Bonehenge Priestess

[Original_Carl 232]

If the eyes on the model I'm working on are that good, I high-five myself. The camera is so brutally honest, it's not even fair. That mini is going to look great on the table.

 

Well done.

[LittleBluberry 34471]

Definitely looks like the bath was worth it, she's going to be gorgeous when she's done.  I'm really regretting not buying this mini when I was at ReaperCon, I got really sick and missed a day and a half of it.  You've done a great job of providing guidance on prepping her so now I'm keen to get her and start painting!  

 

The eyes look fabulous, too.  I need to up my game...

[wdmartin 3837]

Spent some time working on the robes. In the first go-around, I think I put too much purple on her, so I'm going to reduce that this time.

 

First up, I coated all the cloth with a thin layer of 1:1 Muddy Olive/Amethyst Purple (which makes a a thin grey tending ever-so-slightly green):

 

 

 

Then I went in and started putting in shadows using Imperial Purple in the very deepest areas (mostly far away from the light source) and Muddy Olive as shadows in the areas closer to the source.

 

 

 

And then I went in ad started doing hitting the highlighted regions with regular Olive Green.  In a few places (like on top of her left sleeve) I used a half step of 1:1 Olive Green/Muddy Olive.

 

 

 

And here's a side view on the shadow side.

 

 

I'm digging it so far.  I still have work to do on them -- at least two more levels of highlighting in the brightest areas, and probably some more work on the blending in the shadows.  Some of those areas of Imperial Purple are a bit too abrupt.

 

The longer I spend with this figure, the more I wish she didn't have all that stuff on her belt. If she was just wearing a belt, I'd be more than half down with the figure at this point.  Instead, I've hours and hours yet to go on all the doodads.

 

I think her belt is just going to be plain black.  It'll make my life easier.

[Peithetairos 1329]

Quite the improvement to the first version. You are correct that the eyes are misalignment, accordingly she looks like she is crossed eyed. If you strive for perfection, you may need to clean up the eyes with skin tone or repaint again.

 

I also think you need to work with very thinned down colours for the skin, glazes really, and build up highlights and shadows slowly. If you get a splotchy or chalky effect the paint was not thin enough. 

 

I am in no way a master painter, but this is what I experienced with painting female facial skin. 

 

In this example you see what I mean:

 

50:50 of Vallejo Medium Fleshtone and Vallejo Basic Skintone for the basecoat followed by a wash with GW Reikland Flesh. Successive highlights with Vallejo Basic Skintone and RMS Pure White. All thinned down heavily, brush load reduced with a paper towel and then building it up slowly.

 

[wdmartin 3837]

Not cross-eyed; its opposite.  If she were cross-eyed, both of her eyes would be turned inwards towards her nose, crossing one another. The problem here is that her right eye is looking up and right, while her left eye appears to be looking straight ahead.

 

 

The paths of their gazes are angled away from one another.  She's exotropic.  I don't think there's a way to fix that without redoing one of the eyes -- which I will probably do now that it's been pointed out.  It'll have to be her left eye, the one that's gazing forward, because her right eye is awesome and I'm not touching it.

 

Basically, I think the problem is that the iris area is a bit too large, and we shouldn't be able to see all of it.  There needs to be more sclera visible to give the impression that the eye is turned to the side.  Like this:

 

 

This model's head is turned to the side, so the effect is more noticeable. About three quarters of the surface of her left eye is sclera here.  The iris is correspondingly smaller, and is oval rather than circular.  I'll try again on that eye -- probably not three quarters, but at least half the space needs to be sclera.

[ced1106 4707]

With eyes, one trick I do is paint both eyes, then cover one of them with my thumb. I then remove my thumb and see if the second eye is where I expect it.

[wdmartin 3837]

Okay, here's another go at her left eye.

 

First I took the whole socket back down to Walnut Brown, and then re-painted the sclera. This time I used Misty Grey for the sclera instead of the previous 1:1 Linen White/Blue Flame, which was too subtle.

 

 

Here's the first attempt at the basic shape of the iris, in Walnut Brown.

 

 

It was too horizontally oval, and looked like it was pointed downwards instead of upward. So I went over it with Misty Grey again, and then tried again.

