If you go out in the woods today... An 8112 PLOG

[JackStreicher]

On 10/13/2018 at 1:25 AM, Mirage8112 said:

While I haven't been working on AoS too much after Adepticon, I have managed to get some painting time in on those Shadespire warbands. 

This post will be two warbands: Dwarves and Skellies. Despite having terribly cold dice the few games (and my arch nemesis at my FLGS having insanely hot dice) I did manage to pull second at a local Tournament with my dwarves a few weeks ago. I've been working mostly with the new Vallejo Metals (and using the glossy black primer) and the sheen on the metals are absolutely extraordinary. While the dwarfs are unarmored, their weapons/helms make great focal points thanks to the matt finish from the regular paint on their skin. 

Fjul:



Vol:



Tefk:

 

And Mad Malgrim:



You can see on that two of the dwarfs also have free-hand tattoos;



Originally I was planning on doing free-hand tattoos on all 4 members, but after working through some designs on Vol, I decided him and Fjul didn't really need tattoos, since the placement of their runes made any impressive design work difficult.  Sometimes the details on the model are enough on their own and adding unnecessary embellishments just complicates the process without really adding anything. 

For my Skeletons i decide to go a different route, both with my deck and painting theme. Usually I paint with a pretty standard progression, where as colors get lighter they get more intense, but they stay within the same color "family". I.e. as red gets lighter, it might get a little more orange-y, but it's still within the same family. Same with blues, they may get lighter and "bluer" but they're still blue.

Here, instead of highlighting the bones from a a browish-grey up to a creamy white ("bleached bone" as it were), I started with a grayish-green (gurgling green), and then washed with Reikland flesh shade. The green paint+red wash creates almost a warm greenish brown, which was then highlighted up through to gauss blaster green. Final highlights were then applied with florescent green paint glazed over a 50-50 mix of gauss blaster and white. The eyes/chests were also painted with pink OSL to give a ghostly glow:

Petitioners:



The harvester:



The champion:



Prince of dust:



And the Warden:



You can see the effect is an eerie green glow, almost as if being lit by a green moon. The bases were painted to enhance that effect, being lightly drybrished with, administratum grey, washed with nun oil and then given careful highlights of gauss blaster green again. While I'm nottoally happy with how the pictures came out, photographing OSL is twice as difficult as painting it. 

I've also nearly finished the farstriders in a Celestial vindicators color scheme in demi-metal. I'll get those up in a week or so.  

In the meantime, Happy painting! 

-F
 
 



 

Just amazing!

[Mirage8112]

What’s up party people!

It’s been ages since I’ve updated this thread. All the previous reasons (hate taking pictures, busy life, the great plague upending everything) apply. 

That being said, it’s time to show some of my most ambitious project to date. This was actually finished last year around this time, but I kept it under wraps with the intention of taking it to Adepticon this year and show it in the Golden Demon. This wasn’t exactly a “secret project” so much as I just can’t stand taking photographs, and prefer to share the miniature in person if I can help it. But, once COVID shut everything down it was clear that it wasn’t going to happen this year.

So, I had resolved to wait under the plague passed and possibly show this at the GD 2021. However, life has other plans and it turns out we’re expecting! The baby is set to arrive in Feb next year, so its pretty clear I wont be doing any traveling for warhammer for a while. Super bummed I wont be able to o show it, but the trade off is more than worth it.  

So. Without further ado, Alarielle the Everqueen, Life Incarnate.






As you can see, I went for a high-realism approach, trying to model Alarielle’s features and overall expression something akin to my wife when she’s serious. I also incorporated my wife’s red hair into the composition. 

 

The beetle is fulled painted with Colorshift paints from greenstuff world. I’ve developed a very specific working method with them, and this final effect is a combination of 3 different colorshift paints re-enforced by painted shadows. Throughout the scratch-built diorama base there are also a number of insects all painted with colorshifting paints. In the bottom left-hand corner of the above photograph, you can also see Arkhan the Black’s staff, with it eerie green glow near the waterfall (and Arkhan’s foot is visible just under the waterfall.)

Although not totally visible in the picture, there are also several layers to the soil under the ground level. If you look you can see all the roots of the trees, plus skulls, weaponry, shields, and banners: all attesting to amount of warfare the land has seen hiding just below the forest floor. 
 

Detail of the soul amphora. 



Detail of bioluminescent mushrooms and a spite. 

Total work time was somewhere between 300-400 hours, give or take. This is by far one of the most challenging and rewarding projects I’ve ever undertaken. Painting tiny highlights on the eyes through a 20x magnified jeweler’s loop was no joke. I actually have a lot of work to show (I know I always say that, but I do!) And I’m going to try and get the projects on my bench finished Ana’s photographed as best I can before my summoned reinforcements arrive in Feb.

Happy painting all.
 

-F

P.S. Here’s also a short video that gives a good 360º view. 

 

Edited July 20, 2020 by Mirage8112

[Arnied3]

Incredible work! Glad to see some more of your work and of course.....Congrats on the great news!

[Tommy]

I’ve often found Alarielle’s face to be a tiny bit waxy or wooden in some way I can’t quite put my finger on, but your paint job has brought her completely to life. Amazing work! 🙂

[Mirage8112]

11 hours ago, Tommy said:

I’ve often found Alarielle’s face to be a tiny bit waxy or wooden in some way I can’t quite put my finger on, but your paint job has brought her completely to life. Amazing work! 🙂

I agree actually. 
 

The cheekbones are ridiculously high and nose is somewhat flat across the bridge. The eyes are small, and because the cheekbones are so high, there’s no room for expression. Also because she’s wearing a covered headpiece, her eyebrows, ears and forehead are obscured. There’s just not a lot to signal expression or mood.

 

I attempted to correct this via the paint job as much as possible. Painting the whites and highlights did a lot for the eyes, the cheekbones are highlighted to compensate for their height, and I’ve also painted some purple shading around the eyes to give some indication of sockets under the flesh. This makes the cheekbones sharper and gives more room for expression in the eyes. The bridge of the nose was also aggressively highlighted with some additional shading on the nostrils to give the impression that it’s pointy (ie. more “elf”-y).

You can actually change the shape of a face by selective highlighting very effectively. The realm challenge is doing it in such a small space. 

 

 

 

[Tommy]

Actually you just reminded me of the Isharann Tidecaster as well, who has a similar neckcloth, interestingly. It’s cool that her eyes are closed, but there’s an overall flatness to her expression, or something. I don’t know if you’ve come across David Soper’s work (Golden Demon winner, does workshops too) but he got great results using strong shading like you did here - https://www.puttyandpaint.com/projects/22881

(Me? I just did a head swap! 😄)

[Tamachan]

Great PLog. Hope to be seeing more in the future.