25th Anniversary "Darius the blue" WIP

[NyarlaBcn]

I have all the 25th anniversary minis and now it's Darius turn.

It's one of my favourites; and while frecuently the "official" painting scheme wasn't for me, because many of them were too colorful (let's say Ametrine or Dain) and I painted them somber, I like the scheme on Darius. 

The issue is... I never tried to replicate such an ambitious pattern: that blue mosaic. I'm not great with freehands, and to cover his entire clothing with it looks almost scary. So I decided to start the project sharing it here. 

 

First things first, I primed Darius Black. On second thoughts I should probably used white primer, but well, it's done now... Then based him. White putty to fit his base to the plastic base. 

 

Then I decided to try a few colors, and to do that I used another mini I'm not really interested on right now. As you can see on the pic, I tried three different blues for the base color. They all look darker than they should because before I start with the mosaic I will highlight them: the idea is choose one, paint the entire clothing with highlights. I'm still not sure which one. I'm inclined to the one I'm pointing with the brush; but on photo it looks slightly different... I will try other mixes to see if I can find something a bit more turquoise. Now on photo I think that there is too much contrast between the two blues; and when I'm working with Darius, the pattern will be also more neat, small and precise. Now it's a bit rough because it's just all about color. 

I'm also undecided about the mosaic. I will highlight it too, once applied. I'm using a pale blue, which will be paler when I highlight it. 

 

Any advice so welcomed because that's totally new to me... 

 

 

Edited April 15, 2018 by NyarlaBcn

[NyarlaBcn]

Ok, first coats done on Darius. 

I decided on a turquoise blue. Just a couple coats, a wash and another coat. 

 

With citadel paints: 

 

- Blue: Ahriman blue, wash of Drakenhoff nightshade, ahriman blue again 

- Purple: Naggaroth night + khorne red + screamer pink, wash of carroburg crimson 

- Yellowish/browns: Balor brown + doombull brown, wash of agrax earthshade 

 

 

[lowlylowlycook]

Off to a nice start!

[NyarlaBcn]

Well, I went to sleep with these first coats; but today I wake up and changed my mind. 

I can't make this yellowish-browns work on the inner clothes: I don't like either how they combine with the blue. So I changed them to that sea-weed green that I will highlight a lot more. 

Right now I'm done highlighting the blue: just superficially, because it will all be covered by the mosaic. Also first coats on skin and beard; on the beard, a light wash of black. 

[Glitterwolf]

Nice!

[NyarlaBcn]

I'm afraid this will be the story of a failure... 

I tried the spotted pattern: I can't make it work. It just looks awful. And that was probably the main point of that WIP, so yes, kinda failure... 

 

Anyway, I kept going highlighting a bit more and drawing some freehands over the blue clothing, highlighting the green inner clothes and the purple cape.