GD entry

[Chameleon]

Hi!

Wanted to share with you my LOTR GD UK entry this year. He didn't get past the first cut, sadly, but it'd be great to know what you all think of him.

Here he is:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/201739

[Moavoamoatu]

The photo is a bit dark and it's hard to see the details (especially the freehand on the cloak) but it looks great and and I really like your style.

Could you post a better picture here ?

[demonherald]

I agree with Moa on the pic.. I believe I remember seeing this on the day .. The only problem ith the LOTR cabinets is everything looks the same under the hall lighting so it is hard to say exactly if it was this one.. Either way I also like your style it suits the mini well. Better pics will help to give more critique..

I can't remember wether I met you or not on the day the whole day was a blur of meeting new and familiar faces .. If I did remind me ???

[Nathan Caroland]

Looks great, looking forward to seeing the freehand a bit more.

[Jabberwocky]

I agree--very nicely done piece. Closer pics of the freehand!

[Chameleon]

Thanks for the comments. I'm glad that you mentioned the dark pics actually because when I first read that I didn't know what you meant, but then I opened up the pic on my work computer (instead of my home laptop) and saw that you were totally right. I think the brightness on my laptop is set wrong, so will try and sort that out. Will also try to get some clearer pics of the freehand. Sorry, my photography is still a bit rubbish

Demonherald: Sadly, I didn't get to meet you on the day. Would love to have said hi in person though. We stayed in the Crowne Plaza the night before and didn't see anyone and the golden demon the next day was so busy that it was impossible to spot anyone familiar. Maybe we will bump into each other next year

[demonherald]

I'm sure we will .... The hotel meet up was the best bit of the day and I hghly recommend it to anyone attending some real luminaries of the painting world gatherd and an amazing collection of pieces brought in by collectors .. great stuff.

[Chameleon]

Ah right, wasn't aware that was going on. I've only just started posting stuff on cool mini and I don't really go on the forums there because I've been a little too scared of doing it until now, so I guess that it's not surprising that I didn't know about it. As quite a new comer to the hobby I find cool mini a little intimidating so haven't really got involved into the CMON scene yet. Maybe that's something for the future though when I've been painting for a bit longer and I'm a bit better

[Wren]

The cloak looks super, I'd like to see nicer/larger pics of it some time too.

For the piece in general I think maybe it lacks a bit of the bam! needed to stand out in a crowded cabinet. I have trouble achieving that too. I think a lot of it is contrast, both between colours (areas of very dark, light and some mid tones on the same model kind of thing) and within the model by bringing in the contrast of some areas of dark shadow and sharp bright highlights. I think, anyway, as I say I'm still very much working on this kind of thing myself!

[Chameleon]

Wren: Thanks very much for the suggestion, it's not something I'd actually considered, but is a really good point. I'm not entirely sure how to achieve it on this figure though. Do you think maybe the top green cloak should be darker? If I'm sort of missing the point, could you maybe give me some suggestions on what colours you would have painted it because I totally agree that it lack the wow factor that you get with top models?

On another note, still working on some better pics and will post them shortly

[Wren]

Looking at the back view there seems to be decent colour contrast to me, but the front view looks a little murkier, particularly in the chest area. The colours are all a similar tone and sort of blend areas together rather than helping them separate and stand out.

It looks like you've used a brown with a touch of red in it on the horse tack, but you could go even a little redder, green and red are complementary colours, so each stands out more when used with the other.

For this piece, I think it's little less about colour and more about putting some much darker shadows in some places and much brighter highlights in others. The trick, with the highlights especially, being that it seems to work better when the brightest parts are in very small areas. I think one of the steps that's hard is even if you've got paint mixes that go down pretty dark and up pretty light for an area, if the highlights and shadows are broad you still don't get that 'pop' effect. Or another problem is to lose the midtone. At least 50% of the area should be the midtone colour.

I found a couple of Arwen's in similar colour schemes you could look at. They both have areas of much deeper shading, and small areas of very intense highlighting on the green that hopefully make more sense to look at than my garbled written explanation about. You could also put pictures like these and yours into an image editor program and take samples of mid, dark and bright tones in various areas to see if you're getting the same level of contrast as you see in the work of someone you admire. I think when we look at our own stuff we're so familiar with it that pushing the depth/brightness feels really extreme and exaggerated when it doesn't seem that way if you're looking at something someone else has done, so doing comparisons like that can be helpful.

Arwen by Zordana

Arwen by Jeremie

[Chameleon]

That's an awesome explanation. Thanks very much for trying to expain it in words because I understand that it can be very hard to explain something so visual. Now that I compare the pics, particularly when I look at my lighter green coloured material, I see what you're saying. I think, like you say, I need to refine the higherlights to smaller areas and add in some more shading because I've lost the midtone. I think when I was doing it, I was concentrating on getting a smooth blend all of the way across, but sort of forgot that the highlights are really supposed to be just that. Also, I do agree that because you're so used to looking at your own figure it's hard to know just how extreme to go and I probably stop a little on the early side. Anyway, thanks for passing on you're wisdom! I'll try to incorporate it into my next figures

[waghorn41]

Really like this but would love to see the cloak in more detail. Also the dapple effect on the grey - the picture seems to show it better on the hind quarters.

[Wren]

Yep, it's a challenge to get things smooth while also keeping the most dramatic highlights/shadows confined to a small area. Definitely something I'm still working on!

For the extremes, there's a helpful rule of thumb I've heard people say - when you get it to the point where you're comfortable, highlight another two levels up. I also find it helpful to come back and look at something the next day under regular lighting.

[Chameleon]

Hi all,

Well, it's better late than never I guess. I was hoping to get these pics up before I went off to Thailand for a few weeks, but with all of the last min organisation and also trying to get in a HH IV entry in the last minutes before I left I just ran out of time. Well, I'm back now and the pics (which I hope are better) are here now. Sorry all of those who requested closer pics of the freehