In February, I took a commission to paint the fabulous Forgeworld Roboute Guilliman. It was both a challenge and a delight to paint him. Even though I have several Primarchs in my collection, he was the first I've actually painted.
At first inspection, the cast seemed all right, but once I actually sat down to work on him, it was not as great as I would have liked. Normally Forgeworld is excellent at replacing models like that but time was a factor (he took longer than usual to arrive in the first place) so I had to do a bit more work on him than I should have.
This was especially true of the stone pillars. They weren't nearly as flat and squared off as they should have been. I had to do some greenstuff work to even them out a bit but it all worked out in the end. The marble was the hardest part of the whole miniature, hands down. I'd never painted marble before so I did some practice runs before I started on him. That's probably where I spent the most time.
I "finished" his head and the banners first and set them aside as I worked on others. I actually brought the whole model to Adepticon with me (he made the trip in my carry-on bag because you just know my checked bag would have gotten lost if he'd been in it) to get some tips. I took a class on painting faces and used those techniques and advice to make a few small changes to his face that really made him look much better.
At Adepticon, I also learned several nice blending techniques that I decided to utilize on his cloak. Wet blending is the technique I used on it, and it's changed my entire outlook on how to blend anything. It makes even basic blending really, really easy. My first few blends weren't very smooth, but with just a little practice they got much better.
I'm very please with how he turned out, even the marble. I struggled with that part more than anything else. But the best part is knowing that the client was happy. Guilliman was commissioned by a group of people as a gift for their friend. They were kind enough to send me a photo of him when he received the mini and that made my day.
Now that he's done, I am taking a little time off commissions. Maybe to work on some painting for myself or maybe just to finish up school. I've got 10 weeks left until graduation and I've been burning the candle at both ends since August. So taking commissions off my plate will help a bit with that.