OneBoot's Bones 1 Kickstarter Figures WIP (picture heavy)

[AnneO'Leary]

WOW!! I've been away for a while and now I come back and see that you have made an ENORMOUS leap in your painting. I'm very impressed with your rapid progress.

[OneBoot]

:D Thanks, Anne! This guy's certainly been a challenge for me in a lot of ways already, and I still haven't done any of the shading or highlighting...

 

I'll do a full post later (with pictures!), but here's how the to-do list is looking right now:

• Shoulders and belt pouches in a warm dark brown (like a dark leather)
• Staff in a dark mahogany (if I can mix one up that looks good) (this didn't go at all according to plan, but at least it's painted now. More on this later)
• Touch up the metallic bits on the top of the staff with more Molten Bronze
• Fur on his coat in a color somewhere in between the shoulder and staff colors
• Pick out details on boots in Antique Gold
• Necklace in Oiled Leather and either Aged Bone or Yellowed Bone (they're supposed to be claws or teeth)
• Shade/highlight hair, working the coat fur color into the ends of it
• Shade/highlight skin (adding a bit of the dark fur color to the end of his tail)
• Shade/highlight clothes (using the shade color for his cuffs, then using the same gray as the pants for the bits of shirt sleeve poking out)
• Shade/highlight boots, belt and staff
• Attempt a slight OSL from his hand (I may/may not get to this, we'll see)
• Tidy up anything glaring
• Paint base in savanna colors
• Seal it with Brush-on Sealer
• Glue on grass "sea urchins"
• Wrap it, pack it, ship it.

So, basically, except for shading/highlighting and basing, everything's done. In other news, it's 5 am. I go sleep now.

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

Edited September 23, 2013 by OneBoot

[CashWiley]

On behalf of sysadmins everywhere, let me apologize. Stuff happens. A couple weeks ago I thought I had cut off mail access for a bunch of people, turns out it was only about 12 hours while DNS updated (which was good because I thought it was two weeks because I thought I had missed a setting but it was just gmail doing its wonky 'smart' thing).

 

Anyway. Devil boy is looking great! Yay paint mixing, I've been doing a bit on Lysette and it's really weird. I'm using three purples on her, but no purple paint pots!

[OneBoot]

On behalf of sysadmins everywhere, let me apologize. Stuff happens. A couple weeks ago I thought I had cut off mail access for a bunch of people, turns out it was only about 12 hours while DNS updated (which was good because I thought it was two weeks because I thought I had missed a setting but it was just gmail doing its wonky 'smart' thing).

 

Anyway. Devil boy is looking great! Yay paint mixing, I've been doing a bit on Lysette and it's really weird. I'm using three purples on her, but no purple paint pots!

 

lol Yeah, I know stuff happens sometimes. It just happens more often than normal here, since the town I'm living in (and by extension, the university) seems to think the Internet is this new shiny thing, and so they keep messing around with it and doing weird stuff. They also went with 100% wireless because it seemed like the cool thing to do, and they've had problem after problem with it since before we moved here. At least it's usable now...

 

Paint mixing is fun! My next Reaper cart is full of all the paints Anne mentioned some time ago as being the base colors used to mix all of Reaper's other paints. As well as the two sparkly paints Reaper has. Because SPARKLES.

