In which I paint Hell Dorado and Circle Orboros, among others

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warrior4520

New member
Hello CMON,

I've spent a long time gazing into this particular void, and I thought it might be time to post a few pictures in case the void wanted to gaze back. By which I mean: long time lurker, first time poster.

I've been painting for perhaps 15 years, but with some lengthy breaks in there, and I've decided I would like to put forth a more concerted effort to become a better painter. Hence, I'm posting my work for critique.

For the most part, you can expect this space to be filled mostly with Hell Dorado Saracens and Circle Orboros, unless something else strikes my fancy. No promises.

Finally, two caveats. First, I am generally a slow painter. I hope having this thread will motivate me to paint more, but hey, this might be going at a turtle's pace. Second, I have next to no experience photographing anything at all. I've been reading about ISO and white balances and whatnot, but it could take a while before any of that translates into a decent photo. I should probably go buy another lamp...

Without further ado, here's a Gnarlhorn Satyr, a Gorax, and some bases I'm working on for my Saracens. All comments, criticisms, suggestions, et cetera are welcome.
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warrior4520

New member
Thanks for the welcome, ten ball.

Three things I'm hoping to improve on: 1) TMM, 2) OSL, 3) painting realistic and varied skin tones. Here a few weird lighting, no tripod WIP pictures that feature some of those things.

First, a before and after on some piggybacked Saracens. It took two or three goes at the guy on top to get a skin tone that looked human. The coat before this was close, but he looked terminally ashy.
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Now, the same Satyr, but with dramatic lighting (because it was easier to rig up than good lighting). I'm working on the base, which is supposed to look like stones with vines growing on them to mark the front arc. I'm concerned they look a bit more like tentacles than vines, but I think adding some leaves and maybe a flower or two could help that. That reminds me, my original idea for this WIP log was "Furry Fury," because I would be painting a lot of Circle Orboros (get it, because they're warbeasts are furry and they generate fury?). I was worried the title might be a little misleading... Anyway, here's that satyr.
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And now some other randos: Gotz (imagine an umlaut over that "o," please) von Berlichingen, Jafar al Efrit, and a Lancer.
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My goals for next time: finish the bottom piggyback guy and figure out how to make these pictures a little less monitor-dominatingly huge.
 
KruleBear

KruleBear

New member
Welcome to the forum. I'm liking the Satyr.

Go to the photography section of the forum, there are some good tips on taking picts there.
 
W

warrior4520

New member
Hello again CMONsters (does anyone say that? Is that a thing?)

I've made some progress on my piggyback Saracens. There are still some mistakes to clean up and some changes I'd like to make, but we're approaching a finished model. Stuff I'd still like to do:

-clean up the border between the top guy's robe and his shawl thing.
-blackline (or otherwise emphasize) the string of beads in top guy's right hand.
-darken top guy's beard. I want it to look graying, but the highlights look way too harsh.
-finish the base. It fell apart a bit when I slid the paperclip through the cork, so I had to patch things up and haven't painted those bits yet.

But, with all that said, I'm also trying to let go of some of the imperfections in my painting and know when to move on to a new project. So this to-do list might not really get done.

Oh, and I'm still working on the whole photography thing. I think I'm starting to get a better understanding of it all, but if you look at these four pictures side by side, you'll see some pretty different white balances. Starting to play around with post processing as well.

Thanks for looking.
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warrior4520

New member
Hi again CMONsters,

I've mostly been assembling and priming, so I thought this would be a good chance for a WIP army shot. Here are all of my Saracens--some painted, some primed, and some bare metal. There's a long way left to go with these guys. Most of them are missing arms, heads, and there's a riderless flying carpet on the far left, but here they all are, waiting patiently for me to me to make them become who they are.

