Going for the Gold!

Here are a few more shots of the Sisters of Battle.  I thought this small group might be an interesting comparison of how the golds looked on different sculpts.

First, the two heavy weapons Sisters.

It's also fun to see the two color schemes side by side... the white robes with gold trim against green armor, and the green on gold scheme.

All of them went on the same style of base, however.

The metals of the heavy weapons were both done in a similar scheme... a warmer grey, with a few accents of green or purple here and there.

I put in the Repentia and the converted Seraphim for yet another comparison.

It is a neat example of how a distinct basing style can tie very different figures together as an army, even when there are variations in specific layouts of color.

This meant that I could have very distinct individual units which would be easy to tell apart on the battlefield, but yet they would all be very cohesive as a united force.

Show me some skin

The second phase of the Glazing begins!

Once the 'dirty work' of the general glazing was complete, I painted the snow on the bases.  It was a very basic combination of slate blue and blueish white.

You can see what the general transition looked like in the lower right hand corner.  This is also why I emphasize using the larger palette, and deploying my colors across a broad swath.  It allows me to see the entire transition, making it far easier to match a certain layer.

Snow complete!  This will also give me a good guide as to what my lightest lights should be.  Otherwise, the skin highlights could possibly have ended up a few shades too light compared to the snow.

This is the part of glazing that seems to be more unique to my method.  What I am doing here is mixing a glaze color with 'regular' paint colors.  This creates semi-transparent layers which can do a variety of things.

By mixing the green with the Flesh shade, I made an excellent greenish shadow color.

I also mixed a medium skin color with the Flesh shade.  This would provide a darker version of the skin.

Using the very controlled glazing method, I started to apply these translucent darker shades onto the recesses.  I would emphasize the greenish hue on surfaces that faced the ground, or were near something dark.

This would let me paint a lot of surfaces on a bunch of figures quickly, but also give me the freedom to not worry about paint drying.  My shadow colors were very easy to recreate.  No recipe needed!

As I move along, you will start to see a difference in those shadow areas.

That touch of green in the shadows make the skin colors have more depth, and also reflect the greens of the dark hoods and cloaks.

Again, this is all happening very quickly, since it does not take as much time to place these isolated semi transparent layers.

Once all the darker layers are in place, I can clean up any water marks or rough areas with lighter colors.

In this case, I added a few touches of purple to the skin colors, as purple is a very nice foil against cooler greens.  

At this point, I also went in to detailed areas such as the eyes and lips.

Skin colors complete!  Time to move on to areas such as the greens and the blades!!  Stay tuned...