Living Nightmare and Klaus CopperThumb

So this week I tried the wings on the Living Nightmare figure from Ex-manus.  Or more correctly I tried the wings three times.

Attempt one

For the first attempt I went for a yellow/orange look.  I used Leprous Brown and JS Cadmium Mid Yellow and VMC Bright Orange.  However I couldn't get enough contrast between the body and the wings and they all kind of blended together.

Scrapping that I went for a purple scheme (sorry, forgot the photos).  Got some nice shading going on but the wife mentioned that the purple didn't match with any of the other colours on the figure (and she was right).  After some more sighing I had a third attempt.

Living Nightmare by Ex-manus

For this one I went with green to tie the wings into the mid body section where I use an aqua green for the blue to yellow transition (kind of a mutating body change).  I started with a very blue/green mixed from the VMA Blue and JS Cadmium Mid Yellow.  However as I shaded up I went for a more standard green by adding more yellow (and then white) to the mix.  I kept adding a small amount of blue to keep tying the mixes back to the base coat.  For the shading I add some VMA Red and VMC Violet/Red to get a rich very dark purple.  This mix I think worked.

Along the way I also decided that the head wasn't right.  I decided to do the head as bone and the same for the horns.  This makes the focal point of the head also the brightest point on the figure.  I attempted the Ben Komets loaded brush technique on the horns.  I had distant glimpses of success :)

I have realised that I'm not glazing as much any more.  I think this is a bad thing.  I'm highlighting and shading but forgetting to go back and do the transition blend every 3-4 coats.

I was going to put this figure on a wooden base, but in the end went for a 40mm lipped base.  He didn't quite work out for me.  I big part of that was insufficient planning.  I need to go back and do the colour charts for the mixes I want to use before starting the figure rather than work it out on the fly (and have 3 attempts like I did on the wings).  I use to do this to really work out how to get the blends working.  It also meant I could see all the colours together before they went on the figure.

Klaus Copperthumb

Finally I started the face of the new Reaper Bones figure Klaus Copperthumb.  He is this weeks project.