Eureka Miniatures terrapin loving and colour trials

For my next later piece I’m wanting to try some different colours, mainly very light (and bright) greens.  However the figure I’m thinking about using is very detailed so I need to get my colours sorted first.  So I experimented on some 28mm trial figures.

These terrapins are from Eureka Miniatures and have been in the stash for awhile.  Originally I purchased them for playing Runequest in Glorantha.  They are a bit rough on the arms/legs with some simple indenting for texture which is always a pain as any glaze/wash will pool in those recesses.  But it’s a simple way to add texture.

For the figure with the spear I tried using a warm green palette.  I also wanted to try having two similar greens on the same figure but making them different enough so as not to blend.  The base green is Jo Sonja’s Sap Green, a very yellowish green.  For the shell this was highlighted up with Jo Sonja’s Yellow Light and then some white.  For the shades I used the complement of VMC Violet Red.

For the arms/legs/head I used the same Sap Green base and highlighted up with Jo Sonja’s Indian Yellow and white.  This kept the green values more.  For the shades I used some VMC Flat Red (I think).

The spear is meant to be bamboo so I found VMA Yellow Ochre as a good bamboo brown base.

For the figure with the bow I wanted an overall cooler colour scheme.  The base of the shell is VMC Sky Blue and an old Citadel Jade Green.  This was highlighted with some more of the sky blue and white, with a bit of Jade Green added to keep the green tones.  I couldn’t get the shades right and ended up with grey.  This usually means that I’ve got too many colours in the mix and I suspect that the Jade Green is the issue.  I tried various red/oranges/browns/etc and couldn’t get a clean shade that didn’t end up purple grey.  I’m thinking that the jade green has too many colours in it already.

The skin was the same base but highlighted up with VMC Lemon Yellow (a yellow I hardly ever use it being very cool and a bit green).  The shade used more Violet Red in the mix.  Although there was no detail on the bow I continued the bamboo theme and tried to replicate the segmented look of bamboo (even though I’m pretty sure a bamboo bow wouldn’t work in practice).

So on both I’m happy with the colour pop I managed on the shells.  It avoided the issues I had previously of trying to get things brighter by adding more white and ending up with bleached out colours.  I need more practice on getting the complements of colours however.  I’m also seeing more reasons to not use premixed colours and keep with just base colours and mix everything.  That way you know what it is in there and makes mixing complements easier.

Viking Bust finished

Over the last two weeks I’ve been playing around with the Viking bust I have.  Along the way I purchased the book "Making Colour Sing" by Jeanne Dobie.  I’ve read a number of how-to painting books across oil/acrylic and watercolour techniques.  Mostly I’m trying to get a deeper understanding of painting composition and colour techniques.  Like all instructional books most say the same thing, just in different ways and with a different emphasis.

Viking Bust

Although this is a water colour specific book it had a very good section on complementary colour theory and neutral greys.  I’ve read this a number of times before but for some reason this one really clicked with me.  I finally (slow learner) realized that to get the colour pop that I’ve been looking for one of the secrets was to shade in the complementary grey of the colour you are painting.  When mixing complementary colours you end up with a ugly grey.  However by altering the ratio of the complementary colours that can be a green grey, a red grey, etc.  So for the red cloak I shaded down with a dark green.  The darker shades had some black mixed in too.  This meant that the red next to the green/grey would stand out more.

Highlighted side of face

I tried this on the face as well and finally started to get some real highlights.  Before I was adding in more white for highlights and getting a bleached out look, or shading with dark colours (to increase the contrast) and just making the flesh look muddy.  Now I got that the opposite of yellow is purple, hence why shading flesh with purple kind of worked in previous attempts.  Also this explained why VMA Armour brown was working (it has some purple in it) with my flesh mixes.

Again, all of this I had ready a number of times before but when I tried to apply that knowledge it didn’t work/click.  Finally it did.

Pre-shading on chain

For the gold chain I decided to do some pre-shading rather than do a heavy gold coat and then try and shade it.  So I used VMC Golden brown as the main pre-shade colour and used VMC Dark sea blue and VMC Flat yellow for the shades/highlights.  I’m still going with the directional light source so the chain closer to the light source was much lighter.  With just one coat of the gold I really got the effect I was after.  I did some extra highlights with VMA Aluminium and metal medium (aka sparkly paint).

I’m not 100% on the hair, but I’m finding the bulk of it slightly excessive and overflowing.  The figure must be using some serious hair gel to get those size ridges.

For the shirt my base as VMC Turquoise and VMC Prussian Blue.  I think this is where my new knowledge paid off the best.  Normally I just darken blue with dark blue/black.  Instead I used dark orange for the shadows under the face.  That really flattened out the blue.  I used light blue/white on the highlights and stayed away from any yellow (to avoid things going green).  Very happy with that shirt.

On the cloak I went too hard on the highlights on the shoulder and ended up with orange stripes.  So I went back and raised the colour of the shoulder in general and then redid the highlights.  I also cross hatched the highlight areas in an effort to show a bit of the cloth texture.  That worked a bit, but really I need to do the whole cloak with the cross hatching for that to work properly.

