[GROUP/OPEN]WIP L2PK3

[Slashhamster]

Oh! And I used my WNS7 #1 a lot more on this one, just for something different. I tried putting in more time with the 3/0 but it's just too limited (eyes only). I do prefer the 3/0 to the miniature 0, though. Bigger body, though at that size it's not saying much.

 

Interesting to hear that; last night as I was painting I was cursing at my WNS7 #0. I do almost everything with a WNS7 #1. I have a #2 as well that I'll pull out from time to time.

 

The #0 though, I just can't find a home for it. The brush doesn't hold much of any paint, and dries out so fast. Even for doing things like eyes, the paint doesn't want to flow off the brush. Everything I've tried with it, I can do better with the #1. It sounds like I should have gone for 3/0 instead.

[CashWiley]

Add some drying retarder when using smaller brushes. I paint near a woodstove so it's wicked dry and small brushes were unusable before I tried that.

 

Note that in that quote I was talking about a WNS7 miniature 0. It's smaller than a normal 0.

[gmpathfinder]

And so it begins... as soon as my in-laws give me back my desk.

 

(Note: I added a few paints to the order, so subtract 3 to get the kit).

Edited March 17, 2013 by gmpathfinder

[gmpathfinder]

Not much to report other than: prepped and primed.

With the brush on primer, how many coats do you normally put on? This is two and he still seems a little shiny.

[Doug Sundseth]

Not much to report other than: prepped and primed.

 

With the brush on primer, how many coats do you normally put on? This is two and he still seems a little shiny.

 

One. And I don't much worry about complete coverage. Your object isn't to kill the shine, it's to make sure you have something for the paint to stick to, and that doesn't take much at all.

[gmpathfinder]

This just in: NMM is hard. This may take me a few (dozen) tries. First attempt at the leg armor:

 

 

[gmpathfinder]

 

Minor progress. This kit is hard; I may start over again. Gold is definitely giving me issues, it looks absolutely miserable here. Oh an I really didn't shade his breastplate correctly.

[buglips*the*goblin]

Looks like the paint is not as thin as it needs to be for smooth transitions. Good news is you probably don't need to strip it, just paint over your highlights with some of the basecoat and try with thinner paint. Finding the sweet spot just needs some experimentation. Even if you do decide to start from scratch with a strip, I'd recommend before doing that that you select a few spots, restore your basecoat, and do some experimenting with thinner mixes. The greens are a good place to try it. This extra practice wrangling the thinner paint will then help you out tons when you give it a strip-up re-do.

 

The effort on this will pay off big on future miniatures when you do layering, so try not to get discouraged!

[CashWiley]

I spent so much time poring over the instructions on this kit. Reading, re-reading, re-re-reading. Examining the pictures intensely. I spent at least a couple nights studying them before I even started painting.

 

As Bugsy says, you don't need to repaint. In fact, I find NMM is a constant back and forth as you dial in the highlights and shadows. The main thing with gold is to figure out where the brightest highlight will be. This usually runs along the longest axis of the object, but there are lots of exceptions (which is where studying the pics comes in). Anyway, I put in a line of thinned white as a guideline for that highest highlight.

 

Then lay out all your spectrum from shadow to highlight on the palette (this is why I like a wet palette). The very basic rule is to paint one side of that line as shadow and the other as light. The shadow side will start with the darkest shadow right next to your guideline and will fade away from it to the mid-tone. The light side will start with the highlight next to your guideline and fade away to the mid-tone.

 

Forgive the crudity of this, and it lacks the center highlight, but I whipped it up in a couple seconds in GIMP :)

 

 

So get that idea down and you're getting started with gold nmm. Study Anne's instructions and painted examples and look to see how she applied that to the different surfaces on the two models.

 

Steel...yeah, still working on that one...Anyway, hope this helps!

Edited June 10, 2013 by CashWiley

[CashWiley]

Disregard this post, fixed the last one :)

Edited June 10, 2013 by CashWiley

[MonkeySloth]

Lets do this. Had this guy for a while now, since February, out and waiting to go as but never got to him (big surprise) and Cash's latest WIP got me in the mood to paint again (can't let him have all the NMM fun) after a few weeks off, not the best timing though as I leave Saturday for a week long work trip\vacation in Denmark so lets see what I can get done.

 

While this is a Learn to Paint kit, and the point of this thread is to follow the guide, I will be making changes to make this more what I want to paint. I will be sticking with the purpose of this thread however as I'll only be using the colors in the kit but I reserve the right for the non metallics to be painted differently.

 

 

First off are the eyes which is the only place where I didn't stick to the colors as I prefer a slight off white to pure white, outside of that they're Mahogany and Black. I also made the eyes look to his right (your left) as I think it makes the post more dynamic--as if he's about to throw the dagger in his other hand at someone coming up from behind him. His left foot (you're right) broke, as this wasn't the best reaper cast I've had, and in my hurry I didn't get the pin lined up right and that foot's off a bit but it also adds some to the motion I described above.

 

The face is the mix in the guide but I made Highlight 1 the base and the guide's base the first shade. I then added more mahogany for another shade level. Highlights were just white mixed in to the mixture used for the base.

 

I don't care for the blond hair the guide wanted you to paint so I changed it slightly. The base and first wash are the same as in the guide but then I changed the first highlight to only be oiled leather and palomino gold. Did a wash of Mahogany, as instructed and then only highlighted up to the first highlight plus some white. Basically did some washes and glazing going back and fourth between 4 colors.

 

Tried out something new for photos, works much better then what I had been using before down here in my basement, but I'll switch out the background color to something else as it's too brown for the hair to really stand out.

Edited July 2, 2013 by MonkeySloth

[klawzie]

Dat hair. <3

[CashWiley]

I changed up the hair, too. I think the mold might be off on this one, it seems to be mis-aligned. My initial mini was pretty bad, so I emailed Reaper and they sent me another one, but it was also mis-aligned, most notable on the sword hilt and pouch. I should probably go back in a couple years when I can comfortably paint nmm and paint the first model for fun.

 

Anyway. My favorite L2PK, so I'm happy you're going to take a stab (har) at it. Have fun!

[MonkeySloth]

Changed up the background some and I think this is looking much better.

 

Decided to move onto the metal as that's why I'm doing this figure, I'll go back and do the green and browns later.

 

So for the metal I started off with the wrong recipe as I had the names of the two minis switched but I liked the blue so I kept it, albeit a much more gray mix then what the female fighter's mix called for. Like Metallic Metals I'm finding working down from a brighter highlight easier but I'm sticking with the basecoat and moving up for the armor so there's some constancy and will move to bight and shade down with the blades. The colors I'm using are all slightly blue based (with ashen blue) though it doesn't come off as well as I like in the photos. Now that I've got the lighting worked out I'll have to start fiddling with my wife's camera and seeing if I can get some better colors then with my cell.

 

I've got a pretty decent rhythm worked out now and I think I can get the rest of the steel done pretty quickly tomorrow.

 

Edited July 3, 2013 by MonkeySloth

[CashWiley]

I liked the blue recipe a bit better, too. That's what I used for the pirate king's blade.