Jade Green and Seven Dwarfs: 60184: Meyanda, Android Priestess and a bunch of dwarfs as Exalted Jadeborn

[Cyradis]

Looking good so far! 

 

If you want an excuse for more colors on the jade, natural jade comes in various shades of green, lavender-purple, orange, white, and black.... and can have those colors mottled together. This isn't to shove you away from the green (because green is awesome), but as a "oooooh more ways to be shiny!" inspiration  Your green hues are smack in the jadeite ranges! 

[LarsM]

Amazing faces!!!

[Pingo]

17 hours ago, Cyradis said:

Looking good so far! 

 

If you want an excuse for more colors on the jade, natural jade comes in various shades of green, lavender-purple, orange, white, and black.... and can have those colors mottled together. This isn't to shove you away from the green (because green is awesome), but as a "oooooh more ways to be shiny!" inspiration  Your green hues are smack in the jadeite ranges! 

 

Thank you. I had sort of remembered something like that and looked it up before starting the project.

 

This, in fact, was according to plan:

 

 

 

(This is literally the last thing I did today and I have a bunch more pictures to process before putting up a proper update. The violet is a mix of Phthalocyanine Green and Quinacridone Magenta, lightened with a little Titanium White. Also note I adjusted her right (our left) eye to look a little less crazed.)

 

[Pingo]

And this is what I did before that. Dwarf hair!

 

I mixed a really drab brown for blonde and redhead highlights. I find that actual blonde hair in real life is way less yellow than it is usually painted. This is a color I think of as brown paper bag mixed from Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, and Titanium White (if you do not have brown paper bags where you live, they are the color of ordinary cardboard). It's kinf of a drab taupe.

 

 

Shinier bits with the same color with some more white added.

 

 

Shinier-er for the blonde dwarf.

 

 

A wash of Burnt Sienna (a fiery brown) for the redheads:

 

 

 

Next: Brunettes!

[Pingo]

For the dark-haired dwarves I started with a warm medium grey highlight mixed from Titanium White and Burnt Umber, laid on slightly thinned down.

 

I mixed a brown-grey because in my experience all greys placed over blacks and darks end up looking way bluer. A pure black-and-white grey would look positively sky-blue over this underpainting.

 

Notice even this warmish brown (essentially a lighter version of Kara's skin tone) looks very blue over the black.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I missed the Ral Partha dwarf's beard the first time around. (How?! How did I miss that beard!?!)

[Pingo]

Now I'm adjusting the hair colors with washes and tones. I put some pure Burnt Umber on the redheaded Red Box dwarf.

 

Note that she has got a little white spot just at the right of her braid, about midway down to the clasp. This is one of those little pits that resists paint. It has white primer on it, but not the umber wash. There are a number of these, but most of them are simply repairable. That one I spent a lot of time trying to reach. It looks far larger and more prominent in photographs than on the figure, btw. In person it is a minuscule point about the width of a human hair.

 

I fiddled a lot and finally filled the spot with some Reaper Brown Liner. It took way too many tries! I'm going to have to re-pick up the red highlights later but I'm sooooo glad to have gotten that darned spot!

 

(I had leftover liner on my brush and waste not want not, so I painted her cloak shadows too)

 

Washed some straight Burnt Umber on the brunette Oathsworn dwarf's hair, picking out some more highlights on top of it.

 

 

Likewise on the Stonehaven Dwarf.

 

 

I fiddled quite a lot with Kara Foehunter's hair.

 

 

To cool everything down I mixed an almost-olive black from Burnt Umber and Phthalo Blue and glazed a very thinned down layer of it over the highlights (adding some more lights on top).

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pingo]

I started painting their garments and things.

 

Sometimes I like to start with a little rainbow arrangement. So this time I set out some bright colors to mix.

 

I started with the violet. This is mixed from Phthalo Green and Quinacridone Magenta. These two colors can produce all kinds of violets and, believe it or not, blues. Anyhow, it's lightened and made more opaque with Titanium White. This is a quick first layer.

 

 

 

Then, in order of the rainbow, I painted blues. This is Phthalo Blue, except that it is such an intense, eye-watering blue I've added a good dollop of Burnt Umber to tone it down somewhat. Titanium White makes it opaque and a little lighter. Shadows are roughly added in with the unlightened color.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I usually triangulate greens, first doing blues and then yellows so that I can mix them into the greens. So yellow is next.

