Corporea

No worries! We pick the mini that we think will receive the highest score. We'll go around as a team and decide together the mini we'll judge. We will always choose the one that will score highest, though sometimes it's a hard choice. It's a difficult thing I know for entrants, because sometimes the techniques or miniatures we work hardest on are not always the one chosen. It makes us question why we worked so hard on a new technique or pushed ourselves. But remember when we're deep in the painting process, we can't always see the things we've excelled at the same way an outsider can. Or even the things that just shine and have a cool factor that draws the viewer in. I find it very helpful when I'm painting to take breaks on a mini and come back to it a few weeks or even a month later. I'll look at it with new eyes and see things I didn't before. I am constantly baffled when people like a specific mini I painted more than the ones I've pushed through a new process and really sweated over. When we level up a process we feel that mini challenged us and we learned. That is a valuable thing and we naturally expect others to value it equally. Art being subjective makes this all the more frustrating as a painter. I hope that helps! But rest assured, there are always things in our art others love that we may not see!

I thought I'd throw together a little thread on the subject of contrast. Everyone raise your hands if you're been told you need more contrast. Don't worry, my hand is up, too. Contrast is one of those things we hear a lot, but because there are so many meanings of the word, it can be confusing. We can achieve contrast in many ways. And all of them are important. The best pieces we see out there probably use all of them. Some of types of contrast are easier to see than others. I'm hoping by showing a few examples, I can help you guys get a handle on how to improve. Remember that even those of us who've been painting for awhile still have to think and work on our contrast. Types of contrast: Light/Dark or Value Color- complementary, temperature, saturation Texture Matt/Gloss As a general rule, I feel like the hardest for new painters to grasp is Value or Light/Dark contrast. It's also my personal favorite, so I tend to harp on it a lot in classes. Value in regards to color theory is defined as range from dark to light, often using a numerical scale. It has nothing to do with hue (or color.) White is high value. Black is low value. In this case, on the left you can see a grayscale example of a very dark value at 0, and a very light value at 9. Just like in Star Wars, there can be no light without shadow. We need the Dark Side of the Force just as much as the Light Side or we wouldn't have a very good storyline. If everything in our painting is the same value, or we fail to include very dark or very light areas, the result will lack contrast. Here's an example of the in-progress cloud giantess I did the other year: Here I'm using a blue-yellow color scheme. There does appear to be some contrast in the color- the blue and yellow areas are distinct, but when you remove the color and look at the same image in grayscale, the contrast disappears. In fact if you look close the blue and gold are exactly the same value. Can you see how this example lacks value contrast? Do you see a difference between the armor and the leg? To me, they blend together. So while I had different colors, I failed to also vary my light-dark. I realized this part way through my painting process and helped correct it, so the final was better. But, I hope that goes to show that we all struggle with this in painting. This brings me to my favorite sneaky trick. I recommend constantly taking black and white photos of your minis. You'll start to see value in whole new "light" Whenever I am in doubt or feel like something is off on my piece, I'll do this. The other thing to remember is that value is relative. In this example, the bar in the middle is actually the same value. See? But because I've put it next to a dark area and a light area, it appears to change. In practice, this means if you put something light next to something dark, you get more contrast. I do this a lot in monochrome painting. The arrows point to areas of light nest to dark in both a grayscale and a sepia test mini. The old masters were really good at this whole value thing. If you feel like doing some research, look up Chiaroscuro. In this example from Caravaggio, only the areas the artist wants us to focus on are light. There is a huge range of value in the painting from light to dark. This is maximized contrast. Like contrast on steroids. That's what were looking for, right? Mine goes to 11! Well, sort of. So here the hard part. When we say we need to see more contrast we're not just telling your to go up to white and down to black in every single area of the entire miniature. That in an of itself would ALSO lack contrast, but in a more subtle kind of way. If everyone in a room is a blonde supermodel, none of them would really stand out from a distance. They're all the too similar. If I bombard your eye with a thousand tiny highlights, the effect may even be off-putting. BUT, some areas should have higher contrast. Places like the face should be lighter, to draw attention to it. Areas I want you to see first, I need to paint with the highest contrast. This sort of gets more into the concept of composition, and this sort of planning takes a lot more thought. Does that make sense? Let's get back to some practical examples. I grabbed some colors to try to illustrate some of the traps we might fall into. Let's paint some skin. Here's my test bones using the purple as a shadow and the ocher as a highlight for the green. I love purple and yellow- they're complementary colors so naturally will give me some contrast. Looks ok, right? Looks like skin. Has some highlights, etc etc. oops. Where did my contrast go?! Yes, there are so shadows and some highlights, but it looks a lot flatter and more boring. While we can use color to do some really fun effects, we still have to obey the grand Rule of Value. Ok, so I've added some of the ivory. I'm getting a little more contrast. Better. Much better. Here the same picture in grayscale. Can you see the rounded forms of the muscles better? That's what we're going for in terms of light and dark. Notice in this example I used an off black- nightmare black. For skin?! Heck, only one of the colors I chose has the word "skin" in it, and none of them are on the same reaper triad. This is because I know I need to push my highlights and shadows beyond what the triads can do. I may go up close to white, but remember that adding white to a color washes it out. To use another color theory term, it desaturates the color and we lose a lot of information about what that color was. In this example, I used yellow for most of my highlights. I'll go see if I can find some older examples of where I used white instead. I hope this helps a little to explain. I'll try to get together some more examples, but feel free to hit me with questions. Hugs!

