Finishing the Drow flesh tone: Raging Heroes Vestal experiment

Continuing on from the previous post, you can see that we are nearly at the lightest stages of the flesh tones.  Many of these next steps involve the armor and weapons, but also the hair.

I darkened the hair even more in this step.  Part of my reasoning was to make the hair somewhat transparent by having the darker skin tone show through the hair spread over the back.

In this step, the lightest flesh highlights are applied, and shadows are painted around the eyes and the lips  The head piece is defined a bit more, and I mix a bit more yellow with my purple on the armor (especially on the back of the calf)

More highlights are worked into the armor, but I also use some dark brown/purple mixes to define the shadow edges on the armor even more.  Some shading is applied to the weapons...

Some very bright highlights are applied to the hair and the armor.

More reflected lava effects are done on the armor...

The weapons are given some non-lava related reflected light.  The goal is to create a light to dark fade from the bottom of the blades to the top, which should be the darkest shade.  This makes the highlight on the edges stand out even more, and that helps to create a metallic effect.  

You can make this even more pronounced if the highlight edge is tinted yellow next to a slightly purple dark color.

More edges are cleaned up, and parts of the blades smoother even further with thinned down paint.

I will post the finished images early tomorrow.  There will also be a set of side by side shots of both flesh tone examples!!  Stay tuned...

This time it's a Drow: Raging Heroes Vestal

OK!  Here is the promised Drow flesh tone for the Raging Heroes Vestals!

I will dispense with showing how the base was painted since I just posted the step by step for that technique.

This time around, I wanted to have the really light hair and dark flesh tone.  As I was painting the lava effect, I planned and marked out where that would show up on the miniature itself...

I started out with a Vallejo Luftwaffe uniform color (like a shadow grey, which is what I used to use).  For the basic color of the hair, I used a GW Hellion Green.  Yes, that is a 'dry' paint, but when you mix it with flow improver, you get more of a regular paint!

I began to lighten the original flesh tone color with a Game color Carne Marron, but lots of other colors such as Tallarn flesh could do the same thing.  The hair was lightened with a bit of white.

I watered down some Reaoer deep twilight (a purple/black), and did some glaze/tinting work on the shadow areas.  This would make a nice warm/cool contrast with the somewhat purple flesh tones.

I continued to mix that warmer fleshy color with the cooler shadow grey.

You can see in this view of the palette that I also added a bit of Slaanesh grey.  Yes, it's a food container.  That's what happens when you don't have a vehicle for 2+ weeks!  You can see just about all of the colors that I have used to this point.

Here is a shot of the brush that I was using, a rather large #8 brush.  It lets me move very quickly around the miniature, but has a fine tip so that I can even work into the smaller details.

More lights are added.  I mixed a somewhat cooler pink color into the flesh for the lighter areas.  The hair was shaded a little darker by mixing in some of the darker flesh tone with that Hellion green.

The colors a glistening a bit due to the glaze medium.  It certainly was not hot enough in the house... although she is standing on top of lava...

Another view of the palette.  You can see the darkest darks, and the lightest lights.

Stay tuned for the conclusion!!!

Turning a problem into a solution: part two

For those who have seen the previous post, you already know that I had been scrambling to find a new solution to making movement trays without any sculpey.

The pink foam had actually worked!  With the glue sealer, it was very sturdy, and I had sculpted the extra green stuff bits to match the original bases.  Now it was time to paint it!

I began with a very generic yellow ochre just to cover the entire surface.

I used a few different lighter colors to indicate where I wanted different colors of stones... some cooler, some warmer.

Once that was established, I decided to test out some new Secret Weapon washes that I had been given as prize support for Bilbo's Bash.  I had a black, a dark sepia, and a concrete.  Those last two were very interesting, in that they were opaque.  It reminded me of some of my washes made by watering down the old GW foundation paints.

This brings up an important point.  I am perpetually experimenting with new materials and techniques.  Sometimes it is out of necessity, like the pink foam, but I will also test out a new idea or material just to see what may happen.

This can generate some anxiety, to say the least, but it has advanced my abilities exponentially.  I can honestly say that the way I paint will be different by the end of this week than when it started.  It can change dramatically... almost instantly.

Not only does this keep things interesting, it allows me to do a whole lot more in a lot less time!

Back to the painting... I have completed the darker washes and glazes, so now I start getting back to highlights and working the middle tones.

