Nice doggy! Aargh, my hand!

Hi folks, in between sessions of experimental painting trying to get an Eldar colour scheme right I was able to bash out this pack of fearsome beasts:

These are Fell Wargs from Games Workshop's Hobbit range (a range of models so evidently and patiently awaiting a certain dragon and five armies to get going that it is almost funny). I decided that simple would be better for these lads, less is more and all that, and so based the whole scheme around Mournfang Brown. I drybrushed up highlights from the Mournfang base with increasingly lighter shades for the main body. Drybrushing, by the way, is often rather maligned in our hobby as a "noob" technique. Nonsense. It isn't for everything but especially with animals that have been sculpted "smooth" rather than furry it imparts a delicious texture that helps to sell the paint scheme. The underbellys got a lighter tone and the muzzle and furs got some Agrax Earthshade to help the differentiation of regions and textures. All that is a rather long winded way of saying 5 drybrush stages and a thin wash!

I'm rather taken with the range of motion GW have gotten with this kit. There's a nice flow to the unit that gives a dynamic appearance on the table. I think these might make lovely mounts for goblin wolf riders, if that plan wouldn't add £18 to the cost of every six wolf riders...

With such simple models, I felt that a slight upgrade in the basing department was called for. Cue cork piece rocks and pools of muddy water. I used some of the AK Fresh Mud more normally used on tank tracks to stain the legs of the wargs as though they were splashing through freshly rained-on earth. One quick point on the groundwork on the bases. The rocks fit in with the soil don't they? That's because I mixed 'soil' colour in with the greyish rock tone and the last highlight for both the rocks and the soil is the same. It's important to do this. I constantly see deep brown soil with bright grey rocks in paint schemes. Sadly that isn't how soil works. A lot of soil is actually the weathered down remnants of the local rocks mixed with organic matter. Thus the soil has a similar - but darker - hue to the local stone. It's made of it! With that, I am getting back to tanks, I think I've got it sorted now!

TTFN

RPG Rogue

Eyup folks! After a morning of fiddling around with Eldar infantry assembly I needed a therapeutic paint job for the afternoon, cue:

Another RPG character commission. I have to say, while I adore army building - it's my favourite part of the hobby - it is these single character commissions, especially for RPGs, that are my favoured commissions. I just love 'em. You can lavish attention and bring someone to life. This one has a slightly "Resident Evil" vibe for some reason. Maybe Ms. Jovovich wore something similar one time. Who knows.

The brief was a hired hand, leathers and black leather boots. I used an array of different leather tones - Doombull brown being the dress - and shaded everything with Agrax Earthshade to help the colours hang together. The client had asked that she be wearing leather leggings so as to avoid the usual fantasy female 6 inch heels 3 inches of fabric look that so many fall in to. The black is highlighted with Val Leather Brown in order to give the appearance of black leather. Because the pale leather colour of the undersuit is technically a skin tone I needed to clearly emphasise which areas on her were skin. For that I went very pale on the flesh. Paler than it appears on the camera. This helps her hands stand out from the sleeves and also gives a lovely contrast with the dark hood.

I did feel the need to talk about the sculpting a little. I think this is a Rackham piece and has a couple of common crimes nicely illustrated. The first is Continuity of Sculpting. This is when, because of the nature of the beast, you have to sculpt in many many small stages to avoid messing up what has gone before. Trouble is you really, really have to watch that new details follow logically from the old. It's like a watch switching wrists in a movie, continuity fail. In this case it is the bag. From the back it is clear that the strap goes over the shoulder and is pulled taut by the weight of her arm pressing on it. From the front, suddenly that weight has gone, she is actually pulling it up, while gravity ignores the strap as otherwise the strap would move between the breasts or would partially flatten the one it is pulled over. It is a small thing but it makes it seem like two different moments in time on the same figure.

The second is Single Aspect Sculpting. All models have their best angle. It is inevitable as the molds are in two parts so there will be a front-back plane on which the sculpting looks it's best and from side to side there are compromises made. Lots of sculptors work to a 3/4 turn casting angle rather than head on to allow some movement and animation in the sculpt (very complicated, I'll either talk about it later or find links to more professional knowledge!). HOWEVER. You cannot sculpt with only this front-back aspect in mind otherwise weird stuff happens at the sides. Go back and look at the shots above - taken from flattering angles. Looks fine right? Now look at the one above of the profile. She just isn't there. The girl could hide behind a sapling. The sculptor has clearly spent a lot of time worrying about the front and the back and forgotten to add any depth.

Both of these don't detract totally from the fact that she is a nice figure. I like the overall effect. But it did have the best examples of those two minor sculpting crimes I'd seen in a while so I thought I'd share. Until next time folks.

TTFN

Its so easy when you're Evil

Greetings shipmates, following on from yesterdays post, today we have the last two members of the eeevil adventuring party commission. A Gnoll and a Cambion rounding out the gang nicely:

[edit: I forgot to mention, the post title references the brilliant Voltaire track "When You're Evil"]

We'll kick off with the more bestial (just) of the pair, a Reaper Gnoll Cleric called Boneflail:

Strangely, for such a large model, there isn't a huge amount to talk about the painting of it. The model is almost entirely leather, fur and bone with a smidgeon of rusty metal. The sculpting on the pouches is worth a look though, zoom in and check them out. Absolutely brilliant. The shield is also fairly groovy:

I decided in deference to the Minotaur member of the group that cowhide wouldn't be appropriate so goatskin all the way! I found a clawprint on the net (I think it is actually badger) that looked ferocious and stippled it on to the hide - Mephiston red first and then Evil Sunz Scarlet - to give it that "savage artwork" look.

Only now do I notice that I haven't shaded the brass on his back. Doh!

