Welcome back and happy new year. Let's continue on with this lady. I last finished her hair and decided to fill in the clothing next since that would be the next biggest area of color and would directly affect the tone of the skin. Again I'll hustle through these since it's pretty straight forward...
After blocking out the areas with the above base color I applied my first highlight in a few very thin glazes.
Then a second lighter highlight with even thinner glazes.
Even lighter and thinner with this next highlight.
Even lighter and thinner. 1:1 Blue horror to White scar
Last highlight. Very thin - like juice almost. 2:1 white scar to Blue horror
Then a shade in the recesses with 1:1 The Fang to Rhinox hide to help push the contrast and definition.
Finally, in the deepest recesses a very, very, very thin wash of black.
Her skin looked pretty healthy at that point and though I wasn't going for NMM I did get a nice cold steel look to her impossible bra.
Onto the leather! Basecoat with Steele legion and thin glaze with Baneblade brown.
Highlight again with Karak stone
And again with Rakarth flesh
Then we shade with some washes to add definition. I didn't wait for each to dry as blending them into each other made the leather look more natural.
One last highlight with Rakarth flesh to push the contrast a bit more.
And a final shade with a 1:2:1 mix of Steel legion to Stegadon scale to Abbadon black in the deepest recesses for definition.
Here's a closer look front and back:
Onto the gold! Block in your gold with brown to give it some depth.
Now for a basecoat in a few thin layers to get a nice even coverage.
First highlight.
Second highlight.
Final highlight.
Now to add some real depth with a bunch of glazes and shades...First glaze.
Second glaze - away from edges in the flats towards the shadows.
First shade, again in the shadowed areas to build up depth.
Second shade.
Third shade, cool tone to add some real depth.
And the final shade to push the contrast almost to black without using black.
Here is another closer look:
Here is where the mistake happens! I started the blade without a plan or reference picture and it was heart breaking. I'm going to just laugh it off though and show you how I corrected it later.
Blocking in.
Basecoat.
Metal shade?!
Highlight.
Now random colors for shades o_O
Okay, panic and go darker!
Okay, freak out and try to do NMM with TMM paints?!
NO? Maybe repaint the blade and use Tamyia smoke - that stuff can fix anything right, RIGHT?!!!!!
Fine. Stop, sleep on it and fix the blade. There were no WIPS at this point and I thinned my paint with my tears I shit you not -_- It's too subtle below, but it looks great in person.
Finally, with my confidence restored I finished off the silk leggings and... armhose?! I have no idea what they are called. Basecoat, several thin layers.
Highlights. I just kept adding skin tone and medium to my black and wet blending right on the girl
Here is a final shot of her with the last shading done and a good stopping point.
Thanks for sticking that one out! I'll keep the year in review short.
I went native and wandered away from GW this year thus nullifying all, but two of my goals (1 to become a display level painter, 2 to paint up a bunch of pirate avatars for the office - everything else was 40k related and was left in the dust a little). The bonus of doing that? I have crossed the threshold from table top painter to display painter in 1 year! If you are looking to make that kind of leap yourself, join
C'MON and you will get tons of great help and advice from a wonderful and supportive community of artists. I have actually had my first request for a commission and an invitation to
Putty & Paint just recently. Yep, I'm bragging a bit, but it feels good to be well on my way to my goal of a display level painter!!!
Thanks for making it this far (if you did)! May your best of 2013 be only your worst of 2014! Hit me up with any questions, comments or critiques and remember; you can't spell paint without a little pain ;)
