Vanja

[HerrBishop]

Good Evening,

Here is the latest mini that I am working on, Reaper Vanja, Fire Giant Queen:

I decided to go the Ice Giant Queen route because I wanted to experiment with blue skin tones. However, I feel that the skin is a bit too blue. Is there a way to brighten the skin tone while keeping a blue tint/color? I use primarily GW paints, but I have access to Vallejo Model Color. Also, my wife thought that her hair was too yellow. I added streaks of Vomit Brown and tried to tone it down with a glaze of Desert Yellow. Any suggestions to doing blond hair without it looking too bright?

Thanks,

Richard

 

[Jericho]

Blond hair can be done using colors like Graveyard Earth, Khaki and Bone. You don\'t have to make it too yellow if you don\'t want to. I like it the way you have it

And for skin, I recommend the P3 Trollhide colors, they are a bit more teal than blue but they are awesome colors. Something like Dak Bluegrey (Vallejo 904) would probably work too if you want something more subtle than Regal blue.

 

[HerrBishop]

Thanks for the tip Jericho. There are two shops in the area that did carry the P3 Paint Line. I will likely check them out this weekend since I do like the skin tones on the Trollbloods and will try to incorporate a similar color into Vanja. Right now I think that her skin is much too dark even though I have brought the high points up to GW Ice Blue. I tested the wrist joints with various washes of GW Grey mixed with Vallejo Light Flesh, but I did not like how it turned out. Luckily, those parts are not seen on the mini.

 

[Sorry Wrong Number]

Is there any way you could just wash the dark blue areas in several layers of super thinned down white? Would that work?

 

[DaN]

I woulda thought space wolves grey and shadow grey\'d be decent colours too...

 

[HerrBishop]

@Jericho: Thanks again for the Trollblood color tip. I went back over most of the skin with Trollblood Base, and I like the lighter skintone.

 

[Jericho]

Glad you like the Trollblood color, it\'s so purdy

 

[HerrBishop]

Update

Here is an update of my vision of Vanja:

I totally love the Trollblood colors for this mini. Right now I am not crazy about the crown. The gems on the crown still need to be finished, but I am having trouble coming up with a way to add shadow to the crown itself. I like how the eyes turned out, however, I don\'t know if I need to go up closer to the eye with the skintone. There is a lot of black around the eye, as many of my minis tend to have. I either have no black around the eye or too much?!?

For the cloak, I decided to use blue and possibly purple tinted metallics. Right now the base coat on the cloak is a mix of Boltgun Metal and Mordian Blue. Highlights on the the cloak may include Chainmail + Mordian Blue, Necron Abyss + Chainmail, and possibly Mithril Silver + Mordian Blue. It all depends on how it looks when mixed.

It;s hard to tell from the pic, but the blades on the spear are actually rock. This can change, but it was the way that I saw them initially. The haft of the spear is wood without any bark. I like the way it looks in real life, not so much in the pic.

Anyway, thanks for taking a peek. I still have a long way to go on this one.

Richard

 

[lizcam]

I love the new skin tones. Very good call changinf them. Yes, I would take some of the black off around the eyes, but don\'t go too far. There\'s an intensity there right now that you don\'t want to lose.

 

[darthfoley]

The skin definitely looks much improved here. I don\'t really envision this mini as an ice giant (all that metal ) but you have a nice look going with it so far.

 

[EldinTux]

I\'ll go with what others are saying now, the skin tone is much better, but now I feel one of your original comments holds true, the hair is too yellow. If you use GW paints I would probably darken it with some brown ink, then re-highlight using mixtures of scorched earth, snake leather & sunburst yellow. Use the snake leather colour as you base & darken or lighten to taste. The scorched earth adds some red to the mix which most true blondes have.

 

[Ekkanus]

I love the skin tone! i use GW paints all the time, but i\'m beginning to see that i need to get some Vallejo colours. With regards to the hair, i like it in the first pic, reminds me of Elf Hair.

Any chance you could tell me what you did there, as i\'m looking for something like that for my High Elves

 

[HerrBishop]

Thank you all for the comments.

@lizcam: You stated exactly what I am worried about, losing the intensity in the eyes. I have a terrible time doing on, especially on smaller minis. One of the reasons why I decided on this mini is because I could do something more with the eyes. I will definately have to be careful.

@EldinTux: I already picked out some of the hair strands with Vomit Brown for a reddish tint. However, I am going to do as you advised and play around with the tone even more. My Snakebite Leather was completely dry so I went out and bought a new jar this evening. Thanks.

@Ekkanus: Over a Chaos Black primer coat, I started with a Tausept Ochre base. Next was a drybrush of Iyanden Darksun, then light drybrushes of Golden Yellow and Bad Moon Yellow. After the drybrushing, the hair was very bright and there was no transition between the base and the drybrush. I toned down the brightness with a couple of glazes of Desert Yellow. Since the drybrushing did not get all of the strands of hair, I went back and individually picked out those strands with Golden Yellow. One more glaze of Desert Yellow to tone down the brightness, then I picked out some more strands with Vomit Brown to add a red tint to some of the hair. I am going to take EldinTux\'s advise and try to tone it down even more and add some more red tint to it.

Again, thank you all for the comments. Any input is greatly appreciated.

 

[Dragonsreach]

i\'ve taken the libertty of increasing the shadow definition in certain areas to give you an example of how it could be tweeked.
I\'d suggest turning the figure upside down and draw the brush towards you in the areas darkened.9That way the largest amount of paint is left in the areas you want it to be.)
Use Snakebite leather as a glaze for the first few applications then add thinned Bestial Brown as the stonger dark shadow effects.

 

[lizcam]

It may be too late for this but have you considered going platinum blond with her? A yellow tones white hair would look good, IMO. I think the yellow it taking away from the eyes, which I feel should be the focus. The face has such intesity. Right now you\'re drawn into the face but your eye can\'t stay there because the hair keeps pulling it away. Just a thought.

 

[HerrBishop]

@Dragonsreach: Looking at the mini, it never occurred to me to think about shading with the hair (and what a lot of hair she has, too). Thanks for the tips, I will keep them in mind when I re-do the hair.

@lizcam: Platinum Blonde is certainly an option. I am going to have to rethink the crown now. The base coat of paint went on a bit thick and from there it just seemed to get thicker. I have no problem starting from scratch on almost anything on this mini (except, perhaps the skin).

Initially, I was going to paint this mini as a fire giant with an Aztec feel to it. Lots of greens and browns were planned. However, the last two minis that I painted (Privateer Press Manhunter) and (Reaper Rosthan the Druid) both have a lot of brown in them. So, I decided to play around with blue. ipaintminis is working on a wonderful version of Vanja right now, and I wanted to go in a totally opposite direction with mine. I had a little problem removing the mold lines from her sides and breasts, so I covered them up with the fir. I have been thinking about the base for the last few days, and I wanted to keep it simple. My thoughts were using either using the plastic from the blister pack, Vallejo Still Water, or a textured sheet of plasticard to simulate ice. As I am typing this, I looked down on my workspace and found a base that I was planning on using with another mini that textured wallpaper that I painted up to look like marble, so I may use that now. Who knows, only time will tell.