Cowboy: Coat, part 7(!)

Finished up the back of the coat today.

With the back done, I may briefly change direction and do the rifle that goes on his back. That way, when the front of the coat is done he'll be done.

Cowboy: Coat, Part 6

Shading on the other half of the back.

Cowboy, Part 5

I'm afraid that until the coat is done, this is going to be very repetitive. This is the highlights and the midtone of the lower coat section.

Next will be the shadows on the rest of the back of the coat.

Cowboy: Coat, Part 4

More texturing on the coat. The second sleeve didn't come out as well -- the shadow colors are off. I tried various means of fixing it, but it still doesn't match. A risk of working on something in sections like this.

The back panel isn't finished. It's got the shadows in and the first round highlight color. Note that the highlight color goes right up to the shadows. I'll be bringing the midtone back in by texturing it in the proper area. I'll also put on a brighter highlight limited in area, as well.

Next time will be finishing off that panel, then doing the rest of the back side of the coat.

Cowboy: Coat, Part 3

Continued on texturing/shading/highlighting the cowboy's coat.

I flip back and forth between liking it, and thinking it's kind of a mess. Be that as it may, I intend to continue. It's going to take quite a while. Next time I'll finish the other arm and then move on to the back.

Cowboy: Coat, Part 2

Started the texture on the coat today. I did just a small area to see how it was going to look.

So far I think I'm liking it. It does take some fussing to get the right balance of shadow and highlight, and I think the front part might still have a bit too much highlight. The way I've been doing this is to texture in the shadows in a wider area than I normally would put shadow, then do the highlight color over the rest, then go back in the midtone with the base color so that the whole thing has the texture over it. Then, it's adjust how much shadow, highlight, and midtone are showing, and where.

Cowboy: Coat

I got the base coat on his coat in today, after turkey.

Next will come the shading and highlighting on that. I'm still thinking I'll texture it, making it like canvas/oilcloth. However, it's a lot of coat, so realistically I might give up that plan part way through. We'll see.

After the coat will be the rifle that goes on his back, and then finishing the base.

Cowboy: Boots, Gun

Added a bit more highlights to his boots, and then worked on his gun.

The highlights on his gun aren't showing up very well. They're up to white on the edges and corners, and that isn't really showing. I may revisit that later to make sure that the highlights are up enough.

Next is the coat - finish the base coat, then shade and highlight with texture.

Cowboy: Gun Belt, Boots

Back to the cowboy! I worked on the gun belt and his boots today.

I think I need to add a couple more spots of highlight to the outside of that left boot, but other than that I'm pretty satisfied with it. I want them to look slightly shiny, but not super glossy or anything.

I need to make that adjustment to the boots and then shade and highlight the band on his hat. After that, I'll probably work on his gun, and leave the coat for last.

21!

Finished up the bear today. I'm not super fond of how the pink came out. But, he's done, and I'll get back to the cowboy shortly.

Bear

I wanted to get some painting in tonight, but I've had a long week and didn't really feel like working on something that I was going to put a lot of thought and care into. So, I skipped the cowboy and started this grizzly bear with a battle axe instead.

Obviously, he's not done, but I think I made reasonable progress. He's not going to be a high quality piece, but that's OK. This one is just for fun. I'm not trying to accomplish anything in particular.

Why is he wearing pink? Well, it's a grizzly bear. With an axe. Are you really going to second guess his wardrobe choices?

I mean for it to be a darker pink, more toward magenta, but the color I chose was pretty thing, didn't cover well, and didn't get along with the plastic. So I've undercoated with a thicker paint that covers much better, and I'll go over it with the darker pink that I really want later.

Cowboy: Pants, belts, vest

I did not actually get much done this time. I've toned down the highlights on his pants with a few glazes, tried base coating the belts on his pants to a lighter brown, and popped up the highlights on his vest a bit. I would rather the vest had a bit of shine to it. The pants shouldn't. I'm still undecided about the lighter belts, but I think I like it.

Cowboy: Pants

Continued on with highlighting the cowboy's pants.

I'm not sure I like the vertical highlights on the sides. I'm also wondering if I made the highlights too light. That's pretty typical, and the answer is almost always no, they are not too light. If anything, it probably means I need to make the highlights on the rest lighter.

Cowboy: Vest, Pants

Today I finished off the cowboy's vest and those leather straps, and then started on his pants.

I put stripes on his vest, which worked much better than the dots. I put some texture on the edges of the leather straps and finished highlighting them. Then I moved on to shading and highlighting his pants. I need a round of brighter highlights, and also to reduce the size of the existing highlight in some places. They're too broad, and I need to bring in more mid tone, particularly along the back of his legs.

Cowboy: Vest, Straps, and Such

I started with some freehand on the cowboy's vest today. I went with gold spots, and here's the result.

I was not happy with the results. The spots are too much like the buttons, so it all gets kinda messy. So, I got rid of them. While debating whether to leave it without any freehand or put on stripes, I worked on his ammo belt and the other strap there (also the buttons on the vest are now silver, and I did the watch and chain).

