PIP35022: Nayl

[Ferox]

I'm painting this guy up as a Githzerai Avenger of Corellon for a D&D campaign that's kicking off this Friday. I, uh, probably won't have him finished for the first session, but you never know. Here he is basecoated:

 

 

Yeah, painting him with the forearms and sword glued and pinned on is a royal PITA, but I don't trust myself to be able to get that delicate a pin-joint lined up properly after paint. Maybe a skill to learn for later. Eyes are correspondingly rudimentary.

 

 

Looks like I have a little cleanup to do around the border of the Ghost White cloth. Otherwise, I think I'm doing pretty well. This is basically the studio scheme with blue instead of green, a different skin tone, and Aged Pewter + Forest Green for the metals. Blacks are Midnight Blue + Walnut Brown, which I'm digging immensely.

 

 

Comments and suggestions would be very much appreciated. If nothing else, I could use a gadfly to remind me to darkline my s#!t for once....

[Loim]

Oi! Don't forget to darkline :).

 

I really like what you've done with this so far. Ready to see the end result. Excellent work.

[Orionjp]

Keep posting, I love watching WIP. I like the colors your using, can't wait to see end result.

[Ferox]

Got some work done shading and highlighting the blue cloth.

 

 

I shaded the tabard and belts with browns and highlighted with a mix towards khaki highlight, while the torso armour got purple/red shadows and rosy highlight... er, highlights for a bit more contrast with the skin. The ghost white hakama (or whatever it is) got some shading with the khaki triad, which turned out a bit too grungy. I tried glazing in some twilight blue to cool it off a little... bad idea, it went towards a greenish-brown. Finally I glazed over everything with the base ghost white, which brought the colours back to something reasonable but washed out a lot of the contrast. I may go back and work some very neutral grey into the shadows, or maybe go a bit more towards pink. Any suggestions?

[Ferox]

Finished off the leather this evening. I've been trying to add texture as well as lighting with the shading and highlights. It's kinda working.

 

The ochre leather got a bit of thinned brown liner for shading, then some thinned VMC Smoke for tone, and finally some khaki stuff for highlights. All of this was done in a roughly crosshatched pattern, unlike the cloth which is done with smoother, more continuous strokes.

 

 

The "black" leather on the boots and stomach got shaded with blue liner and highlighted with hatched twilight blue, and then a mix of twilight blue and some khaki thing I had on my wet palette. So far it actually looks like well-used but well-kept leather. We'll see how much of that survives the varnish coat. As before, I added a bit of red for the shadows and highlights further up the mini.

 

 

I also got started on the sword blade. I started with thinned VMC smoke, then worked a bit of red liner into the deeper shadows. There's a tide line on one side of the blade, which irritates me to no end. I'm thinking of shading the rest of the metal with a cooler green/blue mix, just to make the blade stand out a little more. Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?

 

Also, I finished off a couple of bases, one of which will probably be Zith's:

 

 

The green mossy growths are packing foam from WarmaHordes blisters stuck on with superglue, a nifty little technique I found out about just today via one of Gareson's blog posts. I'm still figuring out just how it works and what kinds of effects I can achieve, but so far I like it.

 

 

Next up is the metal, then the skin. I'm looking to add some freehand as well: probably an eight-pointed star on the tabard (symbol of Corellon, Zith's god) and some kind of simple and unobtrusive pattern on the hakama, but maybe some filigree on the blade as well. Any suggestions?

[Orionjp]

Coming along nicely, I like the NMM your doing, LOVE the base. Can't wait to see him finished.

[Ferox]

Glad you're diggin' it. The sword isn't actually NMM -- the basecoat is actually a mix of green and pewter, so it has some metallic sheen to it. That's maybe most obvious in the photos from the first post. I like to shade metallics with glazes of matte paint and highlight them with ever-shinier metallics, so that the reflectivity as well as the lightness follow the light/shadow pattern. Lately this means I'm mixing my base coat metallic (in this case, Aged Pewter) with something nonreflective (in this case, Forest Green).

 

It's the same basic process as NMM, only done using metallics. Here's what, as far as I can tell, is the tutorial that really popularized the method, and another look by local paint-meister Jabberwocky. I've found that true NMM requires a lot of skill to pull off -- if you can't blend smoothly and consistently over small areas, you're hosed -- but shaded metallics still look pretty decent if your blends aren't smooth. True NMM also photographs a lot better, but shaded metallics really come alive in the hand.

[Ferox]

Aside from fixing a few details I've noticed in the latest set of photos, I think he's done:

 

 

I finished off the metallics, shading with warm colours on the sword's blade, neutral browns on the hilt and pommel, and blues everywhere else. Next I went through and did partial highlights with pure Aged Pewter and the same with a touch of VMC metal medium. I'll go back over the very shiniest bits with the latter, and possibly some pure VMC metal medium, once I've sealed the figure. Before I do so, though, I'm going to work on the transition between green and brown on the front of the blade, try to smooth it out and make it follow the curve a bit better.

