Spring 2015 Exchange - Rhapsody in Blue

[Jasper_the_2nd]

I enjoy painting exchanges, I really do.  In the past the suggestions from peoples' surveys have been fairly straight forward to get my head around.  "I GM Pathfinder so monsters are good, but no goblins.", Things like that.  Things that fit fairly well with what I normally paint.  This is good, and comforting.  I go into it thinking, "I can do this, and make it look nice." Low stress.

 

So for this spring's exchange, I was matched up to send to Dontfear, and got his survey.

"Paint in a theme: Rhapsody in Blue, however you want to interpret that."

 

Luckily no one was near me when I read this at work, as I'm fairly certain I swore....I had no clue what to do. I went through a few options, like a bard in blue, and the lead character from the The Symphony of Ages series by Elizabeth Haydon.  I wasn't keen on those.  I went back to work and pondered.  I slept on it.  The next day I had an idea.  I'd always wanted to try monochrome.  So I was picturing a 20s/30s era female dancer done in blues. Turns out Reaper's options when it comes to 30's era dancers is fairly limited. 

But I knew I'd seen something that would work, so I kept searching.  Deadlands: Noir held the answer..and more.While looking at the Femme Fatale I noticed Hourgan.  It looked like they were made for each other.  The arms matched.  Perfect! (well, except for the gun....and the cane....and the snake.....).  So I ordered them.

While I was waiting on the order from Reaper I started getting nervous.  What if they didn't actually match up?  What if they looked crappy together?  What if I mangled them doing the modifications?  What if I can't do monochrome....especially in blue, one of my least used colours?

Time for a backup plan!!   Sadly Reaper's selection of Jazz Bands is, umm, non-existent.  Someone get on that, please.  So after exhausting my google-fu looking for a miniature Jazz Band, I went to a better source: Ub3r.  Within 10 minutes he sent me three different links to Jazz Bands.  I went with Bob Murch, as the figs looked awesome AND he's Canadian.  Thanks Ub3r!!

 

So, long story....less long....I started on the band first, while still modding the dancers.  They were very fun to paint! How often do you get to paint powder blue jackets?

For the dancers, I was happy with how the modifications went.  They looked pretty good together too. I went through all my blues and decided on my colour range.  Three colours. Desert Sky was the middle, Nightmare Black for the dark and a blue white sample that is fairly close to Ghost White (which was at work that day) for the light colour. (I did use a bit of Pure Black to darken a few shadows, but otherwise everything on the dancers piece is done with those colours.).

I have to hugely thank Corporea for answering all my questions on monochrome and light sources and shading metals and everything else.  She was amazingly helpful and friendly and wonderful!

 

So, in the end the dancers came out ok.  But I wanted to finish the band too.  So I did both, pushing right up to the deadline to get it done,

And here's the results.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This project was so far from what I would normally paint, and was such as challenge to do. But I'm extremely happy with how it came out.  I learned tons doing it, and pushed my painting more than I think I ever have. 

The only problem is that my wife REALLY liked it, so I have a feeling I need to paint her something nice sometime soon....

 

 

 

[Kharsin]

Wow! That looks really awesome Jasper, and it's so far out of the norm of what we're used to seeing. Kudos!

[Grimreaper71]

Wow that is amazing.

[ub3r_n3rd]

It's astounding! You leveled up on this wondrous piece for sure. Love it!

 

Very happy to have helped provide some info to you and that you got all the figures you needed. I knew that you'd put 110% into the piece after our little chat too.

[Loth]

Great work! You've stepped it up a couple of notches! Great interpretation of the idea as well, two thumbs up!

[FireElemental]

They're awesome.

[pcktlnt]

Whoa! Amazing.

[Mad Jack]

 Nice...

 

My only critique, being something of a theatre person and familiar with lights - Spotlights, particularly with colored filters in them, tend to wash out both shadows and highlights where they hit, but make the shadows look darker where they don't... (This is why you generally have several lights pointed at the same area from different directions during a show - not unlike photographing a mini, really.) For example, in your piece, the light from the overhead spot(s) isn't going to be hitting directly under their armpits or directly under the brim of his hat. The few tiny areas where even the reflected light isn't hitting should go all the way down to straight black.

Other than that, damn good job on the monochrome.

It's too bad you had a deadline on this - the band would have looked amazing with a similar low level of lighting and an individual spotlight on each band member...

 

So, did you have as much fun as I did trying to get that damn snake off his arm? lol

(At least you got to just chop off the cane.)

I did a similar conversion of him for the special challenge part of the  March Resolutionary Painting Challenge, although I didn't finish him in time... I hacked off the snake and the beads on the other arm and whittled his cane down into a shillelagh, then greenstuffed over the chain at his waist into a holster strap and added a holstered gun and a shamrock-shaped badge to be an LEP inspector, painted pretty much all in subdued shades of green.

Edited April 21, 2015 by Mad Jack

[Glitterwolf]

Amazing piece. Well worth the effort I think.

 

It also shows how much you can do with mini's if you use your imagination.

[Dai-Mongar]

Amazing stuff!

I really wish postage costs didn't make it prohibitive to partake in exchanges.

[Tricksay]

Great concept and execution, wonderful work, can't believe the mod on the male dancer. 

[redambrosia]

This is an amazing piece Jasper. I think you definitely "won" the exchange

[aku-chan]

That is simply outstanding, well done!

[naponatom]

Wow!

[chaosscorpion]

yes wow.  Showed this one to my wife.  She liked it too!