Finally we have the Cambion, a half-human offspring of a devil or demon. He's based on the Reaper Warlord Kang model with horns added by yours truly. I just lopped off the horns on a spare beastman banner top, shortened them and then sharpened them up once they were securely superglued on. Knowing that red was going to be a prominant skin tone, I needed colours that would work with it. Initially I tried a triad of red; blue and yellow but that was looking... off somehow. Triads are tricksy and can often look a little childish as they are such a classic combination that they are used in children's books, toys and school rooms the world over. Instead I went for the split complimentary of yellow-green and green-blue. Even then the yellow-green was overpowering. The edging has been sculpted very thickly and so dominated the scheme. Cue a line of the Stegadon Scale Green down the middle of each stripe and a generic sigil on the tabard/loincloth thingy. That helped to balance it out. The skin tone is just Khorne Red highlighted with Kislev Flesh and then glazed back down with Carroburg Crimson. A touch of black for the horns and everything is groovy. There is still something not quite there thought. He's fine and all but I think there is still something missing. If I come up with it I'll let you know.

TTFN

But before I go, an update on probably the most important of my resolutions. The "keep Jeff alive past 40" resolution. Well, I am happy to report that progress is being made. I'm using something called alternate-day fasting where you eat a normal, healthy diet on the first day and then a drastically calorie reduced diet on the second. About 500 calories on what Mrs PVP calls the "non-eatey days". That means that your average intake hovers around the 1500 calorie mark without having to spend every day tediously counting and without having nothing to look forward to. Sounds mental? Well, it is working. I've lost 6lbs of fat in the last four weeks. Near as damnit half a stone in a month. At that rate I would be 15 stone by next year. Most importantly, my visceral fat count is dropping, meaning there is less fat caking my organs. And that is with changing nothing else at all. I'm a great believer in one change at a time. This month was all about getting used to the new food routine. Next month will be introducing a few days of exercise a week into the routine. March will be making it every other day and so on. Gradually your habits adjust and your life is different. More updates as we progress.

Hags and Drow, evil RPG commission

Hi all, today we are crossing to the evil side of the street and working on an evil adventuring party for a client, starting with...

"Fascist!" (one for Hot Fuzz fans courtesy of Mrs PVP)

A Hag. A D&D creature that lives beneath the surface of the water and drags passers by to the clamourous depths of her lair where they can drown. They are based on the old legend of Jenny Greenteeth and Grindylows and are very nasty. This one is a Reaper Sea Hag model and is just splendid. I decided from the outset to have her skin be a muddy green, so breaking out the trusty Rakarth Flesh and mixing in a little Castellan Green gave her a nice green-flesh basecoat. Highlighting by adding Pallid Wych Flesh and then shading back down with Athonian Camoshade finished the deal.

I wanted her garments to look wet and clingy so after base coating the dress I "reverse highlighted" the raised areas (where the flesh pressed against the cloth) and the depths of the creases by adding the flesh colour to the cloth colour. By increasing the amount of flesh tone I mixed in I was able to make the cloth appear translucent and clinging. Not that a Hag is anything that you'd want to see beneath the dress! Her hair was Karak Stone shaded with Biel-Tan Green. The pondweed and kelp likewise a base of Elysian Green also shaded with Biel-Tan Green. Barnacles were just picked out in bone and shaded with Agrax Earthshade.

Say hello to my leetle friend

Something I had never spotted in the unpainted shots of this model was the octopus clinging to her upper arm! A familiar maybe or just a friend? Regardless, he was an opportunity for a spot of colour and warmth on a deliberately cold model. Checking out some reference photos I hit on the orangey one with a pale underbelly. No idea on specific genus and species, someone more versed in cephalopod biology care to help out? I first painted him Pallid Wych Flesh all over to give the pale underbelly and to serve as a bright base for the orange. Then mixing Wild Rider Red with the Pallid Wych Flesh gave me that coral-ey orange. Finally little dots of Pallid Wych Flesh on the... head? (I dunno octopus at all) Finished him off.

Then it was on to a Drow. He's originally a Privateer Press Mage Hunter, no changes made, just painted as a Drow. Well, I say no changes. The sharp bit of wood at the front of the crossbow is a plasticard brace that I made to hold up the bow of the crossbow. Privateer had done their normal trick of cutting a componant for casting at a tiny, tiny contact point. Guys, a relatively heavy metal componant will NOT easily stick with less than a square millimeter contact point. It is also too thin to pin. You can just get away with it in your weird resin/plastic hybrid as it is light. Metal will not tolerate it! Rant over. Anyway, I wanted this chap to be a collage of dark greys and greens. The Underdark is a lightless, joyless place and colour is not really their bag! To that end I used my usual trick of applying several different black highlight colours as a basecoat and then drabbing them all down with Nuln Oil. The dirt on the cloak was applied for three reasons, first, it makes him look like a tough, seasoned adventurer who comes from caves underground. Second, it added a splash of another colour than black! Third it balances the tiny amount of brown wood in the crossbow. Sorted. The black leather is Vallejo Leather Brown, mixed with a little black, washed in Nuln Oil and then rehighlighted with pure Leather Brown.

slightly fuzzy face, the autofocus on the camera struggles with subtle black tones

The skin needed to be really black. Not what we in our world call "black" which is really every shade of brown from caramel to burnt umber. No, Drow are black as midnight. To do this and still have it look like skin I used a simple trick that works with any unnatural skin tone. Use a light flesh tone as the highlight colour. In this case Black mixed with Kislev Flesh in increasing amounts for the highlights.

Remember this guy? Well he's a part of this group too. Hopefully tommorrow I'll give him two more friends in the form of a Gnoll and a Cambian adventurer. Until then.

TTFN