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Kuro Paints a Vampire Lord (with videos?)


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Thanks a bunch, everyone; you guys are awesome!

 

No new work on that vampire yet (unfortunately), but I did get that new Layering Tutorial Video that I've been promising posted on YouTube!  Hope you all can get something out of it, as it is basically everything I learned from the amazing Rhonda Bender (and others) at ReaperCons of past years!

 

Kuro, I can't thank you enough for making and posting this video!! My blending is what I'm struggling with the most right now, and your explanation turned on a whole roomful of lightbulbs for me! When you explained how you picked out the colors beforehand and mixed colors in-between, I was like "Yeah, okay, I do that," and then when you started showing how NOT to do blending I was like "Oh...yeah...that's exactly what I do."  :mellow: I really appreciated you doing the How Not To before showing the How To; having that comparison was extremely helpful to me!  ::D:

 

I'm going to try basecoating in my midtone and working up and down from it, see how that feels. Right now I've been basecoating in my darkest color and working up from there. The problem is that it seems to be muddying my highlight colors. I might be putting the paint on too thickly as well due to being impatient.  ^_^

 

For doing blending on black surfaces like the vampire lord's cloak, is the principle the same, just basecoating with a mid-tone dark gray and going up and down from there? Or do you basecoat in black and work upwards?

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

 

 

Awesome!  I'm so glad it was helpful to you, and I look forward to seeing your progress!

 

With regard to black surfaces, I do indeed start with a pure black basecoat and then work up from there.  The main trick with black is to keep your highlights rather small.  Unfortunately, with the cloak on this mini, I just flat out couldn't reach everything to paint it how I'd like, so I had to make it a really dark blue cloak through glazes instead of the black cloak I was originally intending.  However, if the blue was less prevalent and "tighter", it would still read as black.

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Generally speaking, black is the mid-tone and shadow of "black". The converse holds that white is the mid-tone and highlight of "white".

 

Anne Foerster says to read as black or white, the surface area should be 75% of the base color. Otherwise it will start to shift towards looking like whatever color dominates your highlight/shadow.

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Well, when at first you don't succeed...  just start over!  I basically just started from scratch on the red connecting tissue of his wings, and, while not my best work, I feel like I can finally move on.  The black of the wings and the claws at the tips of those wings still need work, but I'll get them, the hair, and the black armor all around the same time.

 

The face was a little different (and therefore more difficult) due to the pasty, bloodless vampire flesh, but I think it turned out okay.  Right now, the eyes are just coated with liner in preparation for my tutorial video, but I think they actually look kind of cool just like they are.

 

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Thanks everyone!

 

@Dontfear:  I can see what you're getting at, but I kind of want to wait until I've gotten rid of the rest of the white to decide how to tweak things.

 

In the meantime, I did indeed manage to get that eye painting tutorial I promised put together!  I hope it is still clear despite the difficulties inherent in filming such a small area.  Let me know what you think I should film a tutorial on next!

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That was a really good eye tutorial, you should pimp it out everywhere. I learnt at least 5 things I can be doing better, including using a thicker brush to stop the paint drying out so fast.

 

I'm not sure how much effort the video was to make, but in my wife's opinion and I, it was totally worth it and you have our thanks.

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Excellent tutorial, thank you so very much! I'm about ready to take my eyes to the next level, and having gem-like eyes has been my goal for awhile, so now I have an awesome tutorial from a wonderful teacher to help me get there! :D

 

He's really looking fantastic so far, I'm excited to see what he'll look like when he's totally finished!!!

 

As for your next tutorial, I don't think it's something you could do on this guy because he's too close to done, but could you demonstrate shading/highlighting on rounded, curved surfaces, such as muscles or billowing fabric? Your blending through layers tutorial was immensely helpful, but I find that I'm still struggling with where to put highlights on dramatically curved areas.

 

Thank you again so very much for making these amazing tutorials!! :)

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

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Thanks a bunch, everyone; you're too kind!  That was a rough video to film, but knowing that it has helped some of my fellow forumites makes it totally worth it!

 

@SR:  Do you think I should try for shorter videos in the future, or did that turn out to be an okay length?

 

@OneBoot:  Kind of a highlighting theory video, huh?  That's not a bad idea!

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I'm not sure about Shadow, but I'm of two minds on the length. A 25 minute video means I need to plan the watch time, but I watched both the eyes and layering and did not feel they were long at all. To be honest, I was surprised when they ended so quickly.

 

If it's 10-15 minutes I'm more likely to impulse click at any time. However I'm probably not going to get as much out of the video.

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@Kuro - Yes, that's exactly what I mean! :) Knowing approximately where highlights and shadows are supposed to go in general (I understand the theory of OSL, but very few of my minis are likely to have that).

 

What Foxfire said! Seriously, none of your videos have felt at all long to me; you keep things moving at a nice, even pace, and I too am frequently surprised when they end so soon! So I'm just fine with the current length, honestly.

 

Huzzah!

--OneBoot :D

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Yep, awesome video  :;):

 

I did not felt it was long, in fact it was short for me but I am used to watching long video tuts, so I don't count, probably.

 

I can't think of other general topics TBH. Light and Shadow are easy (ish) for me with the trick of the lamp, things I have problems are more reflective surfaces (in particular, hair) where light and shadows are not always intuitive, and yet we are so used to seeing it that viewers pick up right away if it is wrong.

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