First WIP in 15+ years...help!

[gsr15]

Jeebus, I must be the slowest painter in the universe, can't believe its been nearly a month since the last time I updated. Ah well, that just means my practice minis will last me longer

So I've basically completed my ranger fellow, after taking the photos I've noticed a few areas that need some touchup but I've done all I think I can do with him at this point. I'm really not too happy with the metallics, they behaved very differently than I expected when thinned and I'm having trouble seeing the difference between boltgun, chainmail, and mithril when I'm layering them on...need to revisit some of them tutorials.

As always I'm open to suggestions for improvements so let fly with the critiques! Regarding the base, I've decided to upgrade these guys to those nifty 30-40mm rounded lip bases so I'm awaiting their arrival. I will attempt to base this guy before I submit to the savage hordes.

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I really do hate looking at these pictures full size...makes it look like a drunk monkey got a hold of a paintbrush!

 

[Tabris_]

Jeebus, I must be the slowest painter in the universe, can't believe its been nearly a month since the last time I updated. Ah well, that just means my practice minis will last me longer

So I've basically completed my ranger fellow, after taking the photos I've noticed a few areas that need some touchup but I've done all I think I can do with him at this point. I'm really not too happy with the metallics, they behaved very differently than I expected when thinned and I'm having trouble seeing the difference between boltgun, chainmail, and mithril when I'm layering them on...need to revisit some of them tutorials.

As always I'm open to suggestions for improvements so let fly with the critiques! Regarding the base, I've decided to upgrade these guys to those nifty 30-40mm rounded lip bases so I'm awaiting their arrival. I will attempt to base this guy before I submit to the savage hordes.

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I really do hate looking at these pictures full size...makes it look like a drunk monkey got a hold of a paintbrush!

A drunken monkey? So what i was when i began? A monkey on drugs? And what i'm now? A druken monkey too, drinking about one cup less (thinking positive while i in auto-critic).

 

[gsr15]

Holy cow, I can't believe it's taken me three months to find the time to do any painting...amazing how quickly the time gets away from me. Still haven't gotten around to making any attempts at basing my 'completed' figures but I've done some more paint work on my chaos sorcerer:

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I switched up the color of his tabard since it looked WAY too dark when it was black. I'm having a devil of a time trying to highlight the robe, it always seems to look too red or too pastel or whatever (I'm going for a burgundy-ish color ideally for the robe as a whole.) On the other side, the shadows I think look a bit too blue...suggestions for either would be appreciated...right now I'm just blindly trying things and seeing what happens

As always, thanks for looking and any comments/critiques/suggestions are most welcome!

-GSR15

 

[Wyrmypops]

Aha, purple has stepped in and made you it's victim. It's a bugger of a colour. So many of the pre-mixed paints make it more so. With the dark purple's being an Indigo, and the brighter purple's being a Violet. The different amonts of blue/red make them stronger or weaker too, red being relatively puny but blue giving solid coverage, it can throw off the blending with what should seem right having too little or too much dominance.

Tis best I reckon to pick either an Indigo or a Violet and do the work around it. That is, if you pick a dark indigo and need to highlight up avoid reaching for the light violet paint, instead just lighten up the indigo naturally. It's work trying a few different paints in the off-white range. A white that's almost blue, a white with a hint of yellow,bone, those kinda paints.
Or violet, can shade that with a mix of red/red/blue and adjust it to taste.

I copped out of all that hard effort and recently picked up a few of the Reaper triads set for purpley goodness, one Indigo and one Violet, a burgunday one too but I'm not so content with how that one works. The dark/base/light trio of paints have been giving me headache free transitions from one to the next.

 

[gsr15]

Ah yes, thanks for the reminder on those Reaper triads...I'd forgotten about them, some of those look about right for what I'm shooting for (and it's a lot easier than trying to mix it as I have been!) The only actual purples I have now are a GW worm purple from the early 90's (which is great because they don't really have anything that currently matches it, kind of a royal purple) and a newer warlock purple (pretty bright, a bit pink.) You're right that I should probably also pick up some more white-ish colors, I've been using bleached bone to do all my lightening but it might be nice to have some more options.

 

[Wyrmypops]

Gawd, Worm Purple. That's got me reminiscing. So many weak and milky paints back then.

The Worm Purple though, if I remember it right, is kinda close to the highlight paint in the Indigo triad. The Warlock Purple is closer to the Violet aspect though isn't it.

 

[gsr15]

Ha, back then my concept of painting was to slather on the basecoat full strength then rough shade with the basecoat+black and drybrush with the basecoat+white...I'd never heard of thinning or layering or any of this new-fangled fancy stuff...so I was perfectly happy with it. Now, well after 15+ years I had to add a BIT of water to restore the bottle so it's certainly not what it used to be...worked ok as a thin glaze.