 

~~~~~

 

 

My Reaper paints order came today, huzzah!!

 

Just for fun, I'd asked them to draw a picture of a single boot on my invoice. (the caption reads: "It's not you, it's me)

 

 

Yep, Reaper is awesome.

 

I also tried to take a picture of my shiny new paints, but my camera was acting up, no matter which batteries I put into it. I'm going to try my rechargables next in the hopes that they work, because we REALLY can't afford to replace my camera right now. I did get a lovely warm purpley paint sample that instantly made me think of the beautiful purple that CashWiley used on his pirate couple. It also exploded all over my hand, glasses and wet palette when I accidentally pulled the dropper top off while unclogging it.

 

Now for the painting stuffs yesterday. Really wasn't in much of a painting mood, but I pushed through it and things are coming together! I painted his staff, and the color you are seeing is 1 drop Muddy Brown + 3 drops Blood Red. What you are not seeing are the FIVE other attempts I made to get a color that was not a) too red, or b) the exact color of chocolate pudding. I was trying for a lovely mahogany brown color, but lately I've discovered that no matter what I do to Muddy Brown, it stubbornly remains...muddy brown. I eventually gave up and just went with the color that was close-ish. It looks exactly the same color as the stuff I've painted just plain Muddy Brown.

 

 

I got his shirt sleeves painted with 2 drops Stone Gray + 1 drop Pure White, changed his coat cuffs to Oiled Leather (which took just as long and was just as annoying as I'd anticipated it would be), and got a solid basecoat of Oiled Leather on his hair (his horns became hair because he's a lion guy, not a devil guy).

 

There's a funny little triangle thingy sticking out of the back of his right sleeve. It's probably supposed to be some fancy doodad or other, but my ability to do fine detail was diminishing quickly, so I just made it part of his shirt sleeve.

 

The silver lining to not being done this morning like I'd wanted to be is that with my new paints in hand, the next steps will go much much more quickly. The Golden Shadow in particular is going to speed things up significantly.

 

Side note: I compared the two greens I'd ordered and originally planned on using for his coat color with the color I'd mixed up. They...look nothing alike.

 

The top bottle is what I was going for (it doesn't look at all yellow in-person), with the bottom bottle planned on being the shade color. Yeah...that's not gonna happen, they're just too wildly different!

 

I debated (very briefly) whether to repaint his coat in the new colors, but if there's one thing I dislike more than redoing a bad job, it's redoing a good one. The current color is distinct, and while it doesn't convey the "savanna camouflage" vibe I was originally going for, it's a nice color. Plus, it would simply take too much time, and I'm already overdue on this.

 

Onwards and upwards! I've got quite a bit still to do, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

[ub3r_n3rd]

I'm glad you decided against the repaint. I think he looks great as is, you just need to do your little touch-ups and finish him up. I wouldn't repaint a good paint job either. Heck I like having the bad ones at the beginning of my venture into painting in order to compare my first few with what I'm doing now. It's funny because my group uses all of them at the table and you can see which are my true newbie stuff and what my new stuff is.

[CashWiley]

I really like that green, too, PurpleBoot.

[OneBoot]

If I have to paint all night, this guy WILL be done in time to mail tomorrow. THERE IS NO OTHER ACCEPTABLE OUTCOME.

 

Shading and highlighting done on the pants and shirt sleeves. I mixed 2 drops Stone Grey + 1 drop Pure White + 4 TT Walnut Brown for the shade color. My first attempt (which I neglected to photograph) looked less like shading and more like he was wearing oddly striped pants. So I mixed up some of the base color and made most of the lines smaller, as well as smoothing the edges down. Next, I mixed 2 drops Stone Grey + 2 drops Pure White for the highlighting. I know I could easily have pushed both shading and highlighting, but I'm not real confident yet in placement of both and don't want to press my luck here, and I'm satisfied with the final result.

 

Next is shading on the skin, yay! I've been looking forward to this part, since shading/highlighting skin is what really seems to make the mini come to LIFE. To start off, I tried out my new Golden Shadow to see if it would be dark enough. It wasn't, but I really liked the color a whole lot better than the Tanned Leather I'd used before. So I gave his skin a quick once-over with the Golden Shadow, and I like the overall look much more. The slightly darker, more golden color suits him better; he looks a lot healthier, I think. :)

 

Next, I mixed 2 drops Golden Shadow (by accident, I'd only meant to start with one) with 2 TT Walnut Brown. His musculature isn't very defined, so I did quite a bit of what felt like freehand to make his six-pack and other assorted abdominal muscles visible. I also shaded his face, hands and tail (though the tail bits really aren't visible).

 

