Mercius Posted March 11, 2010 Share Posted March 11, 2010 Hi all. This is the Games Workshop, Lord of the Rings, Dwarven ranger mini I am painting up for my local Games Worshop's painting competition. I am really unsure how happy I am with how this is coming along. The main frustration I am finding is that the sculpt is horrid....I guess I am spoiled from Reaper miniatures and their crisply sculpted details, this mini, especially the underside of the bow and the hand holding it is just a long piece of plastic connected to the body, with no detail and a lot of imperfections to boot. I cant dremel this area or cut it because it is part off the stomach area, if that is at all clear. I am semi happy with the paint job so far, it isn't nearly as good as my last mini, but overall it is coming along decently, the highlights are good so far and I am pretty damn happy with the skin and face, especially the eyes. I have scoped the winners of the last competition and I feel like I am pretty inline with most of them skillwise, and I did not see many people doing more than your typical sand bases, so hopefully doing a cork base will score a few points too. I think honestly my overall biggest problem is I am nervous. I know I am just starting back out painting and I am not going to be perfect....I also know I should not expect to do super well in my first comp...but I am hard on myself and really want to do well. Anyway I am writing a book, but it feels good to vent a little right? Thanks for sticking with me....here is the mini, CnC more than welcome, help me make this as good as it can be. Thanks all! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mini Killer Posted March 11, 2010 Share Posted March 11, 2010 Brother don’t be so hard on yourself. Your painting is coming along very well. Hell in the time it took me to paint one mini you have paint 3 or 4 of high quality. None of us is ever 100% happy with our own work because we know were ever flaw is. Now on to the mini, I Love the face, the eyes really pop and the beard is great. My only criticism would be that cloak, pants, shirt and bow are two close in color they are blending. Now that I look again I think the bow and cloak are still primed :) Can't wait to see it finished. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercius Posted March 11, 2010 Author Share Posted March 11, 2010 Heh, sorry about the ramble last night...I had a bad night overall. You are correct the cloak and bow are still primed...The leather has only been basevoated....all that has been done is the skin, face, beard and khaki clothing. Thanks for responding, I re-read that post and it was pretty annoying lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mini Killer Posted March 11, 2010 Share Posted March 11, 2010 We all have days like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercius Posted March 11, 2010 Author Share Posted March 11, 2010 Yes we do...Like I said the hardest part is the horrible horrible mold. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morganm Posted March 11, 2010 Share Posted March 11, 2010 I'm far from a good painter but I'll throw in a couple cents =) With regards to the bow melting into the body and having a mass of pointless metal to deal with; I can sympathize. one of the kobolds I'm painting right now has a similar issue where the staff melts into the leg/waist and theres this blob of metal that is neither staff nor body. What I ended up doing is painting it with the darkest shadow color to make it dissapear in the shadows. That bow is rather sad; there's no detail at all! Are you allowed to change the model for the competition? It would be pretty easy to add details like this: http://www.reapermini.com/FigureFinder#detail/03166 To be fair about bows with out detail... while looking for that example I'd say half of the Reaper models with bows had no detail at all. Seems like the mooks get crappy bows and the elite dudes get the nice bows =) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercius Posted March 11, 2010 Author Share Posted March 11, 2010 Morganm, good advice...I agree the bow is pretty sad....this is just a standard army filler model I think. I don't play GW games but the rules for the painting competition were, it had to be a GW model and a 1 wound model, meaning a basic army unit pretty much. I think I am going to paint the bow with a wood grain and add some brass or gold accents to the tips, along with freehanding a wrapped grip near the middle. I agree 100% on your advice forthe melted/lost detail areas, I have washed them with a dark brown and they meld into the leather when viewd straight on now, only weay to see the messed up detail is to turn the model upside down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cookjimjr Posted March 12, 2010 Share Posted March 12, 2010 Mercius, Man I agree with Mini-Killer. You are being way to hard on your self. What I see here is some great blending, Shading, and highlighting of the areas you have worked on. The face is definitely Dwarfish, which means you have captured the expression (Grumpy) pretty well. I know why you like Dwarves so well, they also are always looking for perfection in their craft. The mini may be a bad sculpt, but you seem to be making lemonade out of the lemon. I will comment some more when you get some more done, but so far I looks really good. Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercius Posted March 12, 2010 Author Share Posted March 12, 2010 Thanks Jim...I am feeling better about it today after sleeping on it...I had a bad night last night, I have a tooth that needs a root canal and took some painkillers and just was generally in an unhappy mood all night. I am going to spend a good deal of time working on it this weekend and hope to have more to show soon, The more I look at the face the happier I am with it, he def. looks dwarfish for sure. My boss at work got a free Warhammer dwarf last time he went to GW in Seattle and he gave it to me today, so when I am done with this comp. piece I am going to paint the Warhammer dwarf just for fun, no stress, and give it back to him lol. Thanks again for all your praise and advice, you all rock! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferox Posted March 12, 2010 Share Posted March 12, 2010 If you want some crits, the only thing I can think of to suggest is smoothing out the blends on the beard. Right now the transition between highlights and shadows is pretty abrupt, and the highlights seem to be on the front of the whiskers rather than more on top. Smoothing over the transition, and putting a bit more light pigment on the top of the moustache, would make a big difference in the look of his face IMO. The base is going to rule. I'd be tempted to pick away at the top (flat) surface on each layer of cork, just to break up the uniformity a little, but LOTR is full of stone stairs and the like so you're probably okay as-is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercius Posted March 12, 2010 Author Share Posted March 12, 2010 Yeah, I had already planned on taking a few glazes to the beard and making the transitions a bit smoother. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mini Killer Posted March 12, 2010 Share Posted March 12, 2010 ...I had a bad night last night, I have a tooth that needs a root canal and took some painkillers and just was generally in an unhappy mood all night. I am going to spend a good deal of time working on it this weekend and hope to have more to show soon, The more I look at the face the happier I am with it, he def. looks dwarfish for sure. My boss at work got a free Warhammer dwarf last time he went to GW in Seattle and he gave it to me today, so when I am done with this comp. piece I am going to paint the Warhammer dwarf just for fun, no stress, and give it back to him lol. Thanks again for all your praise and advice, you all rock! A bad tooth will skew anyone's prospective. I like what you have planned for the bow. can't wait to see more and I hope you're feeling better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercius Posted March 14, 2010 Author Share Posted March 14, 2010 Here is the progress I made from tonight....it is coming along fairly nicely....some of my blends are not as smooth as I would like, but I am never satisfied lol. I love his face and his skin in general, and I like the way his boots turned out too. The NMM is passable but not what I wanted when I started it. What yah going to do right, anyway hope you enjoy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferox Posted March 14, 2010 Share Posted March 14, 2010 Oh yeah! Great job on the cloak. It really contrasts well with the rest of the figure, especially the ruddy face. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mini Killer Posted March 14, 2010 Share Posted March 14, 2010 Great Job Bro, The colors really work well togather and the boots did come out very nice. Can not wait to see it completed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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