US Marshal, Shadows of Brimstone

[Jack Brown 252]

This will be for use in the game, so the face may not bother me as much as it does in this picture. I'm not sure if it's the sculpt or something I did, or both, that makes it unappealing so far.

 

I'm liking the way the shirt and vest are turning out. The highlighting on the pants just looks weird. It may be better at tabletop distance. Would a glaze of the mid tone over the pants make them look a little less strange?

 

Thoughts?

[Pochi 10688]

Not sure what you dislike about the face but I don't see a problem. A glaze on the pants will soften the transition of your colors and should make it look less "blotchy" and more blended.

[Glitterwolf 170330]

Glazing the pants would certainly work!

 

Overall a good job!

And the face? The poor guy can't help that he isn't Brad Pitt.

 

[Maledrakh 9501]

the face would be the soft detail of the original mouldings that were ...impressively soft. to say the least. luckily the newer minis from that game are of significantly sharper detail.

 

For my part, I find the SoB minis to be great fun to paint.

 

 

most "white-ish" paints (such as the light blue used in the trouser hightlights) are generally very strong, which leads to stark contrasts as we see here, These colours need more diluting (and often several coats) than many others to make them translucent enough to get nice colour transitions. Also washes / glazes will help.

 

suggestion: The contrast is very strong and should be weakend a bit to make the glaze work. I would try to make a dilute mid tone to paint right on top of the starkest highlights to tone them down a bit before trying a glaze all over to even things out. Or even just paint over the highlights completely and do them again with a much more diluted highlight colour.

[Jack Brown 252]

Yeah, the face is a bit soft. Not a lot to do about that. :)

 

More dilution on white-ish paints. I'll try to remember that tip.

 

Good point on being able to do the highlights over. I tend to forget that I can just repaint them. Thanks!

[Gargs 5893]

Several glaze layers will certainly help, though to be fair, I'm still finding that I am terrible at highlights, even if my shades are getting "decent". As others have said, perhaps softening the transition will help too, mix a bit of the highlight color into your midtone and highlight, then mix a bit more and highlight a smaller area (roughly 50%), etc. Finish it off with glazes (sometimes several layers are needed) and it should help smooth the transition. Also keep in mind that it will no doubt look a lot better from table top distance as the camera magnifies the size of the mini so much that even the slightest "error" (for lack of a better word) will look huge on camera.

 

You could also try two brush blending your shades and highlights as that will smooth at the transition too, but I am still really bad in general at 2BB and particularly so on smaller areas.

[Jack Brown 252]

I could see where 2BB might help, but I think that technique is further down the road of things to learn/try.(What? There are only like 3 techniques in this hobby, right?) NMM is higher up the list, I think.

 

I'll have to look at it from table top distance tonight. And probably re-do the pants a bit.

Thanks.

[Cyradis 49380]

You could also layer in a blended color of your highlight and the blue jeans, then place it along the edges of the highlight. 

 

Then again, I kinda blur my glazing/layering nowadays. Glazes are just super thin layers of paint and would go on top of those highlights to tone them down. I'd start with generally thin layers at the edges first. You could always glaze over that later. 

[Jack Brown 252]

I have ideas to experiment with!

[Jack Brown 252]

Color on the rifle barrel. Did a couple rounds of glazing on the pants. They definitely look better at table top distance. More jeans look and less urban camo look.

 

And his badge is progressing.

[Jack Brown 252]

Almost done with the figure itself. The only thing left is to make use of the super glue blob from where I had to re-attach the rifle barrel. It'll be painted up to look like darkstone on the rifle. Making a bonus out of a problematic event!

 

Then the base and it'll be done.