Looking at Reaper's site, the Worm Purple looks like their Imperial Purple (depending on the accuracy of their online color swatches.) Warlock Purple looks kind of like their Royal Purple, or maybe the Pale Violet, but it's a little pinker than both...it might work well enough as the highlight in that triad though (I'll save myself the $3 and assume it will.) I'm going to have to control myself though...they have a LOT of colors, very tempting to buy more than I should

 

[gsr15]

Holy crap, I can't believe it's been 3 months since I last did any painting...research and other projects keep getting in the way. Also been having some painter's block on my sorcerer so I decided to finally take the leap into trying to base the few figures I've actually gotten done so far. I've put together an initial kit of supplies that will hopefully get me started, more to add as I figure out what I want to do/try/learn:

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Right now just 2 colors of static grass, 2 colors of bush/foliage, 2 colors of flock, plus sand, rocks/gravel, and kitty litter.

I wanted to do a tree base for my ranger (I know, how creative!) so after looking through all the tutorials I created an armature:

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I'd originally been attempting the pseudo-paper-mache approach thinking it would be simple and I could do it with household stuff...I failed miserably, just not looking like I wanted it to (not to mention quite messy.) Enter a trip to Dick Blick's and a shiny new package of Super Sculpey...from the articles/forum it sounded like this was the best choice for my first foray into such things due to the unrestricted working time (plus I could get it right away.)

I have since managed to get the bulking out done and baked:

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I need to add another layer to fully cover the armature, blend it into the base/add roots, and make some attempt at a bark texture but so far I'm not too dissatisfied with it for my first try.

So, any tips/tricks out there for creating a realistic bark? (I've seen references to flexi-bark and textured paint, is there anything analogous that's homemade?) Any suggestions/comments/critique in general? I've been thinking about trying to add some finer branches since everything ended up a bit bulkier than I anticipated...would plain uncovered wire look too different from the rest of the tree?

As always, thanks for looking!

Oh, and does anyone know if it's possible for me to change the thread title? Can't seem to find the switch.

 

[gsr15]

Well, I've gone and screwed things up mightily...I mounted my tree to a plastic 40mm base and proceeded to start filling in the gaps and made some attempts at adding roots. I'd thought about this beforehand and figured the base would stand up to the baking process just fine since I was only doing it at 150F (for a longer time) as opposed to the 270 the box recommends. Boy was I wrong...the base got soft and melty on me, drooping on one side and actually cracking away from the sculpey in another place. I also tried sculpting in bark texture on the roots with a pointy tool but it really looked awful, not at all bark-like to my eyes. I'm thinking it might be easier to try and paint it to look like bark rather than get the texture right (at least for my skill level.)

So does anyone know what the lowest temperature is that you can bake sculpey and have it actually harden? I still need to add another layer onto the tree to fully cover the wires and I obviously need to harden it somehow.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, as always thanks for looking!

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[vincegamer]

Don't be afraid to experiment with the flames idea. I like it and I do fades all the time.
I have my current wip up with his rainbow cloak.
I suggest don't use an intermediate color. Paint the whole thing yellow, then pant the base red. Use very thin paints. Work up in layers and if you are ambitious you might even try keeping the paints wet and letting them bleed together. I'm all for experimenting on cheap minis.

(edit)
I should make sure there's not a page 3 next time I post....

Anyway, the blending is pretty good, but why does it go from hot on the outside to cool on the inside?

 

[gsr15]

Hi vince, I'm familiar with your elf, really excellent color blending...the inside of his cloak is very much like I was originally thinking of for the helmet, just didn't execute it right. As to the cooler in the center, I sort of changed gears halfway through and didn't think it through properly...I was trying to follow the hot lead fire tutorial (in concept at least) but decided I wanted to try to brighten the edges of the horns like in real flames, just over did it and surrounded the red area completely! In any case I'm going to be redoing it, it's far too bright for the look I'm envisioning. I'll also admit I'm nervous to start with the light color and layer on the dark as you suggest, I think the only reason these blends look remotely decent is that there are like 1000 yellow layers on top of the red base! Maybe I'll play with some practice pieces first and see how it goes.

In other news, finally managed to lay some bark onto my tree, far from perfect but I'm hoping with a little sanding/touchup the priming and painting can bring it together. Been using a heat gun to bake the additional layers after the fiasco I had with the base, seems to be working so far. I'm finding it very difficult to get fresh Sculpey to stick to the baked stuff though...guess I need to get better so I can do it all in one pass

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As always, C&C are welcome, thanks for looking!

 

[gsr15]

Got my shiny new hand drill in time for the weekend so I was finally able to pin my ranger and locate him on the base so I could fill in the ground around him and finish off the sculpting. Got it primed last night and painted today. Here's where it sits right now (a bit blurry, just took some quick pics with my point and shoot):

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Not sure if I feel like it's done or not, I've thought about adding some targeted green washes on one side but I'm afraid of ruining it. I've also had trouble pushing highlighting since I've picked up the hobby again, so I'm wondering if I should do another light layer of drybrushing?

Next I've just got to figure out what kind of ground cover I want to do and get some greenery on the tree...nervous about that one, all I've got right now are some Woodland Scenics foliage clusters, hoping they work out.

Any and all suggestions are welcome, thanks for looking!

 

[Elric2k]

Really liking how that tree turned out, top notch! As far as cover goes, have you looked into the dead moss? I picked some up from Michael's a couple years ago and it looks as if it might fit right in with the look of that tree!