This is awesome!!! Thanks for posting this series. I am trying to come to grips with my irrational dislike of orange, so hopefully this will give me some insight!

I had such a wonderful time this year! I was so grateful to be able to see everyone and hang out. It was a much-needed break. I loved the extra space we had at our artist row seats Usually I have to pack my stuff into a smaller space, so this year I didn't feel like I crowded my table-mates as much. I suspect that was because there were fewer of us, but maybe we can stick with the same space size in the future. I loved doing the feedback on sunday, so I'm hoping we can do that again. Maybe with some limited hours saturday night for those leaving early sunday. I ran out of candy. I must pack better in the future.

hmmmn... I wonder if Jim has anyone in mind for these. I'd love to paint them! Great job so far!

woot! I got a shipping notice!!!

As one of the judges, just come find me at my desk (Erin Hartwell) and I can give her some constructive feedback and even demo some things to help her. I'm happy to do that before the competition if she wants to work on her entry while she's at the con, or after the competition. If she wants to learn what we look for and how we judge, I'm pretty sure all of us are happy to help. I tend to "grade up" for youth because I want to encourage younger painters and we all totally remember what it's like to be new to painting! We want to encourage people to enjoy our hobby! Hope that helps. But please let her know she's always welcome to visit artists alley and we love love love sharing painting with everyone. I hope that takes away some of the nerves and worry!

I'm in the Wave 1 waiting boat, but I'm so excited to see everyone's awesome pictures!!! Keep posting! Thanks for the updates, Guindy. Hang in there everyone.

Our local health department gave us all buttons to wear saying "I got my covid-19 vaccine." I plan to wear mine to Reapercon, and am happy to talk data and scope out the cdc website with anyone who wants! (even though I'm on 'vacation!') Oddly, I have not had the slightest desire to buy microsoft products... chocolate maybe... hmmmn...

It occurs to me with the weather that some folks may not receive paints or supplies for my classes. Have no fear. Reaper will be recording the classes, so I'm pretty sure we should be able to go back later and watch and follow along. This may actually be a good thing. Sometimes I like watching someone do a technique, then I go play around with it later and learn it all over again. Also, if you can't get specific paints, ask in the chat, and I can tell you which paints can sub. I can even demo with some of them if it would help. Now I just have to attempt not to stress about being recorded!

I know when I registered for mine, I immediately received an email from reaper notifying me. I just checked and searched my mail with the tag "reaper" and they all came up in a neat little row. They are listed in my inbox under a title such as "reaper classroom 2" or "reaper class 5" Hope that helps! But in terms of the website, I'm not sure. Jon might know?

yes! Surf aqua would probably be the closest. The maggot white will probably be too light, but you can use it as you "white" instead of pure white. Or, you can use ghostly moss or spectral glow if you have those. These are all fairly intense greens with a good amount of white pigment in them so they should work fine. Alternatively, if you happen to have any artist acrylics, viridian or pthalo green mixed with a bunch of pure white or titanium white would also work. I seem to recall Anne telling me mint green was basically pthalo green with white in it. Hope that helps! Keep in mind, you can use any colors to paint the crystal, even if you don't have any of the ones I listed. The principle will be the same, so don't sweat the colors. woot! prepare to have some fun!