The belts aren't quite done. They need some more highlight and some weathering. But, I am kinda liking doing a section to completion.

Cowboy: Shirt, Vest

Today I worked on his shirt and vest, doing shading and highlighting on them both.

The shirt is done. The vest still needs work. I tried doing the buttons in black, and they're just getting lost. They need to be silver instead. Also, I was thinking of putting some freehand on there, which I didn't get to tonight. That may be a little risky - if I mess it up, I'll have to start the vest over. At least it's not a very big area.

I did something I rarely do - I shaded the white shirt with gray. Usually I avoid that; shading white with gray tends to make it look dirty or, well, gray. In this case, I went with it because:

* the browns I'd usually use were too close in color to the coat, so it all kind mashed together.
* the grays are also being used on the hat and pants, so it'll help bring together the different areas of the mini.
* it's the old west. It's OK if he looks a little dirty.

Oh, I also went back and re-did the highlighting on the hat in the same family of grays I'm using for the pants and shirt. I think it would have been OK as it was, but this is better.

Cowboy: Color testing.

I did color testing with the cowboy today. This was just base coating the other areas of the figure with the colors I'm thinking of using to see how it all goes together.

I don't quite love it, but I think it'll work. I do need to pick a lighter or darker color for the belts; it doesn't stand out enough. I'd been planning on putting a pattern on the vest in gold, and I will also have to put some more thought into that - yellow/gold might be too close to the color of the coat.

And I probably will redo the highlight on his hat with these other grays.

Cowboy: Hat, Shirt

I moved on to the cowboy's hat and shirt, and spent a whole lot of time fighting with them.

I started with the hat, which got a base coat of my favorite not-quite-black, Reaper MSP Noir Black. That was all well and good. (The band I'm going to make the same color as the various other leather straps and belts, so I'll come back to it when I do those.)

The trouble started with highlighting the hat. I started with some desaturated blues, but they weren't desaturated enough and looked...blue. So I painted over it and thought about it while base coating the shirt.

I had picked out what I wanted to be a cool off-white. Instead, on the figure, it looks kinda...pink. Well, I stuck with it until I could get some shading and highlights on there, hoping that would help.

Then, I decided to go with the Dark Elf Flesh Reaper MSP triad for highlights on the hat. It's gray with a bit of purple, and usually works well for me. It's also in the same family of colors as the off-white I used for the shirt, so hopefully that would bring a little cohesion to the color palette and make the shirt look less pink.

I fought with the placement of the shadows for a while, particularly the one on the front of the brim. I'm mostly happy with it now, but need to bring the brightest highlight color a bit father back.

So then I did some experimental shading and highlighting on the shirt. It was pretty rough, just meant to help determine if it was going to look less pink when finished or not. The short answer: Nope. Dude currently has a pink shirt.

So, next time I'm going to go over the shirt again with a different base color. I'm also rethinking the highlight colors on the hat, as I'm thinking I'll do his pants in a charcoal gray, and if I use something other than that Dark Elf skin color, I'll probably want to use the pants colors on the hat. Luckily, once I figured out where I want the highlights to be on the hat, it doesn't take too long.

Hrm. Maybe next time I'll just do some more base coats of different areas instead, so I can make sure I'm happy with the color palette before I start on shading and highlighting.

Cowboy: 5 o'clock shadow, hair.

Today I continued detailing the cowboy's face and did the hair. He got eyebrows, and I tweaked his right eye so that he looks less cross-eyed from angles that looked a bit off before. I also gave him a a little beard scruff.

I tried putting some texture in the beard. I'm not sure if I like how that turned out or not. Up close, it seems like the texture isn't fine enough, and is too granular. However, from a distance it's OK. I am noticing in the front-on picture, the beard area isn't quite even on both sides, and I'll have to fix that next time. I might see if I can bring some definition back to his lips, too. That's kind of tricky with this sculpt. There isn't much to the lips in the sculpt itself, so it really needs help with paint.

Cowboy: Skin, Face Details

Shaded and highlighted the cowboy's skin today, and worked on details on his face. His face isn't quite done. I want to give him a 5 o'clock shadow, and I'm thinking I may work on his eyes a little more.

20!

Here's the Werecroc, all finished. By which I mean, I painted his base, but did not do any additional shading and highlighting. I decided it looked fine, at least it seems good enough for table top.

I also started on another piece. This is one of the Thief of Hearts figures from Dark Sword miniatures. It came out of the box of stuff I prepped and primed years ago. That makes me sad - I'm sure it was not a cheap figure, but it's got fuzzy primer syndrome. I went over it with some brush-on sealer to try to minimize that.

All the painted versions of this figure that I've seen went with dark hair, skin, and cloth. So, I'm going to go with lighter colors. This base skin tone is Reaper HD Elf Flesh, which I haven't used before. It's sort of a yellow-y pink. I'd originally been thinking I'd make her blonde, but I suspect red will go better with that skin tone. Or...maybe I'll give her a non-traditional hair color. Purple. Or blue. Something.

I also worked a little on the cowboy, just adding a first round of shadow on his skin.