MamaGeek

Don Quixote

Lovely, very well done!

Oooh, pretty!!!

Very nicely done! Love the spooky eye!

Awesome! Oozes are one of my favorite monster types as a DM.

May I express a word of critique? I took a basing class at Nova Open gaming convention. It was taught by the founder of Secret Weapon Miniatures, and included a review of materials, a basing demonstration, then a walk-through critique of all the painting competition entries, focusing on their bases. (BTW, the instructor was one of the competition judges). One thing he told us over and over again - cork looks like cork. Use it as a foundation, not as "rock" material. Since that class, I've been admittedly hypersensitive to the use of cork, and have come to agree. He suggested that if you use it, you "fill in" the cork-looking sides with actual dirt. I was skeptical at first, but when he demonstrated it, the difference was dramatic. So there's my critique - your cork bases don't look like rock - they look like cork. Fill in the sides with something, like dirt, or even putty of some kind, to get rid of the rough edged cork look.

Beautiful! One of the best Lorelei's I've seen!

I always use my best brush, and I never use a magnifier. It's just too small...but, yeah, you really can't see them on this one, not like most figures,where the eyes are the focus.

I started painting the armor gold, but there was too much "yellow". I switched to a cool gray, and that balanced much better with the cloak. There are so many fiddly bits, and it's a Bones figure, so the detail is a bit obscured. I had to look at photos of the metal version to discern what some things were. The eyes are so small and under the hood. I really couldn't do more than fill them in black. I bet some better painter could manage it, but I tried, and failed...

I haven't decided how to paint the cloak lining yet, or any of the rest of the mini, for that matter.

Great job on the gold! I think it looks great!

Super cool!

Very imaginative little scene there, and well executed! Great job!

Congratulations on the win! It is well deserved!

Oh, wow, fantastic!

coming along nicely!

Well, I have so little time to paint anymore that I just don't offert to paint things for anyone else. This means zero expectations, zero deadlines, zero pressure. I don't even do contests anymore. I might toss something into one if I happen to complete something that meets the criteria at just the right time, but that doesn't happen often. So it's not really a matter of patience, since I don't have any burning need to see it done. It will get there when it gets there. Oh, and I have actually painted a real tartan before, and it was much worse than this.

@Baugi - So far all of my painting is on the cloak, so I haven't touched those areas yet. And I probably won't for a long while. This pattern is killing me!

@Darkmeer: I haven't thought yet about the overall palette of the piece, only the cloak. That is going to take so much time that it will keep me busy for a while!

Nice NMM

Very cool!

Gemstones look very real - well done!

This is Bones version of Nienna, Elf Ranger. Most ranger figures I've seen are painted green or brown, but I thought I'd go for an autumn theme and paint her in red/orange/yellow/brown. I started by painting the cloak a rusty burghundy, including all the highlights and shadows as if that was the final paint job. Then I started painting a freehand patchwork leaf pattern. Each leaf is painted individually, which takes a devilishly long time, I've come to discover. This is going to take a long time to finish. And right now she's at one of the those early stages when I can't stand what I'm working on and think it looks terrible. I've been there so many times before, though, that I will push myself to just keep going, in the hopes it will all turn out right in the end. Here she is so far:

Thanks for providing that insight into your technique! (Now all we need is a video!)

First off, I think your gold looks really good. What you need to make it look truly metalic is more contrast. Push the highlights all the way up to white, and darken the shadows considerably, with a more highly-saturated color. I think that's all you need.