 

The freehand on the tabard is the symbol of Corellon, an eight-pointed star. I think I'll go back with a little blue liner and sharpen up the edges.

 

 

I highlighted the skin with a mix of khaki highlight, sunlight yellow, and linen white. I probably should've based the skin tone on khaki (or ochre?) instead of olive to start with. I shaded by adding progressively more blue liner to the mix, then mixed up a nice neutral grey from colours I'd already used on the mini and added the patterns with a sharpened toothpick. Some were more successful than others. Oh well; first time I've tried it. I followed up with a thin wash of the base skintone to tie everything together.

 

I have a few minor mistakes to clean up, and I might go back over the skin patterns to fade them out a bit from the shoulders and wrists. Otherwise, I think this guy's ready for sealer and basing.

[Orionjp]

Looks good, I like the skin marks personally. The sword doesn't really come across as a metal sword to me, but it could be the picture. I like everything else.

[TaleSpinner]

I'm really liking the skin effects, Ferox. I do however, think you need another round of highlights to really make the skin pop. Actually, the whole mini could use another level, especially on the belts in back and his head gear.

 

The sword: I have to agree with Orionjp, it's not really selling as metal. I think the green added to the pewter muted it out too much. It does, however, look like well glazed, wood-fired pottery, so I'm going to have to book mark this so I can use it for that sometime.

 

Some thoughts on the metal, if you'd consider a rework. I assume that you are going for a green metallic blade, yes? If so, here's a method/recipie to consider:

 

Base coat: Shadowed Steel or Honed Steel

 

Shading glazes (as per the shaded metalics method):

 

1. Pale Lichen

2. Highlands Moss

3. Jungle Moss

4. Jungle Moss/Walnut Brown

5. Walnut Brown

 

(This will give a cool green blade, if you want warm, use the Olive triad instead of the Moss.)

 

Then bring the highlights back with:

 

1. Honed Steel

2. Polished Sliver

 

Glaze the highlights with a very thin layer or two of Clear Green (or another unmuted green, the moss series is just too muted for this; also remember to keep it cool, you don't want too warm of a green here, unless you go with the Olive triad instead of the Moss).

 

Touch the very top highlights with polished silver.

 

Sorry for the harsh critique, but you seem like you want critiques more than just compliments.

 

Andy

[Orionjp]

I'm really liking the skin effects, Ferox. I do however, think you need another round of highlights to really make the skin pop. Actually, the whole mini could use another level, especially on the belts in back and his head gear.

 

The sword: I have to agree with Orionjp, it's not really selling as metal. I think the green added to the pewter muted it out too much. It does, however, look like well glazed, wood-fired pottery, so I'm going to have to book mark this so I can use it for that sometime.

 

Some thoughts on the metal, if you'd consider a rework. I assume that you are going for a green metallic blade, yes? If so, here's a method/recipie to consider:

 

Base coat: Shadowed Steel or Honed Steel

 

Shading glazes (as per the shaded metalics method):

 

1. Pale Lichen

2. Highlands Moss

3. Jungle Moss

4. Jungle Moss/Walnut Brown

5. Walnut Brown

 

(This will give a cool green blade, if you want warm, use the Olive triad instead of the Moss.)

 

Then bring the highlights back with:

 

1. Honed Steel

2. Polished Sliver

 

Glaze the highlights with a very thin layer or two of Clear Green (or another unmuted green, the moss series is just too muted for this; also remember to keep it cool, you don't want too warm of a green here, unless you go with the Olive triad instead of the Moss).

 

Touch the very top highlights with polished silver.

 

Sorry for the harsh critique, but you seem like you want critiques more than just compliments.

 

Andy

You just said everything I wanted to say but didn't have the knowledge or skill to say ;).

[Ferox]

I'm really liking the skin effects, Ferox. I do however, think you need another round of highlights to really make the skin pop. Actually, the whole mini could use another level, especially on the belts in back and his head gear.

Glad to hear it about the skin -- I was worried that I wouldn't be able to pull it off. I've just finished sealing the mini, but I don't think another level of highlights will be a problem over the matte sealer. Worst case is that they rub off during gaming as the figure gets a bit dingy from handling anyway.

 

The sword: I have to agree with Orionjp, it's not really selling as metal. I think the green added to the pewter muted it out too much.

You're right, there's too much green in the basecoat as it stands. On the other hand, lately I've been putting down a lot of more or less matte washes to shade my metallics, and finding that after sealing I have to bring up the highlights pretty strongly a second time, so I was planning from the get-go to add back a lot of the shininess right at the end. In a sense what you see there is just the backdrop for the real highlight coat.

 

Also, from a story perspective the blade's supposed to be an ancient heirloom from a forgotten era, so if it sells as "sharp-looking mystery material" I'm still happy.

 

Sorry for the harsh critique, but you seem like you want critiques more than just compliments.

No worries; this is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. Thanks!

[Ferox]

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