Hero Forge - Dwarf Fighter

[PurpleLlama]

Here is a hero forge dwarf fighter I've been working on painting the last few days.  A friend in my D&D group convinced me to make one of these (before I found Reaper and other mini companies).  The detail is pretty good, but the price point was pretty high.  I went with the brass and if I had to do it over I would probably choose the high quality plastic.  I also didn't think about having paint all the nooks and crannies when designing this guy.

 

Let me know what you think so far.  C&C is always welcome.

 

 

[pinkymadigan]

The brass print looks almost print line free! Cool to see.

[PurpleLlama]

21 hours ago, pinkymadigan said:

The brass print looks almost print line free! Cool to see.

 

It really is print line free.  Especially compared to the plastic.  Some of the other players in my D&D group went with the plastic and just handling them you can feel they're rougher.  Hopefully I'll get a chance to paint those here in the next couple of weeks and can do a comparison.

[PurpleLlama]

Made some more progress on the beard, metal and base.  Still need to finish up the wood on the axe, the skull and I might do some more to the base.  Still undecided.

 

 

[PurpleLlama]

Pretty much finished up my warrior.  I'm happy with it for the most part.  My girlfriend doesn't like the color choice for the cape.  Says it stands out too much compared to the rest of the mini.

 

 

Next up is Borat teh bard.  He is 02186: Alfred Redlute bard.  I'll probably do a khaki-ish colored shirt with a cherry wood colored lute.  I might make the face of the lute a cream color.  That's what most of the pictures up on google look like.  Other than that, brown hair and green / hazel eyes are his only real requests.

 

 

I cut him off and put him on a secret weapons base.  Need to lighten up the wood planks.  It's one of their trenchworks bases.  I was hoping the wood planks would look like a tavern floor.

[PurpleLlama]

Made some more progress tonight on borat the bard.  Used Terran khaki on his tunic, with some meadow green for the trim.  Next I used about 1:1 meadow green and a Vallejo GC dark olive green that I have on the pants.  I used VMC shadow grey on the boots.  I'm pretty happy with the color for the satchel.  It's mostly VGC leather brown with just a drop of beasty brown.  

 

 

The lute I painted the two tone color as that seems to be how a lot of real ones are.  I'd like to redden up the main color a bit, but will probably do that after I add some wood grain.  

Anything metal, rapier, necklace, lute strings, I undercoated black in preparation.

 

 

The hair i used a 1:1 of walnut brown and VGC beasty brown.  The skin I started with a base coat of bronze skin and glazed some flesh wash.  I followed this with highlights of bronze flesh, elf flesh and finally pale flesh.  He's suppposed to be a half elf so I wanted him a little paler.  I did a couple more glazes of flesh wash at the end to try and blend it a little better.

 

 

 

Any pointers where I could do better on the skin, I'm open for suggestions.  I think it looks okay, but I know there's lots of room for improvement.  Thanks for looking!

[Flaming Tiki]

Thanks for posting! I have been wanting to a Brass HF mini being worked on. I particularly like the paint you did on the Dwarfs beard and base.

[Willen]

9 hours ago, PurpleLlama said:

Any pointers where I could do better on the skin, I'm open for suggestions.  I think it looks okay, but I know there's lots of room for improvement.  Thanks for looking!

 

If you are brave enough, try mixing a tiny bit of red into your flesh color, and with a very light wash (and a very discharged brush), apply to the cheek / nose area. Basically the middle of the face. Then to knucles, elbows, basically areas where the skin is usually more stressed. Temples are good places too.

 

Then if you are feeling braver, do the same but with purple, to the area inside of the eye/nose (that very dark area that frames the light color "T" of nose/eyebrows). 

 

And to finish it off, mix a desaturated blueish grey into the flesh color, and do the same for the lower third of the face (chin, lower cheeks). 

 

From there you can make it more subtle, or more exagerated, depending on your style.

 

A few tints of color change a LOT the perception of the skin. I am attaching a couple of my own minis for you to see; I am no pro by any means but my flesh only feels "real" for me when I do these tints, especially the reds.

 

 

Here the dwarf also has red tints on the shoulder and chest area, it makes him more alive.

 

 

This guy's face is heavily tinted with red and the highlights re-captured, it is a less thought work than the dwarf (because I am in a hurry to play with that mini), and the scar is to cover a mold-line defect, but still a bit of red makes his central face area more alive and real. I could still push it further with greying the lower area of the gace and some more light yellow as highlights, however.

[PurpleLlama]

Willen, thank you for the input and ideas!  I'll have to see what I can do tonight.  The red makes sense, but I wouldn't have thought of adding the purple and bluish gray.  

 

The examples are also a big help.  Both of them look great!

[Willen]

You are welcomed! I call the red tint my "secret" in painting flesh because most regular painters for tabletop would stop at just using some flesh paint recipe, and the simply tint gives it so much life in my eyes.

 

Can't wait to see what you do with the mini... it was some lovely areas to apply this coloring ideas.

[PurpleLlama]

Well, I didn't have much time to paint tonight, but here is the result of trying to fix up the face.  I went ahead and gave the eyes some green irises.  A little sloppy, but I'm hoping with time they get better.  Then I started in on the skin.  Here's some close up results.  These are just taken with my phone so the quality isn't that great.  One thing I didn't touch were the lips.  I wasn't sure which color to use.  I tried mixing up a couple of different options but none of them looked good enough for me to try applying.  Any tips?  I was thinking maybe a darker red mixed with the skin color?  I used a little bit of a brighter red on the cheeks and nose.

 

 I'm uploading several similar pictures as I'm not sure which ones will look the best. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

note:  the left side of his face (right side of the last picture) is a little messed up looking because there was some slight miscast on his face and I tried to fix it.  I'm thinking it might have been part of his collar that is missing on that side.

[Willen]

Wow he is really nice!

 

Re:lips. I feel they are a highlight area so you can't use a darker color on them! My quick and dirty method (that you see in baldy above) is to edge in dark the inside (my darkest skin shadow plus some black, usually), this step is usually just drawing a line for a mini like this. Then I mix a bit of a soft pink in my skin highlight (I use Old Rose from Vallejo Model color) and paint the lower lip. If I feel like the area is big enough I add some white and add reflection dots and/or stripes to the lip, but this is usually overkill for tabletop or 28mm.

 

I don't know what paints you have available, but to get something like Old Rose you need a red that is not too saturated or strong, and add white. The goal is to get a pink that is like a slightly faded pink dress 

[PurpleLlama]

Thanks!  I wasn't too sure last night, but I definitely feel better how he is turning out after sleeping on it.  My FLGS carries Vallejo and is mostly what I have with some reaper paints.  I'll have to pick some up today.  Hopefully I'll get a chance to finish up the face tonight then.  I'm hoping to make some decent progress tomorrow night then.

 

Thanks again for the help Willen.  

[PurpleLlama]

I was able to get a little more finished up tonight than I thought I would have time for.

 

I picked up some old rose and used that with pale flesh to do the lips.  I didn't use pure black on the mouth.  I used the same shadow grey color I base coated the boots with.

 

 

 

After that I went ahead and shaded and rehighlighted the tunic using a little bit of walnut brown and the khaki triad.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall I'm pretty happy with it.  I might touch up some areas if anything needs it as I finish up everything else.  I'm hoping to get quite a bit done tomorrow and finish up over the weekend.

 

 

[PurpleLlama]

I made a little more progress yesterday.  I'm hoping to finish up in the next couple of days.

 

Next post will likely be in show off.