Adokul the Monk part 1

Adokul the Monk underway

So finally back to Adokul the Monk.  I had a few high level goals around the look of this figure:

- a general warm tone overall
- various points of distress on the clothing/armour.  The lower parts of the skirt are sculpted as damaged already.
- keep the metallics muted so that they don’t end up being sparkle points

Working my way up the figure (as I wanted to do the underside first before too much paint went on) I started with the skirt.  For this I wanted a dirty/stained linen look.  So I used some Jo Sonja (JS) Raw Sienna, Warm White and VGC Bleached Bone on this.  I’m pretty happy with it except of the area on the side of the knee.  I think that needs another go as it looks a bit too forced.

Leather strap details

For the leather straps hanging from his belt I used VMC Leather Brown and VMC Medium Fleshtone as the base.  For highlights I added more Fleshtone, Bleached Bone and White.  For the shades I used AP Strong Tone first to give the leather a bit of a sheen.  Then I used the Leather Brown and some old Citadel purple ink for the darkest areas and wherever the leather straps crossed.  This really helped pop out the layers so the straps didn’t look like one mass.  Then I used the Bleached Bone as an undercoat on all the small trim details on the ends of the straps.  This was then covered with Vallejo Gold.  I used some more of the leather brown/purple ink mix around the gold to help accent it and then a thin glaze of VMC Dark Sea Blue to tone down the gold as it was a bit too harsh.

I then base coated the armour in a mix of VMC Prussian Blue, Dark Sea Blue and White.  I painted the chest eagle in JS Yellow Ochre to give me a rough idea of the colour contrast and to undercoat the area.  I want to chip the armour after I have finished shading it.  There are lots of little raised trim areas on the armour, I’m not sure if I will also paint them gold.  It may become a bit much for the eyes to handle.

Chain of insanity

The figure has two books chained to his belt.  I think the two don’t look that good so just went for one.  There are tiny holes at the top of the book that the chain needs to go on.  So I had to cut one link of the chain, open it up with tweezers, loop it through the hole and then squeeze shut the open link.  The first one took about 20mins, the second under 10.  Lots of deep breaths.  Then I had to drill out the attachment points on the belt, thin down some plastic rod and measure and cut the chain.  I must be getting more mellow as there weren’t hardly any harsh words needed to get this done :)

So good the be on the way and with a reasonable idea of the direction I want this figure to go.

Finally a pre-shaded shot of the worm bust which shows the details a bit better.