Thanks for the views and comments. I look forward to showing you some more paint and less primer in the near future.
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warrior4520

New member
Howdy CMONsters, just a quick pic of what I'm working on now. It's a flying carpet, and a mini, Nasser abd er Rahman, that I haven't really seen all that often. Here's one of the only painted pictures of seen of him. I quite like Mr. Giraldez's work, and while I can't match him for overall quality, I can try to make up for it by cramming a whole bunch of texture and freehand on the top of the carpet. Here it is with the texture and a bit of shading. Stay tuned for episode 2, The Freehandening.
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warrior4520

New member
And here comes the freehand. Boy, editing this photo was a little weird. It came out just shy of 2000 pixels wide, which means it pretty much filled up my whole monitor. In life size, I'm pretty happy with the progress so far, but that large...
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It's definitely easier for me to look at after I shrunk the picture down.
 
W

warrior4520

New member
I found this quote on a blog:

"I love drafting like I love eating ice cream or having sex; I love revising like I love doing logic puzzles; I love line-editing like I love perfectly organizing a bookshelf; I hate reviewing copyedits and the second round of proofreading because by then I’m getting pretty tired of my own words. They all have their own challenges, though."
-Tim Pratt, in this interview: https://henryherz.wordpress.com/201...ward-winning-sci-fi-fantasy-author-tim-pratt/

I also love writing and painting like I love having sex, which unfortunately means I think about doing them way more often than I actually do them, and when I do, I'm never quite as good as I thought I would be.

More pics tonight, including some elves.
 
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warrior4520

New member
Hello again,

Here's the latest progress on the carpet, as well as a shot at the ghostly sand people underneath:
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I've also got sort of a step-by-step on Jafar al Efrit. Still some details to finish up, but this one's almost done. The first few pictures are from my phone, so if you don't like the photography, those are the only ones I have an excuse for.

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Elves up next.
 
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warrior4520

New member
A couple of elves from the old starter kit. Well, not the really old one, with the plastic spearmen and the archers. Those old monopose plastic high elf spearmen were the first miniatures I ever bought. I should paint some retro HE some time; they were what got me into painting.

Anyway, here's not-Eltharion...
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and (some poorly framed shots of) not-Teclis:
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Thanks for looking, everybody.
 
W

warrior4520

New member
Hello again, CMON community! After several weeks of putting off taking pictures, I finally got around to it...only to have my SD card bite the dust. So today, all I have to offer are some pretty bad phone pictures (I picked my current phone because, A) it was cheap, and B) the other phones were more expensive).

I've put the carpet aside for now and am working on an assassin, a Pillar of Faith, and Nasser abd er Rahman. I couldn't get any pics of the last that are worth posting, so here's the assassin. I'm excited about his base; he'll be leaning quite a bit to his left (your right), and I think it makes an awesome sculpt even more dynamic.

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And here's the Pillar. Just skin and hair so far here.

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Yeesh, those are not very good pictures. I'll post more when I get a new memory card and can get a decent shot.
 
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warrior4520

New member
Taking a quick break from my Saracens for a new project. I've started collecting small rocks and twigs, and I stole the spackle from my parent's workshop. You guessed it: it's diorama time. Here's a quick phone pic of the early setup; I'll post again soon showing progress on the groundwork and a scratch-built tree. Also, you get a peek at one of my bookshelves, so you get to judge my taste as well.

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TheCorax

TheCorax

New member
That carpet is looking ace man, really nice stuff!! The Efreet's flame effect looks really nice as well.

I'm curious about how the diorama is gonna turn out because the start of it is looking very promising!

Corax
 
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warrior4520

New member
Thanks Corax! I hadn't done flame like that before, so the Efreet was a really fun model.

Diorama updates: I have finished sculpting in the ground and my tree has mostly taken shape:

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After that, I glued a whole bunch of sand and rocks to it, sprayed it (I used Krylon Camouflage brown spray, my first experience with it. I'd give it a B+ overall; the finish was a tiny bit grainy, but it stuck well to tile, marble, spackle, sand, rocks, putty, and everything else in the diorama), and then did some drybrushing. Planning to go back with some washes to add a little more color variation to the ground.

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Thanks for looking!
 
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