Hello Lazuli,
I pick one of your photos... the second of the last posted.
First thing: I see on the right shoulder a edge from the casting (what is the right word for that in english?) that was not removed enough. Sorry, but painting on higher standerd these little *piep* creeping *piep* *piep* *pieeeeeeeeep* things are really disgusting, when you try a good blending. You save yourself many hours of work, when you remove them smooth.
I like your weathering on the left shoulder, but on the right, the light yellow edges for this weathering are missing, so it looks only like dark dirt, not like rusted metal. This is a pitty because on the left side you added the light yellow edges and at least two or three different shadows of weathering. On the right there is only one dark shadow of rust. The effekt of this is not so good, like on the left side.
I still think, that your blendings could be improoved. For example the backpack. The upper horizontal edge is painted ok, but the other edges are only highlighted with a line. In my opinion here has to be a little blending too. Sure there are techniques like NMM, where you need a hard highlighting, but in this special miniature, you did not want to paint NMM, but to accent the edge. In my opinion there should be a small smooth blending.
Another thing are the riffles (right word?) in the backpack. It seems, that you painted a thin layer white on it and that it runs into the dents. I am sorry, but which effekt you wanted to achieve?
The cape: I love this red colour and its depth is enough, but the blendings are not smooth enough in my opinion. Espacielly on the right part you see every brush stroke. I suggest to improve the blendings here.
As for photos in the dark: Unfortunatelly my cam is broken and I have like you only time for painting and shooting photos in the evening. Unfortunatelly only with the cam of my cellular phone. My trick for realistic photos as possible is a "daylightbulb". Heaven, I dont know the right word for that in english. I germany you can buy light bulbs, that emmit almost identical light like the daylight. This has the ridiculous effekt, that when you light the bulb in the day you do not recognize it at all. But in the evening, you have the same light, like on bright day. Only with this light I make my photos. So I have got never the problem of different light situations.
I hope, I was not to harsh and I could help you. But I think for somebody with so big aims the straight way is more helpfull.
Greetings, Taggi
