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Ikvars painting adventure (feedback welcome)


Ikvar

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Disclaimer: I truly want people to criticize me all they can, I still have a long way to go, but I fully intend to win a Golden Demon in a couple of years. To do this I need your help!

 

So please help me get better, and be as harsh as you want to be. As long as it is constructive, I welcome all critisisme!

 

Greetings everyone!

 

Seeing as I cant find my old painting thread(been quite a while since I have posted), I will start a new thread, which I hope I will keep a bit more active.

 

I am actually still quite new to this hobby, Malifaux was my first miniature wargame and the first figures I painted- which means I have only been in this hobby for a little over a year(made my profile on this forum when I started).

 

In this thread I will be showing the different models I paint, which will consist of Malifaux figures(Neverborn and Gremlins mostly) and some warmachine figures which I literally just started to play. But seeing as I have insisted on doing all the warmachine figures in NMM... and I have choosen "convergence of cyriss" which is ONLY metal figures, this might be a slow process ^^

 

I am still not sure if I should upload my old pictures, so people can see how my painting have evovled over time... so post here if that sounds interesting :)

 

Link to my CoolMiniOrNot profile: http://www.coolminiornot.com/artist/Ikvar?browseid=10040240

 

Edit: Thought I would share how my little Hobby Corner looks like:

 

Where I paint(really need to clean it up>>):

arbejdsbord_zps67a4183e.jpg

 

My two new airbrushes, which I have not yet used, but I will be starting from today :)

 

H&S Ultra:

Ultra_zps479fbfa2.jpg

 

H&S Infinity CR-Plus:

Infinity_zps68460d55.jpg

 

compressor:

Kompressor_zpsdd67818d.jpg

 

The first and latest figure I have painted is the Gracie model, which just won the single miniature contest. In this figure you can see how I am really starting to find the art direction I like to paint with, which is the high contrast and vibrant colours of the comic book style.

 

I am however still so new to the hobby, which means I am also constantly learning an evolving my stile from every miniature I paint.

 

gracied_zpsa643692c.jpg

Direct link to the picture on CoolMiniOrNot: http://www.coolminiornot.com/artist/Ikvar

 

And many thanks to all who voted for it, it truly means a lot to me :)

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The style and technique is fab, I really dig the way you paint, but for me the colours on this one are a bit much, too many to bring any one bit into focus - but then I tend to paint a lot of my models in muddy colours, so please don't take offence! :-D

I would love to see some of your warmachine jacks!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Thanks for all the nice comments, it really motivates me to keep on going :)

 

Thought I would start to post some WIP pictures, so here are some quick photos of Lilith WIP, just taken with a smartphone.

 

Lilithf_zps1271415c.jpg

 

Lilithb_zps21a591fd.jpg

 

Still a very long way to go obviously, and I also need to varnish it to get rid of the shiny spots. But comment if you guys are interested in WIP pictures, or if I should only take pictures of the finished model?

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Who's giving you so much hate? And why? You have a graceful blending style, and though some people might not like the extreme highlights and intense hues of the colors, they are still masterfully-painted models. No one can deny that at all.

 

Are they not realistic enough? Come on... if someone is complaining that a tusked pig with kitchen utensils fitted to it as armor is not painted realistically enough, then that person just needs to be shot in the face with a bazooka...

 

You've got REAL talent, Ikvar! Keep doing what you do!!!

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Many thanks guys, your comments really warms my heart :)

 

It got pretty bad after I won the Wyrd Summer contest, I started to read random comments on forums, and random blogs where the they all mentioned a certain "colorful" pig that won the contest, and how horrible it was and that it only won because of the kids that like bright colors and did not know any better. But I try not to take it that personal, I was also warned very early on that the majority of the miniature painting community would not like it. So I guess you could say that I knew what I was going in to ^^

 

And yes, I would love constructive criticism, that is the biggest reason why I post here :)

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OK, here goes. But I wish to stress that I really think that you earned your victory and it's awesome to have such a unique style! Your mini really made me stop and take notice.

But there's quite a bit that you could still improve on. You will become an amazing painter if you keep at it and I feel that taking the things I'm about to discuss into account will make that a reality sooner. So I will be quite meticulous and straight here and this isn't something I would normally do but I feel that you have incredible potential and are certainly easily able to implement all the advice I'm about to give.

First of all, your NMM is great and I like the colour variation immensely. The important thing is to use the whole spectrum from really dark to really bright and you have got that down beautifully.

