Painting My Bones (But Not The Ones Inside Of Me) - A Kickstarter WIP.

[OneBoot]

What Doug said. :)

 

As far as eyes, I was lucky enough to find a how-to that explained how to do them more easily. I've looked high and low and I can't find that exact one again, though http://www.karoath.com/pages/minitips_eyes.php'>this is kiiiiiinda close. Just look at the pictures, really. I actually reversed two of the steps in that I paint the whole eye area black first, then do a horizontal stripe of white, then a vertical stripe of black for the pupil. Looks good from tabletop distance, which if I'm remembering correctly is what you're going for, right?

 

Another technique that people have recommended is http://www.reapermini.com/Thecraft/12'>this one from Reaper. For me, personally, this one looks tougher, but I haven't actually tried it yet. My advice would be to try both on some paper and/or a mini you aren't as attached to and see which one feels more natural to you. You could also try Googling "painting miniature eyes" for more ideas. :)

 

Honestly, for me anyways, painting lines is way easier than trying to put minuscule dots juuuuuust where I want them, as well as easier to keep the mini from looking cross-eyed or berserk. Also, if I mess up, I can just dab a bit of my whites color over it and try again. :)

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

 

EDIT: After poking around the internet for a bit, I came across what looks like a collection of "how to paint all sorts of miniature eyes" tutorials http://tutofig.com/painting/body/painting-eyes/'>here.

 

...Actually, this looks like a pretty spiffy site, there's all SORTS of painting/sculpting/basing tutorial categories on the left.

 

I'm gonna go exploring, be back in a few hours.

Edited August 15, 2013 by OneBoot

[Shogun]

/oneboot comes back a master painter

[OneBoot]

lol Hardly, though I'm now inspired to start doing crazy things with mixing different paint colors. :) When husband has a job again, I'm going to get the "clear" Reaper paints and go nuts. :D

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

[Coleford]

So I haven't posted in a while here, shame on me, but real life kind of hit.
I had a few shows with my band White Coals, (We totally have a Youtube Channel, creep us), and my girlfriend also came up to visit, which meant instead of painting little mens, I had to... you know... kiss... her face and stuff. Suffice it to say, not a lot of painting got done in the last few days.

 

Aside from that, there was another big reason I havn't painted in a while.

THIS.

 

This beast is huge, and I've just been tearing through it trying to learn all the ins and outs of playing the game. I also learned that alot of my models look strangeeeely similar to some of the illustrations in here, which will provide a great base for inspiration for colour schemes.

 

I did start some painting however. Gaddddd Dammmmmmm Kobolds. (I think they're Kobolds...?)

 

I hate painting hoards... but I love them at the same time, cause I feel so gosh darn accomplished when they're done. Should be finished with proper photos soon.

Finally...

 

OneBoot, you'll be glad to know that I utilized one of your How-To's that you dug up, and they work great, thanks a ton.

 

And Doug, my next photosession, I will try using a different style of lighting as you recommended.

 

Thanks everyone for all the feedback and help thus far!

 

 

[OneBoot]

Oh yay! I'm glad to hear that it was helpful! :D

 

Having shows with your band and spending time with your girlfriend are important things. :) And yeah, the Pathfinder core is pretty ginormous. All of their main books are like that (wait until you are trying to lug the Core Rulebook, Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Equipment and the Beastiary to every game. )

 

I'm both looking forward to and dreading the kobolds myself, just cuz there's so MANY. Good luck finishing the rest! (and all the goblins too...)

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

[tommisalama]

Two tips for photography:

 

1) Use a light-medium gray background rather than white. Your camera software is optimized for scenes that average out to that tone, so getting a good exposure will be easier.

 

2) Don't light the figure from the sides, light from either side of the front.

 

Bonus tip: If you're not shooting highly reflective surfaces, you generally don't need to worry much about softening the lights (which is the purpose of a lightbox). Bare lights work just fine as long as the subject is far enough away from the background.

