Gnoll Warriors - Quality Study

[Vacaroja]

In a massive bag of random Bones minis I acquired, I found four of the same type of gnoll warrior. I've decided to take three of them and paint them different quality levels - a speedpaint, my average tabletop level, and the last one, the most detailed - to see the difference in the type of efforts I put into things.

 

They've all been cleaned and based. Different basing as well, with the last one being a gnoll on a grassy knoll. A knoll gnoll! >>

 

And the speedpainted one, I'm not priming or gap filling.  But the other two I am. I generally like to prime things no matter the material for three reasons -

 

- Habit/preference.

- To see the details better because the stark white makes it hard to see definition.

- And lastly, because it helps me see how I failed to clean off mold lines as well as I thought I did and take care of it appropriately.

 

Will get into the nitty gritty of it all tomorrow because tonight is D&D night!

 

 

[WhiteWulfe]

Oooooh, I'm looking forward to this one! Gnolls! 

[Glitterwolf]

Nice!

Keep going!

[Vacaroja]

Okay! Spent part of this afternoon doing the quick one first. This is what you get from me in an hour.

 

 

Started off with blocking out base colors.

 

Then a variety of washes and dry brushing with a bit of detailing with all these colors included - 

 

And that's Pale Red Violet, Leather Brown and a mystery metallic (ooooold bottle and I don't remember what it is) with faded labels in the back.

[Original_Carl]

Your hour looks like my day and a half. Nice!

[WhiteWulfe]

4 hours ago, Original_Carl said:

Your hour looks like my day and a half. Nice!

I was thinking the same thing, wow that's a nice looking speed paint!! o_O

[Vacaroja]

Started the second gnoll yesterday, giving him his basecoat colors. Many of them are similar, but for the fur/skin areas, I went with a much darker color to start.

 

 

Today, I started bringing out his colors. Usually start with faces and skin first. I slowly bring up colors, blending the ones shown below and mostly side brushing them on along the fur lines. When it comes to skin, this is how I usually do most, but not all, of my minis, with shadows first and successively brighter blends up to the highlights and details. There are also small touches of Brown Liner where I thought it necessary, currently around his mouth and snout, at the moment. It and/or Blue Liner will more than likely end up in other places as well to deepen shadows.

 

 

Also got his eyes in, which were painted first before any of the fur so I could goof it up and fix it without messing anything else up.

 

 

Edited November 19, 2019 by Vacaroja

[WhiteWulfe]

Definitely loving the gnolls, and your brush holder is an awesome one! 

[Vacaroja]

21 hours ago, WhiteWulfe said:

Definitely loving the gnolls, and your brush holder is an awesome one! 

 

A wonderful random find walking through the Home Goods children's section.

[Vacaroja]

It took about 4 hours for to finish up the second guy.

 

 

Here's how the first and second gnolls compare  -

 

Biggest differences are more contrasting highlights, more details, particularly around the face, to give him more of a hyena semblance, some rough NMM, and more colors to do it all.

 

And I've already started on the third. Biggest difference to the start of this one is that I'm wet blending the basecoat colors on the body and will be doing the same with the most of the rest of the parts. As can be seen just for the skin layers, I'm already using a more colors. It's additionally leading to a slight change in tone.

 

 

Thinking on this whole wet blending thing, I really like it a lot better than the layering up I did with the second one. Went faster and I got some really nice results out of it even though it's just the first coat of paint.

[Vacaroja]

Between last night and this morning, I finished the base colors for the third gnoll. All wet blended in. When compared to the second one I think it's about the same quality, just different in texture and tone. All in all, it's currently taken about the same time 4-5 hours. And now we'll move into detailing.

 

 

 

Following are the colors I've used for the various parts.

 

For the cloth -

 

For the armor and shield metal -

 

For the morningstar (left) and the leather straps (right) -

[Rigel]

Genius work, well-documented!

[Vacaroja]

Third gnoll, finished product! Decided after over 10 hours to stop fighting the good fight and call it done. Some of the finer details include spots and lines of fur, some hatchwork on the cloth around the legs. Decided his armor should be a rough and worn look instead of super shiny NMM since he's a beastman warrior who I figure doesn't use or maintain the best.

 

 

Compared to the second gnoll -

 

 

And all three together -

[WhiteWulfe]

Wow, those extra couple of hours really do add in a lot of details!  Really glad to see this comparison between various styles and techniques to say the least! 

[Glitterwolf]

They're awesome!