Urban Legend Sophie

[Cerridwyn1st]

I consider Jade and Sophie to be sisters in a sense. I worked on Jade a long time ago. It was a challenge to represent the muscle tone of a dancer on a sculpt which has little in itself. The muscle definiation you see on Jade was achieved through imaginitive coloration, NOT from following the scupt. With Sophie I was trying to apply the same technique to a larger model.

[PurityThruFire]

Please, please, please...

How do you do skin like that?

I can't fathom how it's done.

If it involves washes and glazes I'm scared because I dug thru the forums and came up with about 837 different answers to the same questions.

[Versutus Vulpes]

Hmmm... 837?

 

I got 838 last time I counted.

 

You must be missing the good one.

 

I think the correct approach is not to swing for the fences every time. Just work at painting - and see what works and doesn't for you. You can read all you want about painting - but until you lay brush to primer...

 

That being said - I'd glaze the snot out of it .

 

FYI - Great job Cerridwyn... I can see why PTF is following this thread.

So - between you and me... How are you doing the fleshtones here ?

[PurityThruFire]

You're right VV.

I admit, I've been avoiding minis with skin, yet buy my desk is the UL Sophie, I will get to her soon.

I'm currently still messing around with the bronze metallics on a unit of Deliverers for my Menoth army, having some trouble with that.

Once I'm finished with that I'm moving onto a mini that has some skin!

This way I can practice.

But...still would like to know how Cerridwyn is doing that flesh.

 

 

 

Hmmm... 837?

 

I got 838 last time I counted.

 

You must be missing the good one.

 

I think the correct approach is not to swing for the fences every time. Just work at painting - and see what works and doesn't for you. You can read all you want about painting - but until you lay brush to primer...

 

That being said - I'd glaze the snot out of it .

 

FYI - Great job Cerridwyn... I can see why PTF is following this thread.

So - between you and me... How are you doing the fleshtones here ?

[Cerridwyn1st]

Flesh? Well, you start by lighting black candles, then you cut your pinky with a bone knife... Just kidding.

 

Five years of practice with higher-level techniques and lots of "How do you DO that?" to some of the best painters in the world helps emensly. Handing a piece your right proud of and have been showing off like it's GD material to Anne, and having the first words out of her mouth be "You need to thin your paint". Go back to that Jade figure. I showed it to Jen Haley when it was just skin. Her comments? "Respectable, but you need to paint the webbing on her hands. Also, fix those holes you drilled in the feet." By webbing, she meant how the bone structure on the hands is visible under the skin, so that there are lighter tones over the bone structure and darker ones in the "webs".

 

Listening to Judith talk color theory with Jen and Marike. The stuff Judith was talking about when painting skin - wow. I still haven't had the nerve to try it. Matter of fact, I should go back and look at my notes. Still, it did confirm that one of the things I was doing at the time was dead-on - using Hill Giant Brown as a base for skin tones.

 

I recently got some coaching from a local painter, Vidal Pagan. That kind of helped me over the hump and also reminded me of some stuff Jen tried to teach me about two years ago.

 

VV is dead-on when he says "glaze the snot out of it." That really sums it up. It allows you to get very smooth transitions of the color and also creates a "glow" to the skin that can't be created otherwise. It is the key technique to having realistic looking skin.

 

And stop saying you can't paint skin. You're just hampering yourself. Besides, if you want to be accurate, put that period behind "paint". Skin is no different from any other painting. You just notice it a lot more if it isn't right. You can fudge cloth a little, but people know what skin should look like and they're not very forgiving.

 

Work on the fundamentals. Those are brush control, paint consistency, and brush load. If you can get those basics down, then the rest gets a lot easier.

 

You are doing all the right things. You're critiquing your work, asking for advice, studying the techniques. Keep it up and you'll get there. Have some patience with yourself. Like a lot of us, you are better than you give yourself credit for.