Then, after looking at him under regular lighting (rather than the one from my visor), I realized with a sigh that I needed to go darker. So I mixed in another 2 TT of Walnut Brown and went over all of it again. I'm much happier with it now. (and yes, I know I very well could go deeper, but this guy's a mage, and I didn't want him to be all I'M A MAGE BUT I'M ALSO TOTALLY RIPPED WITH MY -1 STRENGTH MODIFIER SOMEHOW, so I'm intentionally downplaying the muscles a bit )

 

Highlighting is my favorite because it really makes things pop. I started by mixing 1 drop Golden Shadow with 3 TT Pure White. Not light enough. With the mantra of "higher highlights, deeper shadows" chanting in the back of my mind, I added another 2 TT of Pure White and tested it. STILL not light enough. Another 2 TT later, and I got a pretty good color.

 

I'm very happy with how his hand turned out, and since it's not very visible from the front, BAM here's a side shot.

 

I realized in looking at various painted examples to see where his muscles went that I neglected to add "paint his nails on" to my to-do list! Can't forget that, it's very important.

 

Yay! I'm getting closer! But right now, it's food time.

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

[Shogun]

Yay for the free purple! Can I ask what paints you ordered this time round? What colors do you use most?

 

Great look to lion man!

[OneBoot]

Yay for the free purple! Can I ask what paints you ordered this time round? What colors do you use most?

 

Great look to lion man!

 

I ordered:

77005: Ogre Chieftain

09108: Brush-on Primer

09100: Pearl White

09021: Snow Shadow

09064: Brown Liner

09061: Linen White

09035: Olive Green

09036: Pale Olive

09070: Mahogany Brown

09071: Chestnut Brown

09091: Golden Shadow

The last 5 paints were specifically for this project, but I know they'll be good solid colors that I'll use in the future. :)

As for the colors I use most, let's see... so far, those would be MSP Pure White, Stone Grey, Oiled Leather, Tanned Leather, Tanned Skin, Fair Skin, Blood Red, Aged Bone, Walnut Brown, Brown Wash, Muddy Brown, Antique Gold, Honed Steel, Sapphire Blue and Grass Green. Oh, and Molten Bronze from P3. The rest I haven't used as much mostly due to the fact that I haven't painted many figures yet, and of those, most have been rats. I imagine as I keep painting I'll have a better idea of what I'll use on a regular basis, and as I get new paints, that will change as well. :)

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

[Shogun]

Ha, my most used colors as well. Metallics a little less (depending on how much effort I want to put on a mini) I Havnt been painting long and I think your totally at a level to try a NMM. If your interested I would try on something big like a battle axe or something !

[OneBoot]

Why, thank you! I plan to try it at some point just to see if I can, but I'm not as interested in it from a practical standpoint since these minis are meant for gaming, and it seems to me like NMM is more of a display-model type of technique.

 

This list is just to remind me of what I have left to do. I'll be crossing things off as I do them:

• Repaint staff with new Mahogany Brown paint
• Necklace in Oiled Leather and either Aged Bone or Yellowed Bone
• Paint claws in the same color as the necklace teeth/claws
• Shade/highlight hair, working the coat fur color into the ends of it
• Shade/highlight fur on coat
• Shade/highlight boots, belt and coat cuffs
• Shade/highlight belt pouches (use a black wash to help tone it down and define it, pick out the clasps in Antique Gold) and shoulder pads
• Shade/highlight staff
• Attempt a slight OSL from his hand (big maybe on this) (yeah, this isn't going to happen, sadly. I've no experience with OSL, and I don't want to flail around trying to figure it out on a gift for someone else :) )

Tomorrow:

• Touch up leather strap in back of coat
• Shade/highlight coat
• Retouch any Antique Gold bits that got messed up
• Give it a good once-over under regular lighting to check for any glaring errors
• Paint base in savanna colors
• Seal the whole thing with Brush-on Sealer
• Glue on grass "sea urchins"
• Wrap it, pack it, ship it.

All right, chums, let's do this!

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

 

EDIT: Nearly there! I've been taking pictures and notes as I've gone along, and I'll do a full write-up once I'm all done. I'd wanted to be done up to the Brush-on Sealer step before stopping for the night (er, early morning, my sleep hours are weird), but I've done all my eyes will let me do at this point. Really just the coat and base left, as far as painting goes. :D

Edited September 25, 2013 by OneBoot

[CashWiley]

I usually forget to paint the nails! Shh, it'll be our secret.

[falstius]

Those aren't finger nails, those are claws!

[Pixel]

He's coming along very nicely - I think your exchange partner will be delighted!

[OneBoot]

Huzzah! He's finally done!!!! *pass out*

 

Man, it's been an in-tense few days. I've learned sooo much, it's kind of ridiculous. I'll be posting the rest of my write-up when I have the energy, but for now, here's a link to the finished product in Show-Off.

 

I'm ridiculously happy with how he turned out, there were several spots that I was concerned I'd mess up, or I'd do something terrible like drop him in my wet palette, etc. I'm also glad that his base turned out EXACTLY the way I'd pictured it in my head; that's always nice when that happens. :)

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D