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Widowmaker Kapitan
Sorry about the repost. Seems I'll never get the right photo on the first try *sigh*. When I first saw the concept art in Warmachine : Prime, I though "Wow, what a cool drawing". Then I saw the sculpt, and I thought "Wow, what a cool model". So obviously, when it came in at my LGS, I grabbed my Widowmaker squad and started painting the Kapitan immediately. The sculpt had a few defects, but really nothing to complain about, which was a relief since Sorscha had been a nightmare of mold lines and flash. I softened the skirt and coat surfaces by painting a bit of watered-down PVA glue over them. The mini itself wasn't easy to paint, as there are so many details to pick out (pouches, straps, and so on) and to highlight, of course. Since it was hard to paint 'within the lines' with all these tiny details, I used a lot of dark inks to blackline the edges. I used the same color scheme I did on Sorscha, but I had trouble deciding whether I wanted NMM gold or standard gold. Since the only other Kapitan on CMON (as far as I know), painted by Fluffy, was done in metallics, and since I liked the sculpt so much, I went for NMM. As it is, I'm really happy with it, as it came out just right. I payed special atention to the blending. The aim here was to get transitions as smooth as Cyril makes them. I think I succeeded (mainly by watering down my paints even more than usual), but it took time. He can paint a whole mini in 9 hours (I read that somewhere on one of his minis' description) - I can't. Furthermore, watering down paints is all well and good, but when you're close to an edge the paint tends to run along creases and ridges, which doesn't make it any easier. I had a few ideas for freehand, but first of all snipers usually don't wear flashy designs, and furthermore I couldn't paint her with more ornaments than Sorscha, the battlegroup leader. I mean, it wouldn't feel right having basic troopers look fancier than the general. Then, the face. I'm really getting the hang of female faces. And while realism-freaks might scoff at this, in MY battlegroup, women are required to wear makeup before marching to battle (sue me :D ). This face was particularly easy to paint since there's only one eye :). Note that the black eyeliner is really dark brown, and the whites of her eyes are really off-white. I find that decreasing contrast like this helps making faces more believable. Finally, the base. As you can see, it's snow. At last, I managed to do snow. Yeah, I know, there are tutorials all over the place, what with mixing PVA glue, baking soda, and water to layer it on, but I didn't believe them. Well, they were totally, 100% right. I didn't, however, use blue ink on the snow, since I think there's enough blue on the mini as it is. The pic was taken before I varnished the mini. Since it's a gaming piece, I'm going to put a lot of sealant and I didn't want it to interfere with the quality of the photo. Still there ? Well, what are you waiting for ? Comment away !
Posted: 28 Dec 2003
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