[Cerridwyn1st]

Well, here's one thing that might help. Think of skin as a "cloth" that covers bone, muscle and fat. You should paint shadow and hightlight to reflect how the skin lays over these structures. Look at the hips on Jade and Sophie. You'll see there is highlighting where the skin would be thinner over the hip bones. On the belly of both ladies, there is a bit of a shadow just above the pubic bone that curves up like a smile between the hip bones and "pouch" around the navel.

 

Look at Jade's arms and the back of her leg. You can get a feeling of how the muscles, tendons an bone "lay" under ths skin.

 

You should use very thin paint for this and a light load on your brush. The best way to treat the paint is to have a puddle of additive mix and a puddle of your paint color in a welled pallet. Add a little additive mix to the paint to give it more open time. Then make a third puddle of the additive mix and add paint a little at a time until you get the right glaze mixture.

 

When you load the brush, dip just the tip in the glaze mix. With paint this thin, it is crutial to control the amount loaded in the brush or you won't be able to contol how it is applies. Apply the thinned paint to the model. Repeat as necessary.

 

The thing that Jen told me (and it took a while to sink in) is that you don't always need to mix a lighter color. Sometimes re-glazing a smaller area will lighten the color. It just depends on what color you are applying on top of the base. If you have a dark base and are glazing lighter, then re-glazing the same color will bring up your highlights and keep the transitions very smooth.

 

Hope this helps.

[Versutus Vulpes]

When you load the brush, dip just the tip in the glaze mix. With paint this thin, it is crutial to control the amount loaded in the brush or you won't be able to contol how it is applies. Apply the thinned paint to the model. Repeat as necessary.

 

Repeated for emphasis ->

 

This is the part that I have the hardest time with still. It basically comes down to impatience on my part while painting - I want to do more painting with the limited time I have - so I want the paint to dry faster so I can go over areas faster. This means I inevitably overload my brush (to keep the paint open longer without using extender) and then as I touch an area - splortch! no glaze - wash instead... .

 

I am getting better at finding my zone - but this 'style'* of painting depends on three variables all interrelated - open time of the paint / thiness of the paint / load on the brush. You need to experiment to find your groove - which is why tis' better to keep painting and get better, rather than reading about techniques.

 

And now I'll stop threadjacking.

 

Excellent advice all around Cerridwyn... 'specially about the welled palet - my wet palet keeps my paint open longer and helps with blending - but I find I am going back more and more to my dollar store escargot dish .

 

*vs dipping/dry brushing/wet blending/whatever

[Cerridwyn1st]

Excellent advice all around Cerridwyn... 'specially about the welled palet - my wet palet keeps my paint open longer and helps with blending - but I find I am going back more and more to my dollar store escargot dish .

 

*vs dipping/dry brushing/wet blending/whatever

 

I used a wet pallet alot about two years or so ago. Problem was, when the paint was thin enough it soaked right through the pallet! I recently tried using a pallet to keep mixtures open longer. But I find that no matter what, once paint has been open a while it starts to clot up. When that happens, you might as well toss it and start over.

 

If I have a mix that I'm making over and over, I'll just mix it in a container and keep it on hand, rather than mix on my pallet over and over. One advantage to having nearly 300 paints is you usually don't have to mix colors. When you do, they are usually simple enought that you can reproduce the mix without too much trouble.

 

I've just gotten to the point it isn't worth it to me to try to keep paint open for too long. Life is too short to sweat the load over specks of paint. Throw it out and start fresh.

 

BTW, I grok the impatience thing. I'd have been a much better painter much sooner if I had more patience with my work. Another problem (which relates to patience) is attention to detail. If you look at the work of the masters, they go over every little detail on the models. Details that other artists wouldn't even bother with are given loving detail. Having that kind of patience has to be one of my biggest personal hurdles.

Edited June 21, 2007 by Cerridwyn1st

[Cerridwyn1st]

Hi, all! I've got some enlarged photos of Jade with some of the shading done on her skirt. It's kind of disappointing to see the blow-ups. It's at that size you begin to see how bad something sucks... sigh....

