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

[OneBoot]

@Maglok - Thank you! Trying to figure out how to shade/highlight each one will be an adventure, though. :)

 

@trystangst - I've thought that every time I do a Pure White + Brown Wash treatment; it almost looks like an old sepia toned photograph, which is cool. I've considered painting a mini and just leaving it that way. :)

 

@Corporea - He is a bit bigger than the others I've worked on so far, which is kind of nice. His face is going to be tricksy, though; I haven't done a face in a hood before. And thank you for the shade/highlight color recommendations! Happily, Peacock Green is a color I have, too. :)

 

Really frustrated right now. Looks like this guy isn't going to be seeing any more paint today; I've got another PT appointment today that will hopefully straighten things out so I can function like a regular person again. Batman-style "turn your whole upper body to look around" really only works in movies. :P

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

[Shogun]

That's sad to hear ur injured one boot I really hope you feel better ASAP , it's brutal that its stopping you from painting!

If it makes you feel better I'm also injured. It has cut my paint time in half because of "rehab" at the gym. When i say rehab I don't mean the one you go to for having to much fun :p

 

Again enjoying your wip and antics round the forum keep it up :)

[OneBoot]

Thanks Shogun, and I'm sorry to hear you're hurt too! And no, it doesn't make me feel better, I'm sad when people are unhappy. I hope you get feeling better soon yourself!