 

First and second one, agreed, bonus tip not so much. You have a Lightbox, so I would use it. Bare, tight lights give you very hard shadows, but softening smoothes things to a more professional look. What I would look into is what material your lightbox is. If it's just normal white paper, I'd say it doesn't work. I'd try out some fabrics, or some thin parchment paper. Your pictures are a little on the dark side, mut Doug's tip number one should clear that out.

 

And your minis look great! I actually like the ravenous eyes of the dwarf. I've tried to learn painting eyes this month, with varying degrees of success. What I've learned though, is that I get better looking eyes if I paint two dots instead of one. For example, if I want green eyes, I paint a green dot and then a smaller, black dot. I've noticed it works also with black as the bigger dot (it's not right, but looks good). Also if I have only a black dot, no colour, I tend to paint a very small white dot there also as a reflection. They're very small dots, so I screw up like half the time...

 

EDIT: Oh, and welcome to Pathfinder! It's a great game and has a great community. For any questions, head to paizo.com and people will help you, sometimes the people who wrote it.

Edited August 22, 2013 by tommisalama

[ub3r_n3rd]

Keep up the good work Coleford!

 

Welcome to the game of Pathfinder.

 

Having shows with your band and spending time with your girlfriend are important things. :) And yeah, the Pathfinder core is pretty ginormous. All of their main books are like that (wait until you are trying to lug the Core Rulebook, Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Equipment and the Beastiary to every game. )

That's why my group uses Drop-Box and has the PDF's of almost all of the books in there. It does get pretty crazy trying to keep up with all the new material Paizo puts out on a monthly basis.

[Doug Sundseth]

First and second one, agreed, bonus tip not so much.

 

There are two reasons I recommend against light boxes for minis painting:

 

1) Lightboxes normally eat 1-2 stops of light, which doesn't much matter if you have positive control of your ISO and a tripod. But if you don't have both of those, the extra exposure time can increase blur or the increased ISO can increase noise.

 

2) A normal incandescent light bulb a few inches away from a figure subtends about the same angle as a decent-sized lightbox with a human-sized subject. Since it's the angle subtended that determines how hard the shadows are, bare incandescents are quite adequately soft.

 

The advantage of a lightbox on a highly specular subject is that it gives you nice, smooth light gradients on the shiny parts. If you don't have shiny parts, that advantage is moot.

[tommisalama]

 

There are two reasons I recommend against light boxes for minis painting:

 

1) Lightboxes normally eat 1-2 stops of light, which doesn't much matter if you have positive control of your ISO and a tripod. But if you don't have both of those, the extra exposure time can increase blur or the increased ISO can increase noise.

 

2) A normal incandescent light bulb a few inches away from a figure subtends about the same angle as a decent-sized lightbox with a human-sized subject. Since it's the angle subtended that determines how hard the shadows are, bare incandescents are quite adequately soft.

 

The advantage of a lightbox on a highly specular subject is that it gives you nice, smooth light gradients on the shiny parts. If you don't have shiny parts, that advantage is moot.

 

 

Very good points. Number one is the reason I suggested to look into what the lightbox is made of. And of course everything fails if there isn't proper equipment in the camera and light department. Most of lightbox pictures here are too dark, which I think is because the use of normal table lamps and pocket cameras without the ability to control the settings. I just do a lot of product photography, and thus always speak highly of lightboxes. But of course it's just my cup of tea =).

[trystangst]

I'm not a camera expert, but switching from pics on the table to a light tent and better lights made a world of difference in the end result. For me, it's a no-brainer.

[Doug Sundseth]

 

Very good points. Number one is the reason I suggested to look into what the lightbox is made of. And of course everything fails if there isn't proper equipment in the camera and light department. Most of lightbox pictures here are too dark, which I think is because the use of normal table lamps and pocket cameras without the ability to control the settings. I just do a lot of product photography, and thus always speak highly of lightboxes. But of course it's just my cup of tea =).

