There is something that goes far beyond the most subtle highlighting, the smoothest blending or the most detailed sculpting.....freehand.
I've tried freehand once before on my BSB on foot and it was very much trial and error until it was spot on and looking back I've very tempted to paint it all over again as I don't think it's good enough.
And therein lies the biggest problem with freehand work. When it isn't good enough. Maybe other painters can do a spot of freehand and be happy with it but no, not me, not in the slightest. So come with me on a journey where I expose the true madness behind my worst painting habit, not knowing when enough is enough.
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| My first successful attempt at freehand |
So the model in question? My Dragon Prince standard bearer, not even a mounted BSB, just a lowly standard bearer for a unit. I knew I wanted to continue the moon and stars theme as all my banners will have various astral imagery.
First attempt. This is good, definitely good. Even when I look at this image I feel I could have stopped here. A solid B+ banner. But no, that's not me. Unless I sink an inordinate amount of time into something I don't feel I've really given it my best shot. And thus did my descent into madness begin.
Second attempt. Well, I say attempt but I was just working it more and more. I wanted something more grand than just a moon and a few stars. I wanted a night sky. But here's where the problem lies. When you go from a really solid banner to something that's the next tier up then it takes more than just a green splodge and some white dots to represent the milky way. I needed a full cosmos.
Final product. I'm 98.2% happy with this. I say that because when I look at my models it's in hand and a few inches away from my eye and when you get that close what should be a scattering of stars is revealed to be a bunch of white dots.
Some of you may think this is all a bit silly and that it's just a case of me working something to get it just right. This post and these pictures don't really show the hours I spent at work just thinking "I need to go home and work on this banner". Some of you may even think the first picture is the best, even now I prefer the glowing of a few stars over the full cosmos of the last picture but that might just be a city boy's perception of the night sky. In any case I hope this has been an interesting look at some pretty pictures.