Games Day Chicago Kroot Hound

[Tinweasel]

This was my entry for Warhammer 40K Single figure.

Here\'s the link:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/197676

Here\'s separate pics:

He made First Cut and got an Honorable Mention, which surprised the heck out of me because I only started on him a couple of days before Games Day when I realized I wouldn\'t have enough time to finish a converted Necron Lord I was working on. I basically went back and reworked a Kroot Hound I painted over two years ago, back when I was first getting into painting again. Although I liked it at the time, I\'ve always thought that the figure looked kinda flat, and I always wanted to go back and add in freehand (like spotted skin) and touch-ups to the highlights, shadows, leathers, and metallics. Hell, I basically reworked the whole figure other than the initial coloration...

It\'s my first real stab at painting vividly colored flesh tones - I\'m more used to painting hard surfaces like armor panels and the like. I also tried working a lot of color in there to liven things up - the leathers are shaded with dark purple and the mottling of the skin is a translucent blackish-purple with smaller spots inset into the pattern (kinda like a leopard.) I initially had a difficult time trying to work in the yellow, because right before I started with the brighter colors, I had shaded the skin with dark green, red, and then brown, with the end result that the shadows showed up kinda greyish. I had in mind a picture of a tropical poisonous frog that I found in a nature book at the local bookstore - I would\'ve liked to have added more purple on the lowermost parts, like the inspiration pic, but I was finishing this guy up the night before we left for Chicago.

Comments and criticisms appreciated!

I\'m also wondering if the pictures look okay, or if they need something in the way of color balancing/lightening/adjusting?

 

[freakinacage]

he\'s cool

 

[Tinweasel]

@ freakinacage - Thanks!


Now I\'m wondering whether there\'s anything wrong with the photography or the painting itself (or is it simply not \"impressive\" enough), but he\'s scoring roughly the same as the original plain figure here: http://www.coolminiornot.com/104235


Could anyone give me some feedback on what people look for scoring-wise or expect to see so far as a particular rating, because I\'m genuinely concerned/interested so far as improving my painting. Or if I can\'t improve my painting dramatically, necessarily, maybe I can adjust my presentation?


(I have to admit I\'m personally kinda frustrated and wondering if I\'m doing something wrong, as the pictures I posted of my Silver Demon-winning figure from last year have all scored in the low 7\'s and my first \"genuine\" 8 score was a figure with a one-off experimental rusting technique I played around with - not exactly one of my \"finest works,\" IMO.)

 

[Joek]

Whilst I profess to sometimes being very confused with CMON voting at times, I do wonder whether half of the time people simply vote not just on the paint job, but the figure itself.

I think the paintjob is good, but personally, I think the model is fairly dull. On some figures, I think there\'s only so much you can do to make them sparkle. I\'d possibly have done something a bit more dramatic with the base? Maybe put a little bit more movement in the figure (but that would obviously require some cutting and resculpting).

But no, for what it is I think you\'ve done a great job.