Critique my latest, and help me get my ranking!

[lahatiel]

These two minis I put up at the end of last week are my 4th and 5th, and are both at 27 votes as of this post. With my previous three well beyond the 50-vote mark, I\'m so close to getting a ranking once these reach that plateau as well. I know, I know: it\'s about comments, critiques and getting better -- not about scores and ranking... but what can I say? I\'d be lying if I said I wasn\'t curious. Therefore, I\'m hoping for both! Please be so kind as to vote on my latest works (click the thumbnails for the voting page:

Cape Buffalo-style fantasy football beastman:



African Warthog-style fantasy football beastman:



And then, if you wish to offer any critiques or criticisms, whether here or as comments on the figure pages, that would be greatly appreciated as well!

Several things I already know I need to work on: 1) smoother transitions -- as much book-knowledge as I have from reading everything there is to know about layering, glazing, juicing, etc., I still don\'t have enough practice time with an actual brush in hand to have the hang of them yet; 2) brighter highlights -- my pictures did mute them to a degree, so the real-life highlights are higher than what you see, but even still could stand to go higher still; 3) attention to detail -- it wasn\'t until I\'d already shipped these two away that I noticed in the pics that I\'d forgot to go back and do the fingernails! :redface:

Further suggestions from there are quite welcome!

 

[Ritual]

I voted on both of them. I think they are of good tabletop quality, both of them. The main points I would make are the ones you\'ve listed yourself, so I won\'t repeat them.

The most important improvement, in my eyes, would be to define smaller detail better so that they don\'t \"disappear\". Take the buffalo, for instance, that has a very dark fur... The green details sort of blends into the fur and you don\'t see them that well. If you accentuate the edges (with emphasis on the upper ones to get the lighting coherent) with sharp highlights you\'ll get a more readable miniature.

Another thing that struck me is how you\'ve painted the yellow. On the buffalo the yellow looks more vibrant, whereas on the warthog it looks a bit dirty. Yellow is difficult to get good coverage with, especially if you have a dark primer. It is a good idea to base coat yellow parts with an ochre paint. When you apply yellow on top of that you\'ll get a more vibrant yellow and you will have less problems due to bad coverage.

 

[lahatiel]

Thank you for the thoughts, Ritual -- tips are appreciated all the more when they\'re coming from one of the best!

The yellow pad on the Warthog was definitely the single biggest annoyance in doing either of these two. I\'d started both from white primer, actually, but was trying to differentiate the two shoulder pads as the Buffalo\'s was a fur texture whereas the Warthog\'s was wood. I was hoping to get the Warthog\'s wooden pad to look like he\'d taken a slatted wooden pad and slopped yellow paint across the surface, but couldn\'t get it to look how I wanted. After trying to rework it a few times, I started worrying about my deadline so the final result ended up simply being alternated several time between the yellow base, gone over with some dark washes, then drybrushed back over with the yellow to get the surface color back. Actually, that\'s pretty much how the Buffalo\'s pad ended up being done, too, for similar reasons, but I used brighter washes on that one so the final color wasn\'t as muddied.

Suffice to say that I wasn\'t happy with the final result on the Warthog\'s pad, but by then my time was up. Good enough as far as tabletop goes, like you said, but certainly not what I\'d been wanting to achieve.

 

[freakinacage]

i can\'t really add anything to what ritual has said. nice model though, different

 

[lahatiel]

Originally posted by freakinacage
nice model though, different

Thanks. I know CMoN doesn\'t see many Blood Bowl/fantasy football figures to begin with (which I\'m sure doesn\'t help scores, but as I said, I\'m realistic about what those mean), and these guys are brand new from Impact! Miniatures. Even if I didn\'t play Blood Bowl myself, you\'ve got to respect guys who decided that GW wasn\'t giving its own Blood Bowl game enough figure support, so they started their own company to make their own figures. And with the latest batch of 30 figures that includes these two, Impact! now sells more individual fantasy football figure sculpts than GW itself does!

 

[airhead]

the red cape on the warthog needs a dark wash to bring it out. (and I hate to say this...) a good proper drybrushing would make the highlights stand out on that texture.

 

[lahatiel]

Originally posted by airhead
the red cape on the warthog needs a dark wash to bring it out. (and I hate to say this...) a good proper drybrushing would make the highlights stand out on that texture.

Heh, that\'s kind of amusing because all that orange fur was, was washed then drybrushed, washed then drybrushed, several times over. What that really says, I think, is that I\'m right about the fact that my #1 priority is just to actually spend more time painting, as all the book knowledge of techniques in the world does nothing for me until I\'m able to practice it and test it in real life.

Although, funny story about something that certainly did NOT help the painting of the fur -- when that 5.2 earthquake hit L.A. last month, I was painting a dark brown wash over the orange fur on the Warthog\'s back, literally at the very moment my apartment started rocking back and forth. Not good... wash just splotched everywhere; ended up having to repaint the back fur, which in turn led to repainting much of the other orange fur as well, so that it matched. *sigh* I was really just lucky that it didn\'t get anywhere else, and the fur was all I had to redo!

 

[Aliengod3]

I would say try to pick out little details and emphasize them. There is alot of hair on those minis and to bring out each strand with a bit of lighter colors would give them more character in increase the rating.

I just read the entire topic so what I said you already know... BUT... I would also say to pick higher quality minis. Not even Yellowone could make these minis receive a 9+... I think.

 

[Theomar Pius]

I don\'t have anything to add on technique, the guys above me know it better and have already covered it. I just wanted to say I voted, and hope you get your ranking soon.

 

[Celthulhu]

A friend in my BB league has the complete set of Impact\'s African team. They are hilarious.

Not all dry-brushing is bad.

On hair and fur it is a great way to finish it off. You just have to be careful when washing and dry-brushing that you let the wash dry all the way before dry-brushing.

If you\'re going to apply a wash after dry-brushing the highlights, only apply the wash in select areas that might be in shadows, rather than over the whole surface, so your highlights don\'t get darkened down.

Also, as you may have learned, yellows can be difficult to shade. Mixing yellow with its complement (purple) will give you a brown you can use to shade. GW has a color called Snakebite Leather that is good.
If you want a warmer, reddish cast, use orange as the darkest dark.
You don\'t want to go too dark with your shading, as yellow doesn\'t have really dark shadows.

The horns/claws could use a bit more shading to heighten the contrast.

On the warthog, it looks as though he is wearing fur cuffs on his arms and legs rather than it being his own fur, which could be picked out in off-white.
If you look at Zulu warriors, I think they wear something similar.

I like the way your greens turned out. They seem smooth, and contrasty.

As for the fingernails, I wouldn\'t have noticed anything. My own fingernails appear to be the same as my flesh color.

Now I will go vote.