Scherdy's Happy Place - WIP/paintlog

[Scherdy]

Scherdy's WIP - Queue the 80's training montage (painting themed)

So after painting quite a bit last weekend (comparatively to the almost no painting I'd been doing) and reading some WIPS here of people doing such great work because they are actually painting. It's weird, I think about it all the time. At work every day I think about how great it will be to paint and what I'll plan to work on when I get home and then I find myself going to bed slightly upset that I didn't do any painting at all. Dinner, TV, daily chores, almost anything other than painting. It's crazy behavior and I'm going to make a concerted effort to keep posting updates. So first is the model I'm currently in the middle of painting after last weekends work.




I'm not completely sure about my color choices for the bone and axe. I really don't trust my own intuition on it when I try to think of warm or cool colors.


Below are some things in order of what I've painted since the last eldar striking scorpions. The Mierce barbarian at the bottom is the last thing I've finished for a friend.

























Actually, now I feel like maybe I have painted a bit. I just haven't shared much of it because of my own weird insecurities :shock: But, time to try and level up and face the honest feedback and see what happens. I feel like my metallics are especially chunky and not well blended even with always thinning. The paint just feels so different from non-metallic paints. If anything stands out to you as what I might try differently or your general thoughts I'd love to hear. I AM painting tomorrow and will post what I've done on the savage orc. Time to get inspired to paint and improve one step at a time instead of being a :chicken:

 

[Darthmarsh]

Hi Scherdy

This is all really solid work mate. I particularly like the Farseer, Mierce barbarian and fire breathing dude. If I was to give you one piece of advise it would be to add one more stage of detailing. Roman has a very insightful article on the stages of project motivation. In this he describes a final part of the painting process that most people miss as essentially we're bored and want to move onto something else. It is arguably the point however where we can turn a good mini into a fantastic mini!! Looking at some of your work I think you may have suffered a little from this. The face on the barbarian for example could do with just a little more attention, just to really push the contrast and fine details. You've managed to get loads of character into your painting. Your palette choices are great and the colours really vibrant. But next time you think of putting that mini down because you can't stand the sight of it anymore. Take a break, make a cup of tea, put on some music and revisit it one more time. I think you'll be please with the results
cheers
Tim

 

[Scherdy]

Thanks for the assessment Darth. I agree with you. Maybe I have been moving on too quickly. I think I'll try to give the faces especially some more character.

Here is my orc with some more highlights done. Speaking of faces, it just doesn't look right yet for some reason. I've tried some purple glazes on the face around the eyes/cheeks to add some interest but I don't know if they are strong enough yet. The topknot I highlighted and it got pink/chalky so I used some red ink but it has made it a little too homogeneous now. I'm going to try the axe next I think and see if I can get it done. It's supposed to be stone so I'm going to try and shade and highlight the chips in it.

Also, the transitions look really sloppy. I'd like to believe it's just because of the pictures being close up but knowing what others are able to achieve I know I want them to be better. Just glazes at the transitions to smooth them out?

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

Hi Scherdy

This is all really solid work mate. I particularly like the Farseer, Mierce barbarian and fire breathing dude. If I was to give you one piece of advise it would be to add one more stage of detailing. Roman has a very insightful article on the stages of project motivation. In this he describes a final part of the painting process that most people miss as essentially we're bored and want to move onto something else. It is arguably the point however where we can turn a good mini into a fantastic mini!! Looking at some of your work I think you may have suffered a little from this. The face on the barbarian for example could do with just a little more attention, just to really push the contrast and fine details. You've managed to get loads of character into your painting. Your palette choices are great and the colours really vibrant. But next time you think of putting that mini down because you can't stand the sight of it anymore. Take a break, make a cup of tea, put on some music and revisit it one more time. I think you'll be please with the results
cheers
Tim

This is some most excellent advice. Totally agree. That extra day of work sometimes would put it over the top, but we are too excited about the next mini and the ideas circulating in our heads that we compromise our abilities. This advice is so good I may steal it for the BloodFather's Unique Painting Tips, found here:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/forums...er-s-Unique-Painting-Tips&p=743598#post743598

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

Love your work Sherdy. Responded to your kind words on my own WIP.

 

[Scherdy]

That's a great idea for a thread BFoK. My FLGS are a few up in Bremerton. I'm not much of a regular there so a trip down to Olympia for some painting at your FLGS would be fun sometime in the future.

 

[Scherdy]

Ideas on what to do before I call this "finished"?

So trying to move my painting forward. Based this guy and worked until what I normally would call finished. I think because I've overworked things or tried to take them past this stage and felt like I made them worse I usually move on to the next thing. What are some things you'd recommend I do to make this guy better? Is it adding a freehand tattoo somewhere on the skin? Just cleaning something up or adding more complex colors in the highlights/shading? I'd need your help on what I should be trying to move this from a tabletop paintjob toward a display piece. Thanks everyone for all the help.

