03631 sea elf bard - sculpt/paint D. Schubert (+ 02948 ray sculpted by J. Guthrie)

[dks]

Quoralei the sea elf bard (03631) is one of my sculpts from several years ago that I'm finally getting around to painting.

Sharing the base with her is a sea ray, one of the aquatic familiars sculpted by Julie Guthrie in the Familiar Pack VII (02948).

Pics first, then some more words:

 

 

 

 

Reaper released several underwater figures around 15 years ago, including Bob Ridolfi's Slithe Queen (02902), Julie Guthrie's aquatic familiars (02948) and Werner Klocke's mermaid (03078).

I was inspired by the way they simulated the underwater setting and buoyancy, with coral or seaweed on the bases, dynamic poses, and floating hair and fins. 

I extended Reaper's aquatic offerings by sculpting a male and female sea elf in 2006.

In 2007, I made a diorama of a coral reef with my 2 elves hiding from the evil mermaid and her Slithe Queen hunting-beast.  

I intended to populate the reef diorama with at least one of the aquatic familiars, and I prepped and primed Julie's manta ray, but I ran out of time before painting it -- the diorama was a contest entry for GenCon.  (It won Best of Show even without the extra creatures!)  The primed manta ray went back into my bits-box.

A few years later, in 2012, I sketched a few characters for ReaperRon to review, and he liked this female bard with the conch-shell horn and a boy-shorts swimsuit.  I sculpted her, Reaper released her, and Reaper's painter at the time (Martin) painted her for the online gallery.  Without the pressure of painting one for the gallery myself, I left my copy of the figure unpainted and went on to sculpting and painting other things.

 

Now it's 2021 and I'm finding new motivation to paint.  I've been watching / listening to Anne's Twitch show on most days, among others.

I'm clearing my backlog of figures, with the added incentive of points in the Reaper Challenge League.

I painted my Frost Giant Princess a few weeks ago, for example.

 

The casting of Quoralei had some noticeable mold-shift around her arms and hair, but I used a knife and gloss sealer to fix the problems ... not perfectly for competition-level, but well enough.

 

She already has a seahorse under her arm, but I decided that she needed a bigger companion to fill the foreground space.  I auditioned some other fishes and sharks for the part, but I came back to the ray. 

I did a web-search for photos of real rays, and one blue-spotted ray inspired the colors that I used here.

I used many of the same colors on the elf and the base as what I had used on my Reef diorama (since I still have my notes), but my techniques and eye for contrast have changed a bit.

 

I'm especially pleased at the interplay of the blues and browns on the base.  I didn't have a result in mind, but I just put some colors on my palette and mixed and stippled and glazed for a while.

 

 

 

 

The colors on the conch shell and the seahorse are also mostly accidental -- several layers of glazes and fine stripes with whatever was on my palette, until I decided "enough".

 

  

 

 

Enjoy,

Derek

 

 

[R2ED]

Dude, the whole thing looks great.  The skin is super smooth.   I'm really loving the shell and coral work. 

[Rigel]

Lovely skin tones, and great base! Those colors really make it look underwater. Great sculpt design, too!

[billeecats]

This is so totally awesome, Derek! I really enjoy seeing your work, especially the attention to detail in even the tiniest bits of the mini. In awe 

[Kuroneko]

Absolutely stunning! I love the colour palette and your blending is phenomenal. Thank you for sharing this with us!

[Glitterwolf]

[Metalchaos]

Absolutely masterful. I remember the coral reef diorama you made in 2007, I was literally speechless about both quality of the paint and all the details you have put on the display base itself. And honestly, I think your work on Quoralei is, if possible, even more amazing.

 

The sculpt is so full of details, like the webbed hand (showing between the thumb and index finger of her left hand) and the movement in here hair and scarf are exquisite. The paint is... impressive (I am out of words). Her eyes are deep and mesmerizing, they have a translucent feel. The subtle depth of the nmm and the smooth blend between colors on the base are all absolutely beautiful.

 

Keep it up your work is always a great source of inspiration.

[Darcstaar]

Always a pleasure to view your results.  It’s like a scavenger hunt to find all the neat details.  I particularly like the stippled texture on the scarf, the free hand on the headband, and how the ears seem to be the brightest spot of all the skin.  I’d love to know what colors went into the skin.