 

[Cerridwyn1st]

By the way, the skirt color is a 50/50 mix of Vallejo 973 Light Sea Grey and 832 Verdigris Glaze. Both are Model Colors. For the shadow, I mixed the base with a purple mix I've been using as a shadow for teal. As this is not as dark as teal, I didn't want the shadow to be as dark, either.

 

Before painting the base color, I painted some areas that I thought would have skin showing through with flesh tones. I glazed the base coat over that. I wanted the base coat to be my lightest color, with the shadows painted in, because of the cloth-over-skin affect I was going for.

[Cerridwyn1st]

Well, Sophie's had a rough last couple of days. Her wings fell off. Twice. OK, three times if you count getting one wing only knocked off by the cat. She also had an accident with a bottle of WN Brush Cleaner. I'm still repairing THAT damage.

 

I've made some changes to her face. I've also installed her on the base-in-progress. Give me something to hang on to while I paint.

 

 

After seeing VV's wings on his Sophie, I've been working on a similar treatment for ULS. Here's the wing that fell off.

 

 

Edited June 27, 2007 by Cerridwyn1st

[PurityThruFire]

After being battered around, Sophie is still looking as sexy as ever

What are your new plans for her face, her eyes look a little large, more anime like, though this is a WIP, I'm wondering what new direction you're taking her face in.

[fieldarchy]

Welp, now I see the damage you were talking about! At least everything is fixable. Ok, now for my two cents . . .

 

Sophie:

 

The model overall is lookin' spiffy. I would suggest making her wings darker though. Right now they seem to be really close in color to the rest of her body. This is making her look really bland at the moment. If you want to keep the light look for the membrane that would work. I would suggest painting the bony areas a darker brown for more contrast.

 

The face is looking really nice. I really like the way it is turning out. I would make the eyebrows a bit more crisp. Right now the eyebrow line looks a bit fuzzy. Try going for some crisper, sharper lines. Also, I would shorten the brow line a bit. It looks a little like her eye brows are growing down the top of her nose. (I know harsh to say . . . however I think a trip to the esthetician may help )

 

Are you planning on painting in the shadows for the red? It's pretty bright as is, so I would recommend painting in the shadows and maybe two rounds of highlights. You'll want to be careful that the red doesn't come off too yellow/orangey when you paint the shading/highlights in.

 

Are you creating the base we discussed over the phone? I'm tellin' ya . . . if the mini has ugly feet you find creative ways of making them look prettier!

 

Jade:

 

She's lookin' good. Right now I would say she just needs to be cleaned up a bit . . . A couple areas look like the basecoat was on thick but it's nothing horrible. I get paint that goes on a bit thick still at times too. It's inevitable! Make sure you highlight her hair up to white, then go back in with some glazes to tone it down. It will really make the mini pop!

 

Have you already cleaned up the darklining? That is lookin' a bit fuzzy as well. I would try to touch that up a bit more if possible and make the lines a little thinner.

 

Ok, that enough?

 

I think these two are coming along really nicely! I can't wait to see more work on them! Mel, just keep practicing. You've got the right ideas I think it's just refining the technique now that you'll be focusing on. You're doing really great work! There is definite improvement from what you were showing me last year at Indy!

[Cerridwyn1st]

Welp, now I see the damage you were talking about! At least everything is fixable. Ok, now for my two cents . . .

 

Sophie:

 

The model overall is lookin' spiffy. I would suggest making her wings darker though. Right now they seem to be really close in color to the rest of her body. This is making her look really bland at the moment. If you want to keep the light look for the membrane that would work. I would suggest painting the bony areas a darker brown for more contrast.

I was thinking about painting the wings to look more like skin, and the same skin as her body. I liked the way that VV treated the wings. I've updated the images so that you can see the wing that fell off. It is much darker in the recesses around the wing bones, and lighter on the membranes. What do you think?