 

~~~~~

 

Good news: Today I started feeling up to painting again (which is good, I was starting to go a little crazy with wanting to paint and not being able to!)

Bad news: I did all of my painting during Pathfinder game night, so very few pictures again, sorry! It's all just basecoating, though, so nothing fancy.

 

First, I went back over the cowl with yet another couple of layers of Sapphire Blue, then a couple of layers of Sapphire Blue thinned with Glass and Tile Medium instead of water to smooth things out, and that worked much better than water.

 

I went back over the middle layer of his robes with a mixture of 1 drop Soft Blue, 1 drop Sapphire Blue, 3 drops Snow Shadow, and 3-4 drops water. I'm extremely pleased with the resulting color, and it's nicely distinct from both the layers above and below it.

 

I painted his hood in Soft Blue, but it looked like a continuation of the main robe, instead of it's own piece of clothing like I wanted, so I instead did 1 drop Soft Blue + 1 drop Snow Shadow + 1 drop water, making it just different enough that it's its own thing.

 

Next, I painted his vest-shirt-thing and the sleeves for it with straight Snow Shadow (I tried thinning it first, but it went on super-duper thin, so I just used it right out of the bottle and finished up with the thinned stuff to smooth it out). It looks kind of bright against everything else, though, so I may end up darkening it down a touch, or going with a straight gray. I might just leave it, though, to give a nice focal point, since the rest of the blues are on the less-saturated and darker end of things.

 

I then tidied up the several small messy areas that inevitably crop up while basecoating, and here he is up to this point:

 

 

 

 

 

I'm actually pretty proud of myself that I was able to coax 5 very different shades of blue out of 3 different colors, none of which are plain white or black.

 

Next I'll probably be doing the leather bits, and trying to figure out a good color for the leg of his pants. I might just end up mixing Soft Blue with some Walnut Brown and making it a very dark blue so it doesn't stand out too much.

 

My plan is to completely basecoat him, then do the face before going any further, then doing the lining. I've never tried doing the lining after the basecoats before, so we'll see how it goes!

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

[Pixel]

I like the white vest and think the highlighting on his bottom layers looks fantastic!

[OneBoot]

I like the white vest and think the highlighting on his bottom layers looks fantastic!

 

lol! I wish I could take credit for that, but that's just the light reflecting off of the paint; Reaper's MSP have a bit of a sheen to them, which has been useful in helping me figure out where highlights should go. Nope, no shading or highlighting yet, just basecoats so far.

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

Edited October 12, 2013 by OneBoot

[Pixel]

Oh wow it really did look like highlighting!

[Mistimp]

You have come so far in such a short time. I am loving this latest mini. Keep it up.

[OneBoot]

Woo! Lots of painting progress done today! Plus, I have a new brush (W&N S7 size 0) which made things all kinds of interesting and awesome.

 

I realized that, while running all over the boards chattering is lots of fun, it doesn't actually cause any painting to happen (shocking, I know). So I took a deliberate break and painted like crazy for...2 hours? 3? I'm not sure, I seriously lose track of time while painting.

 

...And now I have to try and remember what all of my paint recipes were that I mixed up. Blah. I have a terribly bad habit of not writing them down unless they're complicated and just relying on my memory, but it's annoying when I get around to typing up my WIP.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

First, I mixed 3 drops Soft Blue with 1 drop Walnut Brown and 2 drops water for his pants/boot combo. It looks kinda like footy pajamas (like the ones little kids wear), but that's how I interpreted the sculpt. It reads more blue in person.

 

 

 

Next, I painted up various leather things with thinned (actually, you know what, I've taken to using thinned paint almost exclusively, so unless I say otherwise, just assume it's thinned approximately 2:1 paint to water) Oiled Leather: his belt, the random strap on his leg, the cords holding his...knee armor (srsly?) in place, the cord around the scroll on his belt, and the string holding the medallion dealy on his staff. Then I mixed...let's see...1 drop Oiled Leather with 1 drop Chestnut Brown for his spell components pouch. I quite like the look of it, I'll have to remember that color for later.

 

 

 

I used Chestnut Brown for his spellbook, and I plan on going back and picking out the edges of the pages in Linen White, and painting (freehand, ugh) a small orange or red "A" on the front, since that's the first letter of the character's name (Arodus). I also painted the string holding the pouch in Muddy Brown.

 

 

I painted the clasp and buckle on his belt, as well as what I've decided is a necklace, in unthinned Antique Gold (I really should try thinning it with different things just to see what might work, since I'm starting to really love and become accustomed to painting with thinned paint!). Then I decided to make them more interesting by picking out the middles of both in Sapphire Blue to make them look cooler.

 

(pay no attention to the giant gold stripe across most of the mini. It's, uh...decoration! Yeah... Okay, so I moved my brush over to my rinse cup a little too quickly and ended up swiping it across him. I'll patch it up later.)

 

Which, they did up close, but from tabletop distance, the blue just blended right into the background. So, I decided to make them orange instead (yay color theory!). This resulted in a nasty pea green color, so I stopped and thought for a moment

 

Then I remembered Pingo's lovely gems on her incredibly epic ship, and how she'd done a brief walkthrough of how she did them. I (thought I) remembered that there was a white background, so I painted over both gems in Pure White. I discovered in the process that Pure White looooves being thinned. It behaved so very nicely for me!

 

 

Then I couldn't remember what the next step was, so I went and hunted down that post. Aaaaand discovered I'd done it all wrong and backwards-wise. Bleargh. So I tried working backwards (backwards-er?) by painting around a white spot with Walnut Brown. I was mostly successful, though the white spots aren't quite lined up with each other, plus I was kind of lost with what shape to make the necklace white spot, since the gem is a rounded triangle. When I tried for a triangular white spot, it looked very odd, so I just made it roundish.

 

 

I glazed over both with thinned Lava Orange several times, until I got a nice bright color over the white spots. (I forgot to take a picture after this, I was in da Zone). The final step Pingo did was to put two little shine spots on the opposite side of the white spot (she explained it tons better than I can. Seriously, go check out the post I linked :) ). I wasn't going to attempt it, because I thought the area was too small, but when I held Arodus at arm's length, the gems looked flat and lifeless, so I decided to go for it.

 

I was more guessing where the tip of the brush was than anything, but the belt gem shine spots went on more or less where I wanted them to, and more or less the shape I was attempting. The necklace...not so much. I'm not sure what happened, but I'm guessing that the shape of the gem was throwing me off; I wasn't really sure where to put the shine spots, but it looks decent, at least.

 

I tried very hard to get close-ups, but my camera was being all kinds of stubborn, so these are the best I've got.

 

 

 

 

All in all, I'm pretty happy with my first attempt at gems. They're good enough for tabletop, which is about where I'm at right now. :)

 

And with that, my neck and shoulder are starting to complain, so I'll continue tomorrow. My goal is to at least have all of the basecoats down by gametime on Friday, though I'd love to have him all finished by then! :)

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

 

EDIT: I found where Pingo did a more in-depth walkthrough of how she painted the gems on her ship. It's here.

Edited October 18, 2013 by OneBoot

[trystangst]

Those gems are really well done. Great recovery. It's cool to see you use so much blue and still keep the figure from becoming a smurf.

[Pixel]

I think both gems "read" as gems and turned out very nicely!

[OneBoot]

:D Thanks guys! lol I didn't even consider the Smurf possibility; maybe it's because I used so many different blues? I did use more desaturated blues than bright, saturated ones, which might explain why he doesn't look Smurfy.

 

~~~~~~~~~

 

Not a whole lot of painting done today, partly because I was having trouble focusing, which led to some paint where I didn't want it to be. :P

 

I have a question near the bottom, highlighted in bold to make it easier to find. :)

 

First, I repaired the damage I'd done with the gold on his robes (though I'll leave retouching the upper robe layer until I get to shading/highlighting, so I won't have to mix this color up multiple times), as well as when he got knocked off my desk and had a bit rub off the hem of his robe (one of the downsides of having a painting desk that is also the computer desk ).

 

I also realized I forgot to paint his knee-armor, so I painted it in Antique Gold, just because. I also experimented with mixing 3 drops Antique Gold with 1 drop Glass and Tile Medium to thin it out a bit, and it played a lot more nicely, so I'll be doing that in the future.

