Thursday, May 22, 2014

Tutorial: "GOOOOOLD" part I

I've got gold to paint. A whole lot of gold to paint. And I intend to be good at it. Weather its faking it with NMM or using the good stuff with RMM (real metallic metals.) I feel this is something that can set a model apart from others.

So I've decided to approach it in the way I would approach any digital or flat painting but research and development.

So what do we paint in gold and why? Shiny stuff. Right. Things we want to look important. Damn right. Because gold (In our little world) usually symbolizes the bad ass king with a big ass sword. So let look at the gold we want to use.

Take this mental son of a bitch Charles-Andre van Loo.
(Download this picture, put it on your iphone, print it out. Its a beauty)
 
 I'll be using this little patch of his work a lot when it comes to putting paint to mini. Knowing where the light bends and what looks right is vital to a solid gold or metal. Cor. What a beauty.

 (Which is why the Queen of France in this picture must have been pissed. "Look at that god damn table shining like a motherfucker. You haven't even got my eyes straight!")

 There is a downside to trying to copy this palette however. Just look at how complex his golds are.
 
(DAMMIT LOO! Now that's a spectrum. Maybe he did it on purpose to stop people looking at the face of the queen of France.)


Condensing that down to 28mm scale would ruin most of our days. But Whats going on there that could help. 
The brightest colour is no where near white. Maximum is a beige. The darkest colour is mega dark red?! There is green in it. 



So maybe something a little simpler. Another master of metals is Charles Le Brun. 


Look at this cheeky arse bandits painting. Two types of gold on display here. The celestial pure gold, and the rich earthy gold of the frame. Probably a message there somewhere, sure as hell isn't share the wealth anyway. Look at this guy. Does a perfect face at the top and paints a guy that looks like a bad Michael Cera fan art in the main bit. What the hell dude. 

 I love the look of this gold. Im going to copy the hell out of it.


And low and behold. There is bugger all in it! Its all about the placement. Few colours and the right strokes. 



Drink hearty lads! for tonight we paint in hell!! (In part II)

Monday, May 19, 2014

Silver and Leather

Metal and leather are two textures that have always scared me. Knowing where to paint highlights, weather to let the shadow of the model do the work, painting reflected light or warping a reflected image. It's scary how much you need to know to get a grip on these things. So I decided to cheat to make it easier for me. :D

The highlights on the blade in the image above are all painted (please ignore the scratches, I got ideas that didn't pan out)

Accuracy in this is pretty easy actually! I just made sure I held the miniature at the same angle under the light while I painted them. Using dots of chrome paint where the light fell, followed by a very thin glaze of blue to set.

This way you know your getting highlights right because your just following the physics of what light is falling on the mini! Maybe I'm rehashing old news but this has been quite a revelation to me.

Finally, leather. Not much to say really. It's all about looking at reference. If something looks red in your reference, paint it red. Try not to use too much care when painting the base of it. Make sure you keep your first couple of layers rough. the more texture you have in the build up the better it will look in the end.

I still feel I have a long way to go with leather, especially when looking at people like Marta Slusarska
(http://twistedbrushes.blogspot.co.uk)
Who, in my mind, is one of the masters of all things cloth. She has better tutorials on that than anyone else.

thanks for reading guys!
Henry

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Commissar WIP2

Quick update as this has come on in leaps and bounds today. From a block of wood and plastic to possibly my best painted mini. :) 

Commissar WIP

My progress over the last few days with the commissar has been great. After attacks from dogs, weathering tutorials, and drunken evenings it's been awesome to have this project go so smooth.