sgtoku

Gotta love the colors on this mini of yours. Even with subdued colors they still pop and stand out, and the paint job is smooth and clean. The gore is a nice touch too. I have to say I agree with Goblyn on the base, perhaps if the transition was smoothed out between pre-molded base and the circular base, or if without the pre-molded base, but still, a brilliant looking mini!

I have windsor series 7 brushes and what I do is use this: http://cdn.dickblick.com/items/057/04/05704-3050-3ww-l.jpg All I do is have a small bottle of the pink soap and, once I'm done with a painting session, dip it inside the bottle, clean it off by gently cleaning it with my fingers in a backward motion (meaning motion with the bristles, not against) and swish it in water. After, I then dip only the tip, or at most half length, of the brush back in the bottle, and gently coat the brush in the pink soap. After I just put the brush away. It's quick and easy and my personal preference. I've yet to have problem with the brushes ever, and I've used them for close to two years now. I don't let the paint get over-full in the brush to the point where it's in the ferrule also. That always helps .

I'm with MonkeySloth, I did way better than I thought. 18! Woot woot! (Latest finished the end of December, pictures taken in January, so I counted that one.)

Firstly, Happy B-Day & New Years! When they drop the ball you can count that as part of your birthday too For the codpiece, I'd opt to make it a darker shade of whatever color you decide on for the pants, with a lighter color, or nmm (nmm silver perhaps) on the outlining rim. I'd not do a brighter color for the codpiece itself because it may look funny, and it paints a pretty big target for that area, which uh, wouldn't necessarily be a good thing for him. Cool thing about your idea to incorporate a bit of green is it goes great with both silver, bronze, gold, iron, and the like, so you can play around. The faded look of heather blue could go very well with the color scheme you're leaning to. I'd almost go with silver for the rim of the codpiece if you use the blue for the shirt, or you could do a very dark silver for the entire codpiece with a brighter silver rim also. Call it how you see it. I'd stick to what you think is best when your working on it, but those are some the ideas I can think of concerning color matching.

I could guess it depends on the type of green to start. I'd say you could go with a "Legend of Zelda" type green (specifically, the military green triad) and a lavender like purple (violet light, sunset purple, and amethyst purple are some exacts.) Afterwords you could mix some very small amounts of medium green (darker green for shadows) into all your colors for the basing to give it an older world feel. This could be slightly bright though (on the mini itself), and could be toned back with a darker purple combination. If you wanted to go darker, I'd say some pine greens and royal purples would look pretty awesome on the mini too. As you asked, if I were in your position I'd probably do that "Link" type green on the shirt, the "gloves" a dark lavender, the pants a darker purple, the detailing on the shirt a golden cloth and the flute either a bronze with bone detailing, or darker silver with bronze detailing. But, if I were in your position, I might change the whole idea mid-way too . When you get started I'd definitely follow your instinct and think about it though. Keep the options open, as my way of doing it is pretty much guaranteed to be different from your own creativity.

Wow, Wow, Wow! Fantastic work! The detailing is very nice and I REALLY like the color choice of the armor (puple-ish). What screams to me is that face. That nose, and the wrinkles at the sides of the eyes, so much character. Bang-up job!

A beautiful piece! It does indeed scream display me. Love it!

I gotta say this is fantastic based on the colors you chose alone! I love the use of neutrals yet how it still pops. The touches of red and the single use of a brighter blue (along with the eyes to match) looks really good IMO. It may not be as smooth as you usually do, but it looks excellent and it actually helps me. When I look closely I can more easily see how you applied the paint to get the effects that you want :). Sometimes I get confused on highlight placement on a lot of materials and this piece is a great reference when that happens ;). Love it.

That mini is just all kinds of good. The skin work is excellent, especially with the dark and cold harmony you have going on in the mini. Brilliant job man!

A wonderfully painted piece, Sean. I could tell it was painted by you. Your style is always so rich. Think that's why I like it so much. Of course, the plethora of tips in this thread are nice too!

Nice work station. I've been wanting to see more paint jobs posted up here by you. Always like the style of your dwarves!