 

 

(Seriously, what is this for? Arrow protection? *rimshot* )

 

Next, since I was messing about with metallic stuffs, I decided to paint the tassel on the back of his shawl-thing in gold, but the more I looked at it, the more I thought I might like to play with the new P3 Solid Gold that Husband got me for my birthday. So I did the round clasp bit in Solid Gold and decided to do the actual tassel bit in Antique Gold. But, while I had the Solid Gold out, I decided to pick out the little runes around the edges of his shawl-thingy with it, cuz it's all shiny and awesome. I also did the buttons on his vest thingy with it, though I think I'll need to put another coat or two on them.

 

 

 

They turned out very nicely, though my attempt at turning one into a pi symbol was only partially successful. Ah well.

 

 

I decided on Chestnut Brown for his staff, since it's the most orange-y looking brown I have. I was rather careless during this step, as evidenced by the accidental splashes of brown on his top robe layer (to go with the gold smudge, you see), and the lovely dollop right over one of the symbols on his shawl. I was considering redoing that one anyways, since it turned out a lot bigger than I'd intended, so I suppose it's all for the best.

 

 

 

Seeing the staff all painted up, the Chestnut Brown is sort of clashing a bit with the blue. I might need to rethink this, it's not acting very harmoniously with the rest of the piece. Maybe I should just redo it in a neutral Muddy Brown? Or should I try to darken the Chestnut Brown down a bit and try that?

 

Next will be flesh tones and paper-stuffs, followed by probably repainting the staff, then the gold bits and medallion on the staff, and the crystal on top. I'm looking forward to that part, and I'm going to do some researching and staring at pictures of real crystals to figure out how I'm going to approach it. :D

 

Oh, and I am intending to attempt a faint OSL, which is both alarming and exciting at the same time!

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

[trystangst]

The gold runes on the shawl are a nice touch! I don't think the brown will be as out-standing (not outstanding?) once you darken it a bit and shade it.

[OneBoot]

Thanks! I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. :) I'm going to try a brown wash over the staff, and if I still don't like it, I'll go back over it with something else.

~~~~~~~~

Just a little update today, I've been rather distracted lately by both the Bones II KS and real life.

 

I decided to do the paper bits in Linen White, with the plan of doing a light brown wash over them later to give them a nice aged look. I thinned it like I've done the other paints, and discovered why people say that it's difficult to work with. It was quite contrary, and I had to choose between it not going down thick enough to cover anything, or having the brush so loaded with paint that mini floods were happening all over. This was rather frustrating. Add to that the fact that even after several coats, it still didn't have the nice, smooth, complete coverage I was aiming for. And then, the cherry on top came when I switched off my visor light to snap a picture and discovered...

 

 

 

Linen White is still...very very white (it was a lot more glaringly white in-person, my yellowish lighting was kind to the picture).

 

Blargh!!

 

As I was pawing through my paints looking for Yellowed Bone and Aged Bone to determine which of them would look better, Husband wandered over to see what I was muttering to myself about. I explained the situation and went back to searching, while he looked over the assortment of paints scattered over the computer desk. He picked up Fair Skin and asked whether it would work. I considered it, but then told him it would be more pink than I wanted. I also explained how I was trying to stick to blue and orange colors as much as possible.

 

He looked thoughtful as I decided that Yellowed Bone was a color that would work better, then he pulled the mini closer to him as he picked up a scrap of paper, and started drawing something. By the time I was done unclogging the bottle and mixing a couple of drops with a drop of water, he'd finished what he was doodling and showed it to me. (it's supposed to be the crystal on the top of the staff)

 

 

He asked whether painting flames on the crystal was something I could do. I thought about it, I really did, but I eventually had to tell him that such a thing was a bit beyond my abilities right now, especially given that I'd have to freehand, like, all of it. I also explained that my plan was to paint the crystal all crystal-y and glowy, and have the glow showing on the mini (basically explaining what OSL was), which he thought was pretty cool.

 

We both sat there looking at the mini for a moment, and I realized that I'd been planning to just do some squiggly lines on the scroll in Arodus' hand, but...a fireball would be SO MUCH COOLER. Husband agreed, especially since the player this mini is for loooooooves his fireball spell.

 

So, long story short, in addition to OSL and gems, I'm going to add attempting to freehand a fireball to my list of new things I'm trying with this mini. Yay....

 

Anyways, after all that, I went back over the scroll with Yellowed Bone, which not only played nice, it also looked a whole lot better. I also did the tied scroll on his belt and the pages in his spellbook with it, though all three will need some tidying.

 

 

 

The tied scroll especially got messy, since his arm is kind of in the way, but I'm not worried at this point. I've gotten rather good at tidying up after myself.

 

 

Skin will be next, followed by the crystal and gold bits, and I'll finally be done basecoating! :D

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

[trystangst]

Fireball in a crystal? That would be quite a feat! I think a fireball on a scroll would be tough enough, whether you're writing the word or illustrating the principle. Aging parchment is probably the one time you can let a wash puddle and stain. And it looks good that way!

[CashWiley]

Good call on yellowed bone, that's what I'm using for the base on the tunic and cloak on Luther. For the real dark spots (like the crevices where the scroll is rolled up, go into a yellow brown like Leather Brown.