Painting Gwaihir, part ONE.

Once I had my eagle conversion ready for painting, I got out the brushes and set to work while we were at the Wandering Dragon Shoppe!

As usual, the shaded basecoat technique reigns supreme.  I started by setting up the colors of the base.  From there, I put down some colors on the palette for the eagle.  You can see I had a green, a dark brown, a light reddish brown, and an orange brown.   This would eventually be joined by a light tan.

Using one of my larger brushes, I work quickly to lay down my lights and darks, being sure to balance things like color temperature.  This is vital when you are doing something as relatively monochromatic as this.  Working quickly is the key.  Do not be tentative.  Come up with your plan and attack the miniature with your brushes.  Think of them as +3 strength magic swords or master crafted lightning claws. :-)

My basic plan was to have the chest and interior of the eagle a cooler temperature of browns, while the dorsal part of the bird would be warmer.

You can really see the basic warmer browns on that dorsal side of the wing.

I like to play with the color temperatures like this to create contrast in a way that is different from the usual light vs dark.  The edges and tips of the wings are also a cooler dark.

I mixed that greyish tan with my reds on the ventral side of the wings in order to make them less warm, rather than the orange brown of the dorsal side.

These next few images show this juxtaposition of the warms and cools...

You can even see that dance of color temperature play out on the palette.  Here the colors are warmer

And now you can see that I have added a seafoam type green and have mixed that in with my reds, further cooling them down.

At this time, I also start working out the details on the face.  I tried to get some golds and oranges in the face, so that it would stand out...

All across the wings and legs, I try to build my lights little by little, working the same sets of cooler and warmer colors.

The next post will show you how the base was painted, along with the face and talons!  Stay tuned for the next exciting episode!!

From Osprey to Eagle...when you gotta have air support.

As many of you already know, I had decided to get rid of the Army of the dead, substituting Gwaihir in their place, along with some extra cavalry.  You will also recognize this figure as the Great Osprey I just painted for Coolminiornot.com.  One more was kindly donated to this cause, as I didn't have an eagle.

The biggest thing I had to do was to saw off the seat for the rider, and get rid of the straps.  To make this more approproate to the fluff of my two tournament armies, I added some Easterling casualties...

Here is the back view that shows my green stuff work to fill that area in.  I have done 4-5 birds by this sculptor, so I was pretty familiar with how the feathers are arranged and such.

I have some more posts coming with step by step images of the painting process.  Stay tuned!!!!

Where it all began: The Triumphal Arch, early 2004

This is the very first of the big dioramas.  Obviously, it was made with sculpey, as all the other pieces from this era.  We are talking early 2004 at this point.  That is whay the painting style looks so different. :-)

I had seen a piece of fantasy art that illustrated an overgrown, ruined arch.  I liked it so much, I had to try and make it real!

I had to learn a lot about foliage on this piece, as I had only done minimal landscaping on small miniatures.

I spent a lot of time super gluing flock, moss, and tree bits to my fingers!

This was also the first time I had carved away baked sculpey.  I needed to do that in order to create the brick textures beneath the broken and cracked surface

This shot shows some of my favorite landscaping material, from Woodland Scenics.  I loved those realistic trees!  You can see it on the left.

This view shows you how much of the landscaping I got up on that top surface.