: Steel, Bits

Put a bit of brighter highlight into Dena's hair, smoothed a bit of the leather, and shaded the steel.

I'm not real happy with the NMM, but it never looks right until it gets highlights.

Dena: Leather, Steel

So I did the shading and highlights on Dena's leathers. Some of the highlights could be a bit smoother; I'll probably go back to that and clean it up a bit. Also put the base coat on the steel parts.

Definitely need to put one more level of highlight on that hair.

Dena: Clothes, Leather

Highlighted Dena's top and arm wraps and base coated her boots, gloves, and straps. Going to have to make sure the glove and boot still look distinct. I might also put a brighter highlight in her hair.

She's coming along. It'll take a few more sessions, but not a ton. It's kind of nice to have a small, simple figure to work on. Oh, that spot on her neck is just dust. It's gone now.

Dena: Hair, Face, Bikini

Continued work on Dena today. Did her hair and face. Hair's definitely done. I might tweak her face details a little more. I also started on her clothing, such as it is. It's almost done, but there's not much to it. I haven't decided if I'll do her armor or boots and glove next.

12!

The hunter and his base are finally done. The swamp base isn't awesome, but I learned some things from doing it, which was the point.I'm pretty happy with how the grass came out. Long grass has generally been hard for me.

Started working on my red example for my ReaperCon class on difficult colors. Haven't quite decided where to put what different techniques.

And lastly, worked on Dena's skin. I've done all the shading and highlighting here.

Swamp base, red metal

Spent some time trying to bring a couple projects to a close. For starters, I made progress on the swamp base.

I added the grass and cat tail, painted on some scum, and then put in another layer of water. It hasn't cure yet, which is why it looks cloudy. I think if I were doing it again, I'd use some fine flock instead of just paint for the pond scum. I also think I'd like the 'dry' mud to be darker. I might go over it with some gloss to make it look wetter.

I made the cat tail by mixing white glue and brown paint with fine flock, and then putting a glob of it on a thick strand of 'grass'. There are two problems: one, I couldn't control the flock mix well enough to get the smooth, regular shape of a cat tail. Two, since I had to sit it down to dry, it's got a flat spot. So, the result isn't great, but isn't terrible, either.

And, I put some highlights on the red metal experiment. I went straight to metallic medium. It looks much better in person - no wonder everybody prefers NMM for things that are going to be photographed.

Still, for my purposes, I'm done with this guy. I have a sense for what it looks like, which is all I needed.

Dena: Skin

Started putting color on Dena today. As usual, it's the skin first. This is Tanned Skin.

Nothing too interesting yet, but hopefully this will go quickly. I did look closely at the shape of that sword at the bottom where I lengthened it with putty, and decided...I really will need to put something in from of that. It's kinda ugly. So, I'm going to scour my Bones guys for someone with a helmet that I can cut off.

Various

I worked on a few different things today, switching focus between finishing off partly done products and getting ready for my ReaperCon classes.

I started with the base for the green hunter dude. It's been a while since I talked about him. Anyway, I'm putting him on a swamp base which will be part land and part mucky water. I put in some putty to make the 'mud' part of the base and a bottom that I can paint for the water. The indents are where his feet will go. It's hard to see the depth of the piece here. This is Milliput rather than green stuff because you can smooth it with a little water.

After that, I had some putty left, so I tried making a few mushrooms. I think they're cute.

Then on to painting. I finished up the demo whites. I covered the non-white parts in brown liner to keep them from distracting from the painted whites. Then I did the shading and highlighting of the different patches. He's done, and next I'll move on to another sample piece.

Last, remember the red metallic experiment? I put some shading on that guy, in purple.

Demo Whites

In October I'm teaching four classes at ReaperCon. One of these classes is on painting black, white, and red. I'm starting to prepare for my classes, which means writing up outlines and handouts and painting demo figures. This is my demo figure for painting whites.

For me, the secret to painting whites is to not actually use white - use an off white of some tint appropriate to the rest of your color scheme. Then you can still highlight to white, but it'll usually still read as white, or at least white enough.

So I've got four areas I've base coated here, three in various not-quite-whites and one in actual white. I'll probably need to cover the other areas in some brown or something just so they don't interfere with the white samples.

This is going to be a pretty quick project, then it'll be back to other things...or possibly more samples.