I tried playing around with the zoom on my browser and that worked. I think it's because I have it setup as bigger font for work. So if anyone has issues, change the font size!

for some reason my computer illiteracy is affecting my ability to read my descriptions. I suspect it is just me being a dinosaur, but in case it isn't, here's the blurb on each of my classes. I'm also happy to answer any questions about them as well. Looking forward to seeing everyone! Skin Deep Monster Edition This is an intermediate level skin class, focused mainly on blending and glazing to achieve smooth skin tones. But unlike last fall, we’ll be going crazy! (Insert Bob Ross voice here.) This class will cover blue skin, perfect for our frosty giantess. Students should be familiar with glazing and/or layering in order to get the most out of this class. While the majority of the class will be spent on the face, I will cover placement of highlights and shadows on other skin surfaces and the differences between painting male and female figures. Please bring a brush with a nice tip. I find it easier to blend skin with a size 1 or 2 brush, as smaller brushes tend to dry out more quickly. Students will receive a handout on material covered in the class. You will also need a palette, paper towel or sponge, a cup of water and good lighting. We will be using 77592, Frost Giant Queen. Colors used in class will be linen white, nightshade purple, ultramarine shadow, fair skin, mint green, ashen blue. If you don’t have ashen blue, clouded sea would also work. Clean your miniature before class with warm water and dish soap, and remove any mold lines you’d like with a sharp knife. You do not need to prime, but please basecoat the skin areas with an even coat of ultramarine shadow. 2 hrs, hands on, intermediate Miniature 77592 Paints: 9061 linen white, 9022 nightshade purple, 9187 ultramarine shadow, 9047 fair skin, 9263 mint green, 9057 ashen blue The Dreaded Black and White We all hate them, right? Right?! This intermediate level class is designed to help take away some of the fear and show you ways to approach painting black and white. We will be using a combination of layering and either feathering or wet blending to achieve our smooth transitions, so students should be familiar with at least one of those techniques to get the most out of the class. Please bring a brush with a nice tip, such as a natural sable brush. I find it easier to blend with a size 1 or 2 brush, as smaller brushes tend to dry out more quickly. Students will receive a handout on material covered in the class. You will also need a palette, paper towel or sponge, a cup of water and good lighting. We will be using 77209 Arran Rabin. 2hrs, hands on, intermediate Miniature 77209 Arran Rabin Paints: 9162 driftwood brown, 9257 blonde hair, 9144 creamy ivory, 9061 linen white, pure white, 9022 nightshade purple, 9164 dark elf skin, 9021snow shadow, 9209 aircraft gray forgot to add: basecoat the bottom cloak in nightshade and the top cloak in blonde hair Rockin’ Crystals Ready to make those crystal elements on your minis really shine? Painting translucent crystal is fun and rewarding, and surprisingly easier than you might think! This class should help break down the process in a step by step paint-a-long. This is an intermediate level class, but even if you’re not familiar with blending techniques, you should be able to follow along as well. We’ll be using reaper’s 77312 Wall of Ice. You can use any colors to paint crystals, but I’ll be demonstrating with Pure White, Nightmare Black, Ultramarine Blue, Marine Teal and Mint Green. Students should have a nice brush available for blending, such as a natural hair sable, and be familiar with blending techniques such as wet blending or layering in order to get the most out of this class. One thing I’d recommend when practicing crystals is to go to your favorite shopping site and search for cheap rough quartz crystals. You should be able to buy these in packets of 20-50 for not too much, and they’re fun to incorporate into your minis. You can also save old plastic sprue and use a sharp knife to make your own crystals. Clean your miniature before class with warm water and dish soap, and remove any mold lines you’d like. You do not need to prime, but please basecoat the miniature with an even coat of ultramarine blue. 2hrs, hands on, intermediate Miniature 77312 wall of ice Paints: 9039 pure white, 9280 nightmare black, 9188 ultramarine blue, 9077 marine teal, 9263 mint green

yay!!! I'm so glad it arrived safely.