Whizard Hlavaz

A little update: I received my Liriel in the mail today. She's perfect for the role of a young Kvothe. I'll trim the ears, and as Derek suggested, square off the chin a bit. But otherwise -- the bosom is so subdued as to be non-existent, and the swell of the hips is also subtle enough to be overlooked. So I'm quite psyched. My project can begin. Thanks, all. BTW -- Lovely sculpt, Derek.

Very nice work. Good job. And what a fun sculpt, too. LOL.

Very well done. Super attractive! Nice and clean. Great work!

ROFL!!! OK, then! Who am I to stand in your way? Get to it, son!

Wow. Looking sweet. Very fun.

Oh, sweet. Nice dungeon work.

That's very kind, Jeff. Thank you, but please don't go out of your way. I threw that out there only in the event someone has a model or two they bought but then thought "eh, why did I buy this thing(s)?" I'll trade for the blister or single model or whatever. But only if the models are unwanted. You know the kind... flipping through your blisters, shaking your head... I'll never paint this piece of crap. It's not even nice looking. Damn Fiannas (Tell me folks aren't stuck with a boatload of Fiannas. They seemed all the rage a few years ago. LOL )

Nice work, as ever.

I agree Madog. I find many, if not all, of the triads to be too close together in value to provide enough contrast from shade to final highlight for my taste. While I don't have my paint handy as to offer advice on specific color selections to supplement the value range, I will say you will find decent selections do exist in the collection. You'll be able to shift easily in both directions. In any event, the final range of contrast is up to you. Just decide how dark your shadows should be for your liking and likewise with your highlights (which I often bring up to ivory/white on fair skin -- particularly nose and cheeks and forehead. Ivory is a great color.)

I'm definitely in, yes. Looking forward to it. Color me confirmed. On a side note -- I've been filling in bits and pieces on my metal Confrontation collection by Rackham. If anyone has any they bought but don't care for and would like to trade, I'll bring my bin of blistered Reaper stuff and trade in your favor by either weight or number of models or whatever you deem fair, considering metal Confrontation figs are OOP. I particularly like Acheron and Mid-Nor models.

Very nice models. Great work.

You're welcome -- and -- Welcome to the boards.

Wow. That brings me back to my late childhood and teenage years. I have a couple of old LotR figures (not of this line). It's a hoot to see others. Cant' wait to see it finished up. What other loot did you land?

Very nice work on both, Jah. I really like the first with her tattoos and bright colors. She's quite lovely. Great work. Oh, and the backdrop on her is a nice touch, too. I really appreciated it.

Oo. Very clean. Very nice. Makes me think of "The Gods Must Be Crazy." Hate to see this guy come stomping in to extinguish my fire!

Wow. Halfling is very good for 2 hours of work. Nice job. The two following are nice as well, of course. But with the halfling being new to me, I have to say he's pretty sweet. Nice work. And where did you get the predator mini??? Very cool.

Wow. Very nice. Super job.

I play the card and board games. Very... VERY... fun. Do it. You won't regret. Such a howl. Promise.

Hi Thasia. I think you're going to have a challenge making fur appear dirty. Dirt is easy to render with paint on flat surfaces, but the broken surface of fur may be difficult if you don't start with a light enough base coat. You may be better advised using a "dirty" product like a dust or something, but as we're painters, it's worth a shot to try with paint. You can always redo it. So... I'd use a light base coat and be easy with the shade. I'm thinking something like a tan or lightish yellow brown with a flat earth shade, not too dark. Then I'd highlight up to near ivory. After this, I'd use black and dark grays to simulate oily stains. Maybe some dark-dark brown red for blood. You could try the same with a gray base, but I'd worry that any stains would appear as poor shading than render as dirt. Now if you want a dusty look, you could try the gray with some drybrushed tans, but then again -- you may be better off using a dusting product. In either event, you're likely going to need to render other parts of the model (flesh, leather, weapons) with some dirt and grime to ensure that the illusion reads across the model. This likely the best way to "inform" the viewer that the model is dirty. Now on cloth and leathers, don't forget to use crosshatch technique to apply the dust. This will give some texture and weave to the cloth surfaces and scratches to the leather. Anyhow, good luck.

My pleasure. Looks like you're far beyond to where I wanted us to step back. That photo is looking nice. I'm glad you feel you were able to find a comfort zone without having to actually start at "step 1" again as I wanted you to do. Good work. Lovely photo. Beyond that, lovely-lovely skintones. I can't wait to see this figure fully painted. Let us know if you need any more help. -D.

You were set to macro? Ok. You're much too far away from the mini I should think. I'm not familiar with your camera, but in general macro is used when the film plane (focal plane) of the camera (usually delineated by a circle with a line through it imprinted on the case toward the rear of the camera) is within 12" or less (depending on the camera). If the camera is farther out than that, you don't need macro. It's for focusing on small objects up close within that focal range. Anyhow, let's work with a few things. Can you determine your resolution? In terms of size? 600x800 for instance. 768x1024? Likely much larger. Let's get that straightened out before we look at other settings. You can find this setting under your menu options. Set it LARGE. Then set the quality to best. This will produce large file size photos, but that's fine. Let's start there and then take a shot on auto (the little green box on the dial, most likely). Thought here: Does Photobucket auto-crop hosted photos? This second raw photo again seems far, far, far too small to be the orginal in-camera photo.

Um... Ah... Yikes??? Nice. Very nice. Very gruesome, that is. Well done, sir (and I always call gentlemen with an obvious predilection for blood "sir"...) Welcome, BTW.

Well, that would depend on the number and species of crabs crawling beneath my skin. For instance, take my cr... err.... ah.... nevermind. Very nice piece. She's subdued, to be sure, but very attractive. Nice job.

Very lovely pieces of work. Gratz on some very super figures.

Looks like you're really beginning to get the hang of this, Kara. Nice work here. Keep going.