 

If it still looks bland, I can always play around with it. Since she's tanned but has red hair, I was thinking freckles. Or maybe tatoos.

The face is looking really nice. I really like the way it is turning out. I would make the eyebrows a bit more crisp. Right now the eyebrow line looks a bit fuzzy. Try going for some crisper, sharper lines. Also, I would shorten the brow line a bit. It looks a little like her eye brows are growing down the top of her nose. (I know harsh to say . . . however I think a trip to the esthetician may help )

Eyebrows are a long-time bug-a-boo of mine. Lots of my early models have the "Brooke Shields" look. If you don't know who that is, shame on you! I'll send her for a thread-eybrow pluck by a nice little oriental lady and she'll look spiffy. I was also thinking about eyeshadow and eye color, both green probably.

Are you planning on painting in the shadows for the red? It's pretty bright as is, so I would recommend painting in the shadows and maybe two rounds of highlights. You'll want to be careful that the red doesn't come off too yellow/orangey when you paint the shading/highlights in.

I'm getting there! Sheese! That's one of my favorite colors, BTW. It's called Cavalry Brown, and it's a VMC color. I've never used it as a base for red before, so I'm interested to see how it turns out.

Are you creating the base we discussed over the phone? I'm tellin' ya . . . if the mini has ugly feet you find creative ways of making them look prettier!

LOL! Yes, this is the base we talked about last week. I think the big problem with the left foot especially was that it was over-primed and over-inked. One side affect of the WNBR mis-hap was I realized this and stripped the food down to the bare metal, then re-prmed with a brush on. I've got a ways to go to get it re-painted, but I think that will address a lot of the ugliness issue.

 

Still, I'm going to have to build that base up around the feet more. Make it really look like the lava is bubbling up around her feet. Thanks for the feedback; helps me know I'm on the right track with this.

Jade:

 

She's lookin' good. Right now I would say she just needs to be cleaned up a bit . . . A couple areas look like the basecoat was on thick but it's nothing horrible. I get paint that goes on a bit thick still at times too. It's inevitable! Make sure you highlight her hair up to white, then go back in with some glazes to tone it down. It will really make the mini pop!

I started this piece at least two years ago, with the idea of "pushing myself to the next level". I kind of hit a plateau and got stuck. I've gotten much better since then at applying thinned paint. It is interesting to see how new layers of thinned paint applied over thick cleans things up.

Have you already cleaned up the darklining? That is lookin' a bit fuzzy as well. I would try to touch that up a bit more if possible and make the lines a little thinner.

Yeah, I can see the same thing, so I'm in agreement with you on cleaning up the darklining. Some of it has been painted over so it is no longer defined. It definately needs to be re-touched. Then I'll clean them up by over-painting.

 

I thougth when I re-started Jade that it was something I needed to do to break through. Go back to old pieces and finish them up. It's interesting because a lot of my bench queens I've gotten discouraged on. I let them sit a little while, and in the mean time my skills progress. I don't want to work on them because I look at the previous efforts and I'm turned off by how thick and nasty it looks to me now. I don't want to strip and re-do because I've got so much work invested in them.

 

 

Working on Jade has helped me see that you can always treat the older layers as something of a base coat. New, thin layers applied on top of that will smooth out the appearance of the mini.

Ok, that enough?

No. He he. Hey, look at how much feedback I've put on your posts. But seriously, yes, this helps a lot. This is the kind of feedback I was looking for in posting these.

I think these two are coming along really nicely! I can't wait to see more work on them! Mel, just keep practicing. You've got the right ideas I think it's just refining the technique now that you'll be focusing on. You're doing really great work! There is definite improvement from what you were showing me last year at Indy!

 

Thanks, Meg. I'll keep at it!

[fieldarchy]

LOL! Of course I know who Brooke Shields is! I've been told I kinda look like her . . . personally I don't see the resemblance!

 

I'll wait for more updates before giving more feedback. You've got enough to work on at the moment.