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

Quite honestly, this is waaaay past table top. The vibrancy of your colors and the skills with your highlights are very clear to me. If have to say that you highlight better than you shade. Don't be afraid to use subtly different colors, like red, to shade the Orc skin. But that is really knit picking, it is very very good. I'd also highlight the raised parts of the stone axe head. I'd hate to say a dry brush could accomplish this, but do to the texture and it's rock like quality, you really could just DB it or edge highlight it. And you could then highlight the highlight a further brightness level, up to white maybe.

 

[Scherdy]

Thanks BF. I do think after letting it sit for a day and looking at the axe it does need some texture and a final highlight. When you mention working on shading I think I agree. It does seem to go dark quickly and without much interest. Thinking about it now I also realize I spend way more time highlighting than shading, mainly because highlighting seems so finnicky and I have to do a lot of reworking from not unloading the brush enough when glazing and getting an uneven transition.

Ill have to give it a go tonight. Thanks for the honesty.

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

Hey no prob. Again, from some of your above work I can say you are superior to me in both painting and basing. But I think we can all grow as painters by listening to even those with less experience. You are correct in that HLing is often way more difficult than shading. Thus you shouldn't have any problems with it. Whatever you do, though, don't lose that vibrancy in your paint. Many painters would kill for that. Such good mid tones.

Don't forget to do a tiny bit of shading on the axe too. On those low spots. Be careful not to make it look like NMM though , because it is rock. Maybe treat it just like a rock on your awesome bases. Actually, what do you use for the rocks on your bases? It's not cork board and doesn't look like bark. Hmmm....

 

[Scherdy]

Here's some stuff I finished several weeks ago. Trying to paint a little off and on and get some momentum going.

ALso BFoK - the base on the orc is shards of milliput broken up glued down to a layer of putty.

Bad pics, but camera was having problems so I'll try to get em fixed and give it another shot.

 

[Meph]

Oh, that looks like a very cool dark colour. Looks like it has lots of subtle little variations.

 

[Scherdy]

Would really appreciate all your feedback!

Got a few better pictures.

Not totally sure why I even continue to paint these guys. It started as an army I would one day play 40k with a friend. We've long since moved apart but I keep working on them

I tried following the painting black tutorial on Flameon's blog. I'm obviously not up to his skill level and not sure what steps to take to get it as smooth as his but it was fun to try out!

Finally finished this Janissa Stonetide from Privateer Press. Still need a cool base for her though. I've seen some great bases of her magically moving rocks out of the ground so maybe that.
Also was trying different backgrounds taking pics. The OSL I tried on the runes of her mattock are a little too bland. Maybe they're too close to the stone color of the weapon itself? Make them either a stronger blue or even a greenish tinge to they stand out more?

Looking at both of these I think I need more highlights but I always seem to have that problem as highlights tend to be even less smooth than what I'm currently achieving. Still, on to the next thing which is the little emperor penguin from Figone for a palette cleanser.

 

[Scherdy]

Here's my progress on my penguin (pengwing as Mr. Cumberbatch says). He's a ton of fun. I now see his eye looks like it needs to be fixed on the lower portion where some white got on the bottom edge.

 

[Meph]

rofl! Or other variants which he uttered, such as Pengwen, Penglin, ...

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

Nice work you've done recently. I especially like your blacks. A tough color to tackle sometimes. For me it depends on the shape of whatever it is I am painting; some shapes are more challenging.

I I see you like the Privateer Press minis. You know they have their annual convention in Bellevue, right? They have a painting comp there too. I'd love to participate if I am still around this year. Plus if love to try out a P3 mini.

What stores do u frequent in Bremerton? I may have to visit up there just to see if they offer anything different.

 

[Scherdy]

Father Karnath- (that's your proper title right?) Ive been to Lock and Load (Privateers event) three times now as an employee and then as a regular attendee. I really enjoyed it but being much more of a hobbiest and less of a gamer I got a little less out of it. They do have some great classes and I've taken most of them (and a few more than once).

It it is mainly a gaming convention though and a good one at that with a helping of some good hobby stuff.

This is year I got the ok from my wife to go to adepticon. I'm excited to see crystal brush in person and take a bunch of classes and meet more of the painting community. I don't know if I'll enter anything. Seems like an exercise in futility for me right now but Im hoping to learn a lot!

as far as local stores, I don't really go to any to paint. I always feel like the weirdo who doesn't play any of the games and the light is better and setup more comfortable at home. (That's my excuse anyway for being anti-social

 

[Zab]

Love those eldar

 

[Scherdy]

Also, thanks for the kind words Bfok and Zab. Always humbling that anyone and especially talented folks would take the time to give a little feedback.

 

[GreenOne]

By looking at these pics there is a really common fact that comes out, some of the parts on all of them are really really nice, smooth, colorful, contrasting , all that good stuff, and composition ideas that are just brilliant. However they are almost all brought down by other parts that look very rough/rushed, too thick or even unprepped at places, such details show even more next to the good place. Namely metallics often mess the whole thing up by looking too thick, too shiny in shaded areas and so on.
If all the visible parts where treated at the same level, or some attention was put into concealing rougher ones, they would as a whole look improved a great deal.

Happy painting.