I try to smooth out some of the rougher areas (especially in that all important middle tone).  The first layers of colors appear on the foliage.

I highlight the foliage to match what I had done on the previous bases, and start painting in some cracks.

I used a very fine brush to paint in cracks that were even smaller than the ones I had sculpted into the foam.

The figures are placed back on to the tray to see how things are looking!

With the tray complete, it is time to paint up the rest of the unit!  Stay tuned...

Pink foam to the rescue!!!

Well, today was an interesting day.  I needed to create a movement tray for that unit of Forgeworld Empire that I have been working on.  This was important, since I needed to attempt to rank them up before I tried to put them on their bases.

I knew that they were going to be difficult to rank up, even more so when you include the command figures.

No big deal, I thought.  I will just break out some sculpey and some matboard...

Well, it turns out that I needed two things to proceed.  Some new Sculpey and a working oven.  Since I didn't have either of those things, I had to figure out something else on the fly.

I remembered how much fun and success I had with the pink foam on the Fortress Falls army board.  Could I somehow manipulate that material in the same way that I could my trusty sculpey?

First, I got out my exacto knives and started shaving down pieces of pink foam.

Here is the unit, ranked up as best as I could get them.  It took a lot of moving guys around!

You may recognize some of the figures from recent posts...

I wanted some stronger magnetic hold, so I got a sheet of magnetized sheet metal.  It's important to make sure that is what you purchased, as I discovered the hard way.  Always have a magnet with you in the store!!

Cathy reminded me that we used to make all kinds of Blood Bowl fields by taking pink foam and putting stone textures into it!

Those pieces of foam you saw in the earlier photo were cut into very specific shapes... 3/16 inch wide by 1/16 thick.  I glued them into place, and then carved/pressed in some floor texture with carving tools to match the bases.

Finally, I cut away bits of the stones with the exacto knife to make some serious weathering...

Here you see some pillars which were also made from the foam.  I took rectangles and carved/sanded them into pillars!  Once all that was done, I had to find a way to 'seal' the foam, and make it stronger.  Otherwise, any pressure at all would damage it.  We have learned that wood glue or stronger formula Elmer's glue is perfect for this task!

After that dried, it was time to sculpt some vines and leaves like the ones on the bases.

More vines!

More leaves!

I let all this set up, and then it was time to paint it!  Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of an exercise in Plan B!!

Here she is... Miss Underdark? Vestal one finished

Here are a few pictures of the completed Vestal from Raging Heroes.  I am working on a drow version now, so later tonight I should be posting images of the step by step!

Vestal Flesh tone experiment #1 : Dark Elf

With the lava base complete, it was time to get down to some flesh tones!  For this experiment, I wanted to try out a variation of the usual Dark Elf lightflesh/black hair combo.

The flesh is not as bright as you usually see in GW publications.  I wanted this to be a little darker, so that I could reflect a bit more of the lava glow in it.

These Vestals will be the subject of numerous painting DVD's in our Kickstarter program.

I used a blue/black mix to establish the darks of the hair and the armor...

The armor was a mix of snakebite leather and that blue/black.

I started to 'flesh out' the flesh tone by using a watered down Reare Ashen Brown.  This would help me establish where the darks would be.  The hair had a lightening color of blue/black and bright sky blue.  That same color is also applied to parts of the weapons.

I mixed a little bit of Vallejo brown rose with the ashen brown, which made my warmest color.  I also mixed a bit of lavender in with this.  I used flow improver to keep the colors in a better state for mixing on the figure. 

I took my panzer aces highlight green and mixed that with the more rosy flesh tone.  That cooled down the surfaces facing away from the lava, which would be very important!  This would become my highlight tone as well.  So, I kept mixing more of the highlight green into that shade.

I mixed a space wolves grey into that color to further lighten it.  You can see that I did some more work on the armor as well.  These flesh colors were mixed in with the snakebite leather to make it lighter.

I get more definition on the armor by mixing a little yellow in that mix.  It is surprisingly cool by comparison, which is good.  I am also working on the darker shades of the weapons.  I put some glowing eyes on her for fun, and to tie in with the lava effect!

Final highlights are picked out on the weapons, the armor and the hair.  I went back in with some dark purple in the shadow sections of the hair for a little contrast.  That same color was thinned down and used for the darkest shades of the swords as well.

Tomorrow I will post the finished images!!