Thanks all for the messages. I can't take any credit for the texture of the skin- it's sculpted. The mini has lots of really good detail. In fact, it has caused a lot of issues for me, because I decided to use a wash to pick out all the tiny lines of wrinkles. But then blending in highlights was a nightmare.
I actually took reference photos for highlights as I wanted the light source to be in a slightly odd place- the top left of the picture. Of course, when I took the picture the light source is actually directly above. One thing I noticed, though, is that some of the real highlights would look weird on the mini if I painted them in, it's hard to explain but I think it's due to the "silk" nature of the paints being slightly shiny?
I get your point on the face though, I might glaze to darken down the shadows a touch. What you can't really tell from the photo is that the "dark" side of his face is almost a solid "Rhinox Hide" brown (which is what I used as shadows). The "mid" tone of the skin is "Baneblade brown".
The toenails were two-brush blended, which I think really worked well here. I'm a bit hit-and-miss with it at the moment, sometimes it produces nice blends, sometimes not. Practice I guess.
Thanks for the inputs, I really did think highlighting needs work. Highlighting is where I normally go wrong (normally poor blending). I also need to work out a better way to take a picture without bleeding out the highlights/lightening the shadows.
Things I learnt:-
- Resin needs fairly strong priming. I very lightly primed (not 100% coverage), and the paint simply wouldn't take in a lot of places, and kept chipping off elsewhere.
- I really want an airbrush. It took me two weeks to base coat this guy. Which is probably 8 x 3 hour sessions. At least. Also, priming with an airbrush would have made it easier to get to the hard-to-reach areas. (I prime using a spray can at the moment)
- I've really gone off using washes. I think they will have their place again at some point, but currently I'm always unhappy with their effect.
- Less paint on the brush is basically always better.
- Colour scheme photos really help; I photo'd the mini after priming, printed it out and used real paints to colour it in.
- Using many colours is hard. And my wife hates basically every colour paint I have.
I have seen this mini painted before (box art)- and one of my aims was to increase the colour variation by comparison. The box art is very "natural" (which is what I tend to do, I have to force everything to NOT just be variations of brown) but I wanted a bit more of a "fantasy" feel.
One thing I want to do is draw your eye to the face. I'm not sure it does it just yet. I'm wondering whether raising the contrast on the beard would help? II'm looking at it now and my eye tends to be drawn to the red mushroom under his hand. I really like that mushroom but wonder what if I made his bear red and the mushroom a bit more muted (the one at the top of the staff is a kind of plum colour, which looks nice).
Welcome!
