Demon: Chest shading

I got in a little bit of work today...not as much as I'd hoped, but that's pretty much every day, isn't it?

Anyway, I got a first round of shading on his chest. I've decided I am going to do region by region.

I'm going to play with a technique from the workshop I took with Sergio Calvo earlier this year. Specifically, I'm going to use his method for deciding where to place shadows and highlights. Here's what I'm going to try to do:

1.Shade and highlight the body, head, and arms as if they are each big cylinders. This will put the brightest highlights toward the center of those things, and shadows out to the sides.
2. For individual areas (like the muscles, etc.) shade and highlight as if the light source is in front of and a little above the figure. Same for that back - shade and highlight like there's a light hitting it straight on and from a little above. Realistic? Not necessarily, but the way he explained it, this helps draw the focus to the most important parts of the figure.

There are some things he taught us that I'm not going to do. For instance, in the workshop he had us base coat the figure with the first shadow color and then work up from there. What I learned is that I really, really don't like working up from dark bases. I find it difficult to see the detail, difficult to cover with the light colors...it just doesn't suit me. So I've started with my mid tone and will, as usual, work up and down from there. But I'm going to try placing shadows and highlights per what he taught us. I'm not used to thinking about it in terms of defining volumes like that, so that will be a little different for me.

Demon: Prep & Base Coat

So I have been working on stuff this week, I've just failed to post.

I got the demon bust attached to his base. Then I covered the base with tape so it wouldn't get paint on it while I worked on him. I realized about half way through the process of putting tape on it that I should have got pictures first. :p

He has armor pieces for his shoulders, and here's what he looks like with those in place.

I'm going to use the one on his right shoulder, but probably not the one on the left. The big chunky face looks kinda silly to me.

Then I primed him, and tonight put on a base coat with the air brush.

I'm not sure where I'm going to go next. I mean, I know I'm going to work on his skin, but I'm debating whether I want to do shading over the whole thing, or do something like focus on his face and get that completely done, then move on to another area.

18!

So today I got back to the Harlot and my experiment using just the Pathfinder paint set.

Then I got bored with the experiment and just slapped enough paint on her to call it done.

She is seriously lacking in contrast, both in highlight and shadow. The across-the-figure contrast isn't too bad, though it could use more darks.

The Pathfinder paint set from Reaper has a lot of really lovely saturated colors, especially in the blues and purples. The metallics also look really good. I'd definitely recommend it as a supplement to whatever you already have. However, I would not recommend it as a stand alone set, like if you were trying to find a starting set of paints for somebody new to the hobby. It's very lacking in neutral colors (browns, grays, etc.) and dark colors. It is so lacking in dark colors that I was having a hard time even finding things I could mix to make a good shadow.

In any case, that is done, and now I will be moving on to other things.

17!

Finished up the last of the doggies today. Yay!

Here's a group shot of all the dogs together:

And I also got back to the Harlot. I just base coated most everything else on her. The lack of dark colors in the Pathfinder set is about to start requiring some creative thinking. 

My plan is to get her finished up quickly and then go back to the demon bust.

Hound: Instruments

Got a little farther on the hound today.

Hound: Leather, books

Made a little progress on the hound today. I finished up the leather bits and moved on to some of his cargo.

Hound: Fur, face, shirt

Got back to the hound today. I finished off his fur and face, did his shirt, and started on the leather.

I don't expect to have a lot of time to work on him tomorrow, so I expect it'll take a couple days to finish him up.

Harlot: Face, Hair, Blouse

Put in a little work on the harlot this evening.

I'm finding that while the Pathfinder paint set has many lovely saturated colors (none of which are in evidence here - you'll see them as I move along) it's kinda short on neutrals. There's not much there in the way of browns, flesh tones, and so on. I struggled a little to get shades for her skin and hair colors I liked. As it is, I like what I have now well enough, but if I were doing a bunch of figures with just this paint set I might find the limited options in browns and other neutrals frustrating after a time.

I think I need to bring the highlights on her skin up a bit.

Hound, Strumpet

Today was a busy day at work, and when I got home I was not feeling up for working on something that I was going to want to put a lot of actual effort in to. So, I pulled something simple out of the Bin of Pre-Primed Minis. This figure is from one of the Reaper Townsfolk sets.

That is some attitude right there.

I've decided to paint this figure using entirely paints from the shiny new Pathfinder Paint sets Reaper is producing. It will add a little challenge in that it's a more limited set of colors, and they are not handily set up in triads. So, there's no obviously called out shadow color for that skin tone; I'll have to get a little creative to select (or mix) suitable tones from what's in the set.

I did want to get some work in on the dog, so I did a base coat on his fur.

16!

As expected, here's the beagle with his base finished. Also went back and detailed his little earrings, which I missed the first time around.

And I also got the next and last of the dogs ready to go:

Beagle Barbarian

As I thought, I just have to finish up his base next time.

This is probably my least favorite of the dogs to work with so far. He has a lot of detail, but it's all pretty soft and indistinct. It's hard to tell what some of it is supposed to be.

Who's a Good Boy?

Continuing on with the dog. I finished his fur and face, and whatever the body sleeve thing is he's wearing.

I'm expecting to get him done or mostly done tomorrow, with hopefully just the base left to do after that.

Beagle Barbarian, Demon

Back from ReaperCon! I won a couple of awards, which I meant to get pictures of to post here, but didn't. I'll get those tomorrow. I did quite well this year - ReaperCon Sophie got gold in Painters, the cowboy from late last year won best Scale 75 Historical, and the big one: the Noblewoman won me a gold Sophie in Painter's. It's my first gold Sophie, and I'm super thrilled!

Now that I'm back, I'm starting my next projects:

This is the next Dungeons & Doggies commission guy. I've got two left; I'm probably going to do them both and get this finished up.

And the demon bust...I don't remember if I showed pictures of him before I left or not. Anyway, I've cleaned him up, done some gap and bubble filling, and rebuilt the tip of his left ear, which broke off. I'd been debating whether to rebuild it or leave it and treat it like a battle wound, and went with rebuilding it. However, I like the idea of the scarred ear, so I might go back and cut a wound into it.