[zoroaster100]

Really beautiful work.

[dks]

Thanks, everyone.

I didn't paint much in 2020, but I'm really enjoying the time I've spent painting in the past several weeks, and glad to share it with you.

 

@R2ED : I don't often paint figures with this much skin, so I don't usually spend so much time on smooth blends!  But I thought it was important here, especially her left leg out in front.

 

@Rigel and @Kuroneko : When I was planning the reef diorama, I spent a lot of time looking at photos of underwater scenes, and I used most of the same colors here that I used back then.  The blue shadows, blue-glazed midtones, and lack of strong orange or yellow colors all help sell the underwater effect.  I also glazed some Cyan Blue into my midtones and shadows, which is a color I almost never use but Anne Foerster talked it up a lot on some of her recent shows, so I decided to try it.  It is a really nice blue!

 

@Glitterwolf : That image is a nice pull!

 

@Metalchaos : Thanks for remembering the reef, 13+ years later.  Yes, I spent about 8 hours painting each elf on the reef, but about double that on Quoralei here because she's the main attraction.  I enjoyed designing and sculpting those details, so I'm glad you mentioned them.

 

@billeecats and @Darcstaar : Glad you're enjoying the "deep dive" into the details.  I enjoy putting in those little glints and specks of colors that you can find.

Skin colors: I painted the whole model with a monochrome gradient from Blue Liner to Polished Bone.  Then the "real colors" were Clouded Sea (9194, discontinued, but it's a greyed green-blue) mixed with a little Highlands Moss, up to Pale Lichen; down to Blue Liner in the shadows; Leather White (cool highlight), plus Linen White for warmer highlights on the face; Intense Brown and Rosy Skin for the pink tones at the ears, nose, cheeks, and hand webbing.

 

@zoroaster100 : Thank you!

 

 

Aaand....

Because I can't leave well enough alone, I just did another couple of hours on the figure, mostly on the hair. 

I didn't like how electric-blue it was, and how flat/monotonous some of the strands looked. 

So I glazed more green into the midtones, and I darkened the shadows (especially toward the back) and raised the highlights toward the front.  This gave more depth to the overall volume of hair, and took the emphasis off the strands.

(I also glazed some green into the conch shell to fade out that bottom blue streak, added white to the pearls on the headband, re-lined some areas that had lost it, etc.)

 

Before and after comparison. 

Hmm... maybe I lost too much of the blue!  But I like this contrast better.  Her eyes look bluer by comparison, too.

 

Face and hair detail:

 

 

And a group shot with the duo from the reef diorama:

 

Derek

[billeecats]

Good gosh, I didn't think she could look better, but she does! I do like the greener tones in the hair... To me it feels like it lifts all the other contrasting elements more than the cool blue did. Very, very nice! 

[Glitterwolf]

I also remember the reef diorama, it is a beautiful piece.

 

I just can't get over how you can paint such small eyes so well and vibrant.

[Iridil]

She is beautiful. I really like how the ray and her clothing are the same tone and the subtle lighting from above. Wow, so many lovely, subtle details pull together!

[Reaper Ron]

Such a show off.

 

Oh, wait. That is the name of this sub-forum, right? 

 

Killer, Derek. KILLER.

[dks]

Thanks for the further notes!

 

@billeecats : Glad you appreciate those reworks to her hair.

 

@Glitterwolf : I double-cheated on these eyes, since they're bigger than a real human's would be in scale, and I paint my elves as having extra-large irises to look pretty/fey.  (An average real iris would be about 1/3 of the width of the eye.  A bigger iris makes us think "cute" like a baby, or "inhuman" like many animals' eyes.)  I spent a lot of time practicing and getting a feel for the right consistency of paint, and I use a brush with a sharp tip but a big enough belly that the paint doesn't dry between the palette and the mini.

 

@Iridil : I didn't intend for her to be wearing "ray-skin" clothes -- I had a shiny black-brown in mind with blue-purple under-reflections, and I base-coated the clothes black -- but I kept adding to the light-side until this bronzy color was the result.  The same Driftwood Brown midtone as on the ray, but has some blue and purple and a slightly colder highlight.  Maybe the ray is swimming away because it doesn't want to be her next outfit!

 

@Reaper Ron : Killer sea elf = the real Deadliest Catch.

 

Derek