 

I think dark-skinned people look great in yellow. This is a buttercup yellow mixed from Yellow Ochre (for golden undertones), Hansa Yellow Opaque (for vivid color) and Titanium White, shadowed with a mix of more Yellow Ochre.

 

 

 

 

 

[Pingo]

Had a number of greens to paint. These are all based on Phthalo Green, the workhorse green pigment. It is a super intense, super strong bluish-green which dominates color mixes so it needs to be used judiciously.

 

I mixed up a pea-soup green for a Thri-Kreen I'm painting and used it on Hatherly, the Hasslefree dwarf's tunic. It's a mix of Yellow Ochre, Hansa Yellow Light, Burnt Umber, Titanium White, and a smidgen (it really is strong) of Phthalocyanine Green.

 

I also primed what's going to be silver on him with Carbon Black.

 

 

I mixed a lime green from Phthalo Green, Hansa Yellow Light, and Titanium White for the dress of the Oathsworn dwarf princess.

 

 

I used the same green on the Stonehaven dwarf's overtunic. I think I shaded it with a random medium green from the palette with some Burnt Sienna mixed in.

 

 

 

I added a deep jade green to Meyanda mixed from Phthalo Green and Burnt Umber. Highlights have a little Titanium White mixed in.

 

[Pingo]

Reds. They are just straight Red Oxide, thinned down enough to be translucent (so the umber underpainting shows through for shading), then highlighted with pure strength Red Oxide.

 

 

 

[SisterMaryNapalm]

Wonderful work, Pingo. I just thought how awesome a SciFi version of Snowwhite would be. The lost android princess, lying in a lifeless sleep and the 7 dwarven spacefarers are setting out in search for an old OS to boot her.

Edited March 14, 2018 by SisterMaryNapalm

[malefactus]

Getting caught up with the progress was a WONDERFUL  & inspiring experience.

You have a LOVELY, often macabre style that hints at other artists, but is uniquely your own.

Even in the work in progress stages, they are BEAUTIFUL creations with well define personalities.

[wdmartin]

3 hours ago, SisterMaryNapalm said:

Wonderful work, Pingo. I just thought how awesome a SciFi version of Snowwhite would be. The lost android princess, lying in a lifeless sleep and the 7 dwarven spacefarers are setting out in search for an old OS to boot her.

 

Wait wait -- are you saying they need to give her the boot?

 

Loving the hair on the Kara figure, btw.

[SisterMaryNapalm]

20 minutes ago, wdmartin said:

 

Wait wait -- are you saying they need to give her the boot?

 

 

Well - if I was a dwarf, I would absolutely "boot" her.

Edited March 14, 2018 by SisterMaryNapalm

[Pingo]

Hem. So. I added another layer of the orchid-purple to Meyanda's skirt, refining the shading a bit. The color mix is the same as above. I laid in the shadows wet, then painted on the lights while the shadows were still wet.

 

 

 

I primed a couple more of the dwarves with colors to go under metallics, Carbon Black for silver and Red Oxide for gold. This is a classical Renaissance technique (They used a more mixed grey than black for under silver, as I understand it. Red Oxide is exactly the pigment they used under gold leaf.).

 

Oathsworn Dwarven Princess.

 

 

Oathsworn Other Dwarf. The grey on her gambeson is mixed from Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine Blue, and Titanium White. I find color-mixed greys to be much livelier and more versatile than straight black-and-white mixes.

 

 

I missed a few spots on her chain mail which I will fix before going on.

 

That Ultramarine Blue and Burnt sienna mix I mentioned has been my favorite neutral shadow color for thirty years. I painted greys and whites on the last two dwarves by laying on a thin wash of that mixed grey, then working in full strength Titanium White with fine brushes while it was still wet. This is a thin enough technique that the Burnt Umber priming still shows through.

 

You have to work fast for this technique, but the results are very pretty when it works.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Glitterwolf]

I'm still a bit baffled how you paint.

At first it seems a bit messy, and then suddenly it all comes together and looks brilliant!