 

 

Note that 1-2 stops is using effectively the perfect material (it's about what a professional softbox eats). Worse material eats more light. It's probably good to remember that many of the people taking pics of miniatures don't have cameras with positive control of all three corners of the exposure triangle (or who don't know how to exercise that control). It's pretty easy to find shots where the ISO has obviously automatically increased beyond the point where the image starts to break down.

 

There are two primary causes of photos being too dark that I've seen here:

 

1) Side lighting rather than front lighting, which tends to be encouraged by the shape and size of the softboxes people commonly use for minis. (The diffusion material is usually on the top and sides, so that's where the lights are too.) Note that side and top lighting are great if you're shooting a shiny, new cell phone; there are situations where a lightbox is the right answer.

 

2) Using a white background without understanding that you need to use exposure compensation to increase the exposure. Even cheap cameras are good at getting a decent exposure regardless of the total light level, but high contrast between figure and background is poorly handled by most automatic exposure algorithms.

 

FWIW, I shoot product shots for publication as a major part of my job. And when I'm shooting for myself, I use professional equipment because I have it and know how to use it. For most amateur photographers, though, I've seen more problems caused by small lightboxes than solved by them.

[chaosscorpion]

Dan,

 

Thanks for the info. Your information on cameras and shooting is always educational for me.

[tommisalama]

 

FWIW, I shoot product shots for publication as a major part of my job. And when I'm shooting for myself, I use professional equipment because I have it and know how to use it. For most amateur photographers, though, I've seen more problems caused by small lightboxes than solved by them.

 

 

Yup, do that for a living too. But hey, you're right about them causing more problems than solving, but I guess that's why there are people like you willing and able to spread the knowledge and get better results for all the people, amateurs and pros alike!

 

And not to side trek this to a photographing thread, how are those Kobolds doin' Coleford? =)

[Coleford]

To all the arguments about weather or not to use a lightbox, I appreciate all of the comments and will try out some of your tips! I tried some front lighting today, and it really did help, and if I can manage to get my hands on some Grey cardboard (Do they even make it in that colour?), I'll give that a try too. The lightbox sides are made from thin tissue paper, so I don't think that would cause too much diffusion that they are an issue.

Just to clairify too... Like... Craft... tissue paper. Not nose blowing tissue paper.

 

As for losing the lightbox altogether... probably not. It makes me feel more comfortable, and I find it easier to position and shoot. Moreover, I do think its increased the quality of my shooting tenfold! I'm sure with some of the tips provided here, we will be well on our way to even better shots.

Plus. I'm my own man... aint nobody tell me how to live my LYYYYYFEEEEEE.

 

@Tommisalama!, thanks for getting things back on track! Haha. Kobolds are done, waiting to get a spray of Krylon Matte when I get back from school, and then a photoshoot in the old boxeroonie!

 

As for now, Here they are getting ready for their big break, putting their makeup on and doing lines of blow and whatnot.

 

All in all, they probably took me a little over 3ish hours to get em all done. No highlight after the base coat and Wash. Their job is to die immediately. Aint nobody got time for that.

[Doug Sundseth]

The backing cardboard used on pads of paper is often a reasonable gray (and usually free).

 

Purchase options:

 

Matt board (art and framing stores) can be had in almost any color.

 

Craft foam (craft and hobby stores) is likewise available in many colors, though gray can be a bit difficult to find. If you can control your white balance, the other colors can be useful for creative effects.

 

Depending on your setup, foamcore is available in many colors as well, but it can't be curved significantly.

 

ps. Tissue paper will eat (absorb or reflect) 1-2 stops (50-75%) of incident light. I'd recommend using either a sandbag or a tripod for your camera and making sure you aren't using an automatic ISO adjustment in camera if you're using it as a diffuser with continuous lighting in a lightbox.