Some excellent work here! I generally look at the pics when it comes to viewing before reading the post. When I clicked the old man I said "creepy", then I read that's what you wanted. Great job on him! A lot of nice tones going on in every piece, and that Minotaur's skin is really nice! Glad you posted these up here!

As has been said, great use of black (especially as it can be tougher than other colors ). Subtle and simple, and the base really goes well with it IMO.

Fantastic looking piece! Even before clicking on the image it almost pops off the screen with the smooth colors!

Love the display of cool colors at work here. Reminds me of a dwarf near a sea stronghold or a mountainous snowy forest just from the colors alone. As has been mentioned by Derek, the NMM is pretty solid, especially for a second attempt! Except for checkerboard, personally don't have much experience with freehand as of yet, though just like you, been seeing some nice freehand on the forum here lately. Anyhow, great piece!

I'm glad to see the wonderful, and motivational, comments about the paint job! Thanks for telling me what you think of it!

i just looked and it has a flower mode and a collection mode so im thinking of trying all your ideas out for getting better pictures Yeah, the flower, otherwise known as macro mode or close up mode, will allow your camera to "see" the image for close ups. I'm sure with that on you'll be able to get in close enough without the blur.

Welcome to the forum, Beamo. This screams sheer grit when I look at it. It's marvelously detailed, aged, and damaged. The way it's highlighted goes nicely with the snow base you have, too. Excellent job!

From what I can see, the back of the cape has a nice effect. Does your camera have a macro mode? The option with a flower on it? If you haven't used it that will fix the blur right up. If not, Ishil's suggestion may be the best thing for a clean pic.

I have to say really nice job on the rocks with the knight base. Many times I run into problems with executing nice basing and I can appreciate a good base. I agree the scalp looks great on the dwarf, and the face (from what I can see from the pic) looks pretty nice also. Of course, I can't overlook how the chibi model looks a lot like the knight. If that was on purpose, you nailed it!

I somehow missed your post here. To answer your question, yeah, the eye was done like that intentionally, and yes, now that you mention it it does remind me of Alice Cooper makeup, lol. To Warlady: Appreciate it!

Finished mini here: http://www.reapermini.com/forum/index.php?/topic/42862-aviriel-finished-updated-pics/ Thanks helping me out, Pez, Darkstar.

Appreciate the helpful suggestions! The theme seems to be to highlight the hair up a bit (I did, think it made a slight difference, though it's harder to tell with the pictures) and the sword. I worked on the sword a fair bit again, before finally sealing it up and calling it finished. I've gotta say, I was planning to redo the sword and do NMM yesterday, but after hearing the comments, I decided to keep it this way and work on it a bit more. I'm glad I did! Anne: Just missed your comment before finishing this up. I know you're really good with jewels (since your "Jewel Golem" which looks fantastic.). Thanks for the advice, though as you say, it could get confusing. Thank you so much for the comments, calling this one done! Updated pics up top.

First and foremost, thank you Pez for the tip and link about NMM, and thank you Darkstar for the detailed post. You'll notice I redid the lighting on the shield as you suggested, as well as the chain mail and more blush on the face. I haven't received my GW Washes, so I have improvised by diluting my paints. The elephant in the room is the sword I'm thinking. Instead of trying NMM on it, I "attempted" to simulate a gem... Not sure on how it came out. Been looking at it so long I think I lost my perspective on it. Comments would be great. The mini hasn't been sealed yet, so if anyone has some advice, or thinks I should do NMM on it, let your thoughts be known. Anyhow, this was a fun mini to paint, one that had been sitting on my shelf for far too long (originally I shied away from it because of all the detail) but after the last mini I painted, this is a break . EDIT: Updated Pics. I went over it again and have since varnished it. I'm not sure if there's much of a difference with the sword, as that's what I went over again, mainly, but now that it's been a day, I must say I'm pleased with it! CoolMini Link can be found here: http://www.coolminiornot.com/283003

As soon as I get those washes I'll be trying them out to do just that. Posting updates soon enough.