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Thelgar and an Xmas mini


fieldarchy
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Here you go Meg...I had some fun in Photoshop! You will notice where I used the burn tool to darken the underside of the muscles on the left arm as well as bring the color levels down on his stomach and lower back. The stomach and lower back will just need to have a straight glaze of your darkest brown color that your using. Make sure it is very very thin so you can do a couple layers if need be with out jacking it up! This will lower the color values in those areas just enough to make them look more in the shadows yet still retaining your contrast between light and dark...You shouldn't have to rehighlight or anything on those two areas. Basically you are just turning the lights down a bit. :rolleyes: . Also make sure you empty most of the paint off your brush...do not let the paint pool at all as this will give you mixed results when it dries.

The muscles will need blending of course because you are working on a curved surface so your color range will go from light to dark. Here is a crappy photoshoped version I did. The burn tool just makes everything darker so it will definately look better with the colors you are using but you will at least get the idea.

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I also did an illustration of how my brush strokes go when blending. I'm not sure how you go about blending but it is always good to see how other people do it so that you can take the best from everyone and make it your own. Also remember that these steps are done very quickly...don't let the paint dry inbetween steps or it will really suck! For the last step (which I forgot to add in the picture) you put down your darkest shade of the color into the deepest area that you want shaded and then feather and pull that paint back up to whatever looks good. Sometimes you need to do these steps with the same color two or three times as you are putting very little pigment down. You have to build up color...it doesn't take that long though. Its a technique that definately takes a little bit of getting used to (and much easier to show in person) but once you get it, you will get fantastic results in very little time!

post-4384-1195851368_thumb.jpg

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Hmmm... the jaguar print kind of looks more like runes or symbols on his pants and quiver. Maybe more of the markings so there isn't so much space between them? I did a conversion of the Jaguar God barbarian from Verotik Comics a few years back and I seem to recall the jaguar pictures I used for reference had the cat more orange in tone than yellow. I can post a pic of the miniature if you'd care to see it (nowhere near as good as your work, but at least the colors and pattern may be of use to you).

 

Just trying to offer some constructive advice - you are off to a great start on this guy!

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jaguar.jpg

 

Well here is a picture of a jaguar. I started with chestnut gold and went up to buckskin pale with some white in it. Some of the shadows were lost so I am going to glaze them back in.

 

Okay, sorry....

 

You have matched the colors in that picture fine - mine must have been different. I'll leave this alone now.

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Hi Meg,

 

I think the skin is perfect. Especially the face, I wouldn't touch the face anymore. Lighting is a delicate subject in painting, there is a very fine line between perfect and too much, people also have to remember your not painting a 2d painting here where light source is very critical in the painting, 3D miniatures will naturally pick up the light in the room and highlight/shade themselves to some degree, if you know what I mean. Take care - 88

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The skin looks great! I wouldnt alter it much at all.

 

I think the leopard print is letting it down though. If you notice the thing that makes the real leopard 'work' is that the spots are much closer together and breaks up the overall form the animal. The leopard on the model has much less spot than the leopard skin on the critter. I think you would be best served by expanding the size, or the number of spots. Ya gotta break up the overall look of the skin. Right now it does indeed look like standard leather with more of a runic pattern.

 

Just my 2 pennies... ymmv.

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Agreed that maybe more spots would be better. Some other observations on the leopard skin:

 

1. The picture shows that the spots are not exactly randomly distributed -- there's a central stripe down the back with darker spots almost in a row, a couple rows of lighter spots to either side of that one, and then the spots get progressively lighter, more randomly dispersed, and smaller from there. The spots on the mini are all roughly the same color and size.

 

2. The leopard's fur starts at yellow, but also fades towards white as it goes towards the belly. The base fur color on the model is the same all the way across.

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Thanks guys, I did more work on him last night, namely the pants so he is looking different today.

 

Okie dokie, was working on getting more depth to the pants before touching up the spots. The white is getting lost in the yellow though, I can't seem to get it bright enough. I think I need to go in with another brown glaze too for the shadows.

 

 

 

post-2071-1195939583.jpgpost-2071-1195939590.jpg

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Ok after touching up shadows and adding a bit of a glaze of intense brown to certain areas I went in with blackened brown and added more spots. If you notice the photo of the jaguar the spots are several different colors. I had originally painted the spots with brown liner which is darker and more black looking. The blackened brown is a nice deep chocolate color. Hopefully he's looking better. I think so. So, time to move on. If I need to I can go back in and touch up the pants/quiver later on but it's looking ok to me so far. This was tough! The first animal print I've ever tried to do.

 

post-2071-1195942137.jpgpost-2071-1195942144.jpg

post-2071-1195942162.jpg

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Meg,

 

I was thinking about the white thing. You know that it is skin, it will diffuse out quite a bit more than cloth or armor will, mostly due to the fact that fur has a ton of little hairs on it that naturally reflect in many different directions. Ultimately that means that the fur will not be as bright as the rest of the model.

 

Therefore I think your safe!

 

The deepening of the recesses makes it look alot better, and with added spots I think your gonna be ok!

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