valadil Posted September 1, 2009 Share Posted September 1, 2009 Hi. I've been painting for years but only recently got a decent camera/lightbox set up. This is by far my best mini, so I want you all to tell me what's wrong with it. I haven't read up on a lot of technique, so if there's some specific trick I should be doing please explain it or link to it. I know that the weapon kind of sucks, no need to remind me, but feel free to be honest and brutal elsewhere. Oh, and I should point out that this image is a little splotchier than the real thing due to a few too many jpg conversions. I was editing several batches of minis and cropped them all, then saved, then adjusted lighting, then saved, etc and didn't realize I was losing quality each time. Stupid jpg. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inarah Posted September 1, 2009 Share Posted September 1, 2009 I want you all to tell me what's wrong with it. Well, I think it looks pretty good. It has a nice color palette and everything is neatly done, you've covered the details on his face and club. You could work on the highlights more. A dot of silver on the pewter colored spikes on the club, for example. Some brighter highlights on the folds of his robe and hood. Fingernails are not white. That was the biggest thing I noticed when I first saw it. They are more of a flesh color. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valadil Posted September 1, 2009 Author Share Posted September 1, 2009 I want you all to tell me what's wrong with it. Well, I think it looks pretty good. It has a nice color palette and everything is neatly done, you've covered the details on his face and club. You could work on the highlights more. A dot of silver on the pewter colored spikes on the club, for example. Some brighter highlights on the folds of his robe and hood. Fingernails are not white. That was the biggest thing I noticed when I first saw it. They are more of a flesh color. TY for the comments. This was actually the first time I did fingernails and now that you point it out I agree that their color is off. I'll try some highlights on the weapon as you've suggested. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jabberwocky Posted September 2, 2009 Share Posted September 2, 2009 Welcome to the forums! Inarah raised some good points. Additionally, I think some darklining of adjacent areas helps to get the mini to "pop" a bit more. The sharp edges of the top of the robe on the shoulders would benefit from just a bit more highlighting as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whizard Hlavaz Posted September 2, 2009 Share Posted September 2, 2009 Welcome to the boards. This figure is nicely done. I like your loose application of shadows and grime. The figure looks well traveled. Furthermore, the ruddiness of the face is excellent. Clean up that sleepy eye, and I'd say the face would be near perfect. You could do a bit more the pick out some highlights on the beard to draw out some of the strands. As previously said, you could work to bump all of your highest highlights. The fact that the fingernails are white definitely diminishes the pop of any other highlights. Bump them down. Otherwise, I think you're on the right track. Darkline for sure, too. Absolutely. Nice work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valadil Posted September 2, 2009 Author Share Posted September 2, 2009 Wizard & Jabberwocky, What exactly is this darklining you speak of? I've seen a few tutorials suggesting outlining certain shapes in black and I can see how that would help emphasise them but whenever I try it it doesn't work out so well. Is there any particular technique involved here? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joshuaslater Posted September 2, 2009 Share Posted September 2, 2009 I would start with the straps against the robes. Take some black liner from Reaper, or just use your favorite black paint, thinned down enough to do the job, but not run all over. Paint in the cracks of the sculpts under those straps, with the finest detail brush you've got. Make sure it's clean and paint over any black that gets out of control. Blacklining is what makes models "pop" like comic artists' work. I like it on all models, but some people don't like it at all, so I'd say try it and see. You'll notice the model more at the tabletop level for sure with this technique. Of course, if you use black primer, the whole model is starting blacklined, and saves on some time, but colors take differently. Good work by the way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kang Posted September 2, 2009 Share Posted September 2, 2009 I'd suggest using a dark colour other than black - maybe a brown, though it would depend on the colours of the 2 distinct areas you're trying to separate - for darklining. Black tends to make minis look a little too comic-book-like IMO, but a nice (ie.) dark brown just helps separate different parts fairly realistically, but without the line itself really jumping out at you. If you're consciously looking for it, you'll definitely notice it it on a lot of really well-painted minis. When done right, it's not something you'd really notice if you weren't looking for it. - edit - since you asked about technique, here's a quick & dirty trick for easy darklining: Paint a generous amount of flow improver directly onto the mini in the cracks wherever you want to place your dark lines. Get some on the surrounding areas as well, just overlapping a bit. Then taking a brush loaded with a little liner or very thin dark paint, just dip the tip of the brush into the crack you are lining. The flow improver should wick the liner right into the correct spots. Then, with a dry brush, you can remove any excess flow improver, and you can even remove some of the liner if too much went into any given area. The point of overlapping the surrounding areas with the flow improver is in case your brush goes astray - the flow improver should help direct the liner to where it belongs, and if not you can still wick most of it away with your dry brush qlong with the excess flow improver. Like I said, it's quick & dirty; you may have to touch up a few