The base is a piece of pine chopped at an angle and painted satin black.  The figure is attached by a piece of brass tubing (1/8 inch).

So my first try in directional light is over.  It worked ok.  It looks like there is a brighter light from the side of the figure.  It isn’t extreme which would probably look better, but I think it is enough.  The figure is a bit odd in that logical highlight area is not on the front of the figure but I enjoyed the size of it.

Frazetta’s Masterpieces - Act one Death Dealer (75mm) review

Recently the kickstarter for the 75mm (1/24) version of the classic Death Dealer finished and I received by order last week.  I went for the basic level.  So this meant just the figure and the free 54mm Ky-ra figure.

First up I’m a big fan of Frank Frazetta’s work and when this was first announced I ending up painting my old Ral Partha Super Hero which was a ‘homage’ to the painting in 25mm.  So I was looking forward to getting this although I almost wasn’t going to buy it (too afraid of 75mm horses I think).

Very well packed

The figure comes in a solid cardboard box with custom cut foam to hold the figure and a separate section for the base and the extra bits.  Interestingly the back of the box shows the horse having pins on the bottom of the feet but my horse does not have any.

Base

The base is quite solid.  There are holes for pins but as stated above the horse doesn’t have any.  So a bit odd there.

Main section

On the horse figure, it is great.  The painting has a very strong and violent looking horse and the sculpt captures that very well.  To be honest I like the horse over the figure in both painting and sculpt.

Pinched front legs

The only down side is that the front legs of the horse are slightly pinched.  They don’t match up to the mount points on the base due to this.  I’m not sure if this can be corrected with heat alone or if the legs will need to be cut and realigned.

Rider detail

The figure itself is just as good as the the horse.  Very clean cast and nice details.  The ringmail(?) on the lower part of the figure does sometimes end up looking like a row of dots however.  It’s a bit too straight in some sections and ends up looking like someone just ran a the end of a piece of rod down the putty in a line instead of creating interlinked rings (i.e. in an under/over pattern).  So the sculpt is true to the painting, but I find it looks a bit odd in 3D.

Rider detail

For the face, well there isn’t much detail in the original painting, just a lot of dark shading.  So the sculpt is good, but it doesn’t match what I always had in my mind of what the face area should be.

Extra bits, shield, head

Head

WRT to the Viking bust I’m making good progress on it.  I did some (more) reading of leaning to paint books and something finally clicked (it’s nothing new, it was just presented in a way that finally sunk in for me).  I’ve managed to do things a bit better and am much happier with what I’m turning out.  More on that next week.

Tribal Warrior done and Viking bust started

After a bit more of a break I finished off the Tribal Warrior.  Or more correctly gave up and just finished it.  My heart just wasn’t in it to be honest and I never should have started it.  One of those “well I bought it, I should paint it..” times.

Tribal Warrior

For the metal's I kept them very cool and that seemed to work out.  For the highlights I used some Vallejo Metal Medium.  Basically the sparkle in metallic paints, not pigment at all.  Makes the Aluminum paint I have look dull :)

For the shield I couldn’t work out what to do so after doing a whole lot of brown shading I covered the shield in AK Worn Effect chipping fluid and painted it red.  Then I wore back the paint to uncover the wood.  The end result wasn’t too bad.

Top view

It needed some more work but by this stage I was done.  The figure got based and into the cupboard with it.

1/16 Viking Bust

Recently I purchased a 1/16 bust of a Viking.  He has very squinty eyes suggesting that he is looking into the sun.  So I decided to try for a very directional light in the shading (instead of the usual zenithal approach).  I didn’t want to go the whole OSL ‘lantern in the dark’ look, more of a sun bleached look.  I’ve just blocked in the shirt, cloak and hair so far.  I did a lot of work on the face and then the wife told me I had made it too yellow (trying of the sun look).  Yep, he had some serious health issues.  So I’m now repainting it with more red in the mix.

Attempts at directional lighting

Instead of the normal flesh colours from the pot I’m mixing my flesh again.  I’m using a base of

VGC Leather Brown
VMC Red
Jo Sonja’s white - really liking this white, seems warmer than the VGC Dead white.
VMC English Uniform
VGC Plague Brown
VMC Golden Brown

Shade down with
VMA Armour Brown
VMC Violet Red
VMC Dark Sea Blue

Highlights with
VMC Light Yellow
more white

The small amount of red is needed to stop the attack of the yellow skin condition.  However it is really a tiny amount in the mix.  Any more than a pin head and it’s pink city.  I’m wondering that as my flesh mix ends up close to the standard Vallejo flesh colours am I just make a rod for my own back?  Jury out on that one.

I’m trying to get the whole ‘shade with a complementary colour’ technique to give a wider range of colours to make the figure pop some more.  The idea of having the full colour spectrum in an area and using the natural grey of two direct complementary colours to enhance (read pop) the features.  I found at Cancon my figures looked really flat compared to the better figures.  I’m also trying to do the shades in cool colours and highlights in warm colours.  Most times I fail and over use yellow (see note about unhealthy skin above).

Hair too light, darker now

Since the picture I’ve redone the hair to be much darker.  It matches the skin a bit better as I was finding the beard highlights were getting very unnatural on the original hair colour.