 

 

Better, but ... still a little too horizontally oval.  One more try.

 

 

I liked the tiny bit of sclera showing underneath, and decided this would do.  Also @ced1106's trick of covering one eye with the thumb and then revealing it was useful here.

 

Adding the Linen White so the green will be nice and bright.

 

 

At this point I decided to do the pupil before the coloration of the iris, on the theory that putting Pthalo Green over Walnut Brown is unlikely to change the Walnut Brown's color appreciably. Attempt 1!

 

 

AAAAGH!  Nooo!  Attempt 2.

 

 

Sliiiiightly better, but no.  Attempt 3.

 

 

That'll do.  Let's get some color on there.

 

 

This was problematic.  I liked the brightness of the green, but there's a tiny fleck of Linen White at the bottom that did not get covered.  So I hit it again, trying for just the bottom left corner of the iris.

 

 

Good, ish. It darkened the green a tiny bit more than I might want, but it'll do.

 

Now for the highlight?

 

 

Aaaand I succeeded in blotting out the pupil. BAH.  So I put the pupil back.

 

 

This has, unfortunately, made the pupil less round than it should be. It's ever so slightly pointed now, and I still don't have a highlight.  Man, getting the white highlight on an eye is one of the hardest things in this entire hobby.  They're just so small, and even the tiniest slip can ruin the whole eye.

 

And that's where she stands for now.  It's better than it was, but her right eye is still the better of the two.

[wdmartin 3837]

I'm still not happy with her left eye. Something got lost towards the very end there -- a bit of definition on the nose side, I think.  I may have to start that one all over again.  Bah.

 

In the meantime, I spent some time working on other things.  First, two highlights on the robes, first Olive Highlight, and then Linen White on the highest points.

 

 

 

A base coat of thin Ruddy Brown on her hair.

 

 

 

And I began picking out leaves in her hair with a base coat of 2:1 Whatever The Heck Green/Blue Liner.

 

 

 

Her hair puzzles me. I'm not entirely sure what all the little round bits are on her left side. Are those supposed to be berries? They don't look much like hair, that's for sure.  It's rather difficult to tell which bits are hair and which bits are vegetation.  Maybe I should do a wash of Muddy Brown or black ink to bring out those details a bit so I can figure out what the heck they are.

 

She's got shirt sleeves poking out from her robe.  I hadn't thought about those before.  White seems a logical choice, but it needs to be darker on her left.  Hrm.  Perhaps base coat the right sleeve in Palomino Gold, then glaze it with Dragon White, and base coat the left sleeve in Snow Shadow, then  glaze up to ... Misty Grey, perhaps?  Or maybe a bit darker than that -- say 1:1 Misty/Tempest Grey.

 

This one is definitely an exercise in patience.

[wdmartin 3837]

Her left eye wasn't there yet.  Three more hours and multiple attempts.

 

 

 

It's much better.  But I haven't got a highlight on it.  I loaded up my brush like three times to try for it and every time I just stared at it until the paint dried on the brush.  After three hours working on this one eye, I think it's time to call it a night.

 

Any tips on getting that highlight in there without just obliterating all that work?  It's just so, so small ...

Edited October 22, 2019 by wdmartin

[LarsM 1920]

The eyes got really great on the end. And I like the purple shadows! 

[Elbon 115]

Much improved!  Keep it up!

[QueenOfChalices 385]

Those eyes look great!  As far as getting a highlight without ruining the, wet a second brush and keep close at hand, you should be able to erase most newly placed paint.  Even if it partly dries, gently scraping it with the middle brush will often do the trick.

[wdmartin 3837]

And here's a highlight.

 

 

I'm not sure whether it's in quite the right place. It should probably be a tiny bit up and to the left. But re-doing it at this point would probably require redoing the whole eye, again. I'm on the fence.

 

Thoughts?

[LittleBluberry 34471]

Honestly, I would re-do part of the pupil, if you think you can.  The highlight is a tiny bit too big, so adding in a touch of the black would make it look more like the other one.  But again, I know it's super tiny, so doing nothing is also a valid choice.  Really!  

[Original_Carl 232]

My god! They keep getting better! I'm learning a lot from this thread. Thank you for the detailed process posts.