small areas near your darklining if the excess didn't all want to come off without staining anything. But it's still easier to fix than it would have been without the flow improver. Note, this trick is optional - most painters who do darklining probably don't bother painting flow improver onto their minis first. But since you say you've had poor luck getting it to work right, I though I'd it to my post. Kang Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joshuaslater Posted September 2, 2009 Share Posted September 2, 2009 Solid advice Kang. Brownlining is nice too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awong Posted September 2, 2009 Share Posted September 2, 2009 You can also get the black lining effect just by pushing the shading of your mini. You have probably heard this before. With properly thinned paint, the usual direction of the paint brush is in the direction towards and ending where you want to deposit your paint. That is, if you are highlighting with a lighter color, your brush moves from mid-tone toward the area of highlight and leaves the mini where the brightest point would be. Where the brush leaves is where the highest concentration of paint will deposit. Conversely, if you are shadowing with a darker color, your brush moves from the mid-tone into the recess or shadow area, lifting off where the darkest spot should be. I always think of drawing with those thick magic markers...that big blob of color I always get at the end of my stroke. Use this to your advantage. If I'm applying shadows around a belt strap (for instance), my brush would be naturally moving towards the belt strap edge, depositing most shadow color right at that juncture. This way, you can get great contrast, but it won't look like a hard line drawn against the belt, but rather a natural progressing shadow. Even on the area near the crossing of the belts, although the garment is highlighted (near the top of his belly), you could start a subtle shadowing towards the belt. You'll get some contrast and the effect that the belt is causing the garment to depress under it's weight. Where the two belts are crossing, use a darker color and shadow the lower belt, moving the brush towards the crossing top belt edge. You'll deposit more dark color at that height change, strengthening the contrast and giving you some color variation. To make this area punch even more, highlight the proud parts. At the belts crossing, highlight, with a lighter brown, from the center of the top belt out towards the edge of the belt. Again, do this with thinned paints in multiple passes (drying between each pass). You'll get great contrast between the upper belt over the lower. This can be done all over any figure or concentrated at areas where you want to direct a viewer's attention. You'll really start feeling like you're sculpting the mini with your brush as you follow the folds and details. For me, this is what makes painting enjoyable and you start appreciating the sculpt and the artist's work . Wow, quite a ramble. I hope that made some sense Regardless, you've got a great start there. We'll be wanting to see a lot more. -AW Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
valadil Posted September 3, 2009 Author Share Posted September 3, 2009 Whoa, lots of good advice. What exactly should I use as "flow improver?" In the past I've used water for this purpose, but I'm not sure if you had something else in mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kang Posted September 3, 2009 Share Posted September 3, 2009 While it's true that water makes acrylic paints flow better, no, water won't work the same way here & I wouldn't recommend using that to do the quick & dirty lining trick; sure, you'll get a dark line where you wanted it, but you'll also end up painting the surrounding areas with a layer of liner colour that will probably stain the parts you didn't want it to a lot more before you can schlorp it off with a dry brush than it would if you were using a flow improver. Don't get me wrong; you should definitely always be thinning your paints with water, even when using this trick, but for the part where you paint the flow improver directly onto the mini, you'll want to use something different. You could try Reaper's Master Series Flow Improver; I haven't used it yet, but if the rest of the line is any indication I'm sure it's very good. A 4 oz. bottle of Liquitex Flow Aid goes a very long way, as it has to be diluted a lot (20:1, IIRC - possible I'm thinking of a different additive, but I'm pretty sure it's this one) with water. That's the stuff I've got & I quite like it. Winsor & Newton Flow Improver also comes very highly recommended, though I haven't ever been able to find it in Canada where I live. One of the craft acrylics brands sells 'acrylic thinner' which also works and comes very cheap - can't remember if it's FolkArt or Delta or one of the others, but you should be able to find it at Michaels, Wal-Mart, etc. Those are the options I'm familiar with, anyhow. Basically, as I understand it, the stuff breaks up the surface tension of your paint/water mix, allowing the paint to settle in the recesses where you want it, instead of drying in an ugly ring too high up as can happen with washes thinned with just water. Hope that helps; good luck & happy darklining! Kang Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awong Posted September 3, 2009 Share Posted September 3, 2009 ...a lot more before you can schlorp it off with a dry brush... Kang 10 bonus points for Kang. Correct usage of the term "schlorp". Ding Ding! We now return to our previously scheduled program... -AW Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr.Bedlam Posted September 3, 2009 Share Posted September 3, 2009 I picked that one up at Reapercon. If it had glasses on, it'd look just like me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lynnaea Posted September 3, 2009 Share Posted September 3, 2009 I picked that one up at Reapercon. If it had glasses on, it'd look just like me. That's an easy enough conversion ... ;) It would make a good mate for the 02835 Jolie, Scribe miniature. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.