02765: Astral Reavers (3)

[Pingo]

This is my first ever post in Show Off.

 

When I came back to the hobby last August after a 20-year hiatus, I promptly painted up some minis and was appalled at my level of incompetence.  I've been a little gun shy since, dispensing plenty of artistic advice but not really putting my money where my mouth is.

 

Anyway, after absorbing a lot of good advice from y'all and half-finishing several figures (I will get back to the Bones Ogre, buglips, honest.), I finally have finished some, bases and all.

 

These are Reaper's set of 02765: Astral Reavers, which I have painted up as Githyanki for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign I'm currently playing in.  Feedback would be most appreciated.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 16, 2016 by Pingo

[Corporea]

I love the patterning on the skin! The metal blade shading is great! Nice use of color! Maybe more highlighting on the clothing? I was debating on the hair- whether it needed a stripe of light in the center of the highlight, but red hair doesn't seem to need it. Very pretty!

[CashWiley]

Great work, Pingo! I love your use of color and the bases are wonderful! My advice is to keep doing what you're doing :)

 

Yeah, yeah, some contrast on the cloth, specular highlights on the leather, maybe some TMM shading on the blades, yadda. It's hard to criticize minis that look so good at what they are supposed to be!

[Inarah]

I think they look nice. You sure got a lot of detail on them.

[Jabberwocky]

Cool job on the patterning and you have done a very good job picking out the details.

[ShadowRaven]

Ah the followers of Gith. I loathe those guys as a PC. You did a great job bringing them out though. Digging the bases.

[Thes Hunter]

I love the skin effects like everyone else has said. I also notice you have VERY excellent gem details on these guys. Those little gems are easy to miss in the full figure picture, but I can really see the talent and the skill that went into them in the portraits. Nice work! and no reason to be camera shy! Can't wait to see more from you!

[Pingo]

Thank you for the comments.

 

The swords are painted ... I don't know how to call it. The metallic paint I have, unlike the opaque gunk of my childhood, is translucent, or even transparent. I noticed on a different mini that it failed to fully cover the underlying colors, at least from certain angles.

 

So I decided to take advantage of that.

 

I painted the swords flat black, then I painted colored reflections of the figures on them. I washed over them with the translucent silver so that from when the light comes some angles they look solid silver, but from others suddenly you can see black edges or colored reflections of the figures.

 

The bases are fender washers with a bit of liquid epoxy gooped around the bases of the figures to blend them in a bit. Then I painted them with a mixed grey (my favorite, ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, and titanium white) swirled with white while it was still wet, to give a bit of an astral plane look.

 

I have never based anything before. Back in my day etc. etc. I'm not sure yet how I feel about basing.

 

I submitted these figures to the Inspiration Gallery the other day.

[buglips*the*goblin]

That lady reaver is pretty cute.

[ShadowRaven]

~tries to look at her from a Goblin perspective, fails. Hit's head on wall a few more times, tries again to look at her from a Goblin perspective~ hey, she is kinda cute...

[JackMann]

What kind of paint are your metallics? Are these some of your special artist's acrylics?

[Pragma]

Totally punk rock.

[catdancer]

I don't know what they are; but I really like them. I agree with (Pragma) about totally being punk rock looking. I love your paint job on the body/skin pattern. They just look unique to me!

[Pingo]

What kind of paint are your metallics? Are these some of your special artist's acrylics?

My metallics are Lumière, which I got in the mistaken belief that they would be more opaque than my Golden acrylics.

 

I have a variety of metallics, iridescents, and interference colors from Golden. All are based on microscopic mica flakes suspended in acrylic medium, some coated with carefully gauged films of titanium dioxide and some with pigments added.

 

Titanium dioxide is our common white pigment, but in microscopically thin layers it acts rather like a film of oil on top of water, giving a glow whose color depends on its thickness. That's what the interference colors are. When dry, from most angles they are invisible, or have the subtlest tint of the opposite color from their regular color. When the light hits them correctly they glow with luminescent color. The effect is most dramatic over black.

 

I once painted a portrait for a game in black and white but glazed with interference colors so that when the light changed it was in color.

 

It is a cool effect but a little gimmicky, difficult to photograph, and impossible to reproduce in print.

 

Anyhow, Golden's metallic paints are similarly composed, but I believe pigment is included as well. They are good paints, but in the thin layers needed for the small scale of minis they are modestly translucent.

 

I don't remember why I picked up Lumière metallics. Possibly the jars reminded me of the old Ceramcoat metallics I had as a kid. I found them to be essentially the same as my artists metallics, as translucent and probably made the same way.

 

That's when I decided I had better just take advantage of the transparency of modern metallic paints.

Edited April 1, 2013 by Pingo

[smokingwreckage]

Even "proper" miniature metallics are a little translucent, using the undercoat to help shade them is always smart IMO. Lovely work.