The direction of the light OTOH is kinda all over the place in the mini. The top armour plates have the light coming from the high and the front, the pans next to them have it come from high and the back, the grille from the side and the front. From the other side it's mostly from straight up except for the three pans which have it coming from behind a bit. You really need to consider the direction of the light and then apply it consistently.

This is a very busy mini so the freehand is a bit much. I also don't feel that it really adds to the mini nor showcases your skills. The base is also too busy and makes it more difficult to read the mini. Especially the red things stick out weirdly and I'm not sure what they are. OTOH the metal on the small chest on the base should've been done in a different way from the metal in the mini.

The skin tones are great in the first pic. I love the subtle yellows and the purple and all, though I feel that maybe a bit more smoothness would've done her good (but that is mostly down to taste, I think). But on the other side the shadows get way too purple making Gracie look bruised. Especially near the three pans and in her rump. I love coloured shadows and feel that even in less extreme styles it is something that can really bring life to a mini but you need to make sure that they look like shadows and not like colouring.

The red in the bottles creates a very strong focal point - especially with the alternating green. That draws strongly the eye of the viewer which is something you with to use to your advantage in the future but here it is misplaced. You don't want to draw attention to the backside of the mini but to the front. Eyes could be used to create a focal point but you have gone with a rather neutral colour for them. All in all I think that you could do way more with her eyes (they are big).

The green on the tea pot hat works great, though. And the freehand is simple but good there.

Her hooves disappear into the base. It's very important to make the join of the base and the mini contrast well (unless the mini is growing from the base or some other such edge cases). This is doubly true in a cartoon style.

All in all I feel that you should take a note from cartoons' and comics' playbooks in that the background (the base) can be in a different style and way less dominant to attention than here. Tone down the vibrancy and go more subtle on the bases would be my advice.

So yeah, in conclusion, think hard about where you want the focus of the viewer to go and then work to make it so.

Hopefully you find at least something of worth in my ramblings. Keep at it and, most importantly, have fun! :)

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Hi Ikvar,

 

I think your models look great! Your style is quite different from a lot of other miniature painters and I consider that a good thing. It's so refreshing to see something other than what we see all the time and I would very much encourage you to ignore the types of comments you mentioned reading.

 

Keep up the excellent work and I look forward to seeing more of your figures :)

 

Cheers,

Woo.

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Thanks for all the encouraging words again, it truly means a lot to me :)

 

Math@ thanks for taking your time to write all that, and I agree with almost everything  ^^

 

The direction of the light was something I had in the back of my head, but after looking at it again, it is clear to see that I did not follow it strictly enough.

 

I am not sure I agree with the freehand though, I personally think it fits quite nice, but that is just a matter of taste I guess :)

 

I fully agree with the skin colors on the second picture though, and  it was actually something I thought about before entering the contest. But I simply did not have time to change it at that point, think I will do something about it after I finish my two new projects.

 

Your comments about the base is really helpful, and is something I will try to implement in my future projects- I have already started to tone down some of the highlights on the base Lilith(picture above) stands on. Will post some pictures of it soon.

 

So yet again, thanks for the constructive criticism, it is truly what I need to move forward :)

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I am not sure I agree with the freehand though, I personally think it fits quite nice, but that is just a matter of taste I guess :)

Not only that, but I am going off of just pics while you have done the actual model. This is exactly the sort of thing that might change a lot when seen in the flesh rather than in photos (though those are really nice photos :)).

 

I fully agree with the skin colors on the second picture though, and  it was actually something I thought about before entering the contest. But I simply did not have time to change it at that point, think I will do something about it after I finish my two new projects.

Aye, deadlines really are both good and bad when it comes to minis painting :D

So yet again, thanks for the constructive criticism, it is truly what I need to move forward :)

Thank you for the kind words - much appreciated! And really looking forward to what you'll come up with in the future :)
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Thanks for the kind words :)

 

A small update on my Warmachine stuff, and my first time using my airbrush to prime and pre-shade. Found out afterwards that the big spots in the white colour, came because I did not thin the Vallejo primer... even though they say you dont need to -_-

 

The colossus(prime axiom) was a project I started before I got an airbrush, I have just quickly laid down the starting colours, and decided where most of the light should come from- except the OSL which I will only do at the very end. So about 20-25% done I guess :)

 

Oh and I have also added a link to my CoolMiniOrNot profile in the main post, where you are more then welcome to rate my figures :)

 

denne1_zps84439f3c.jpg

 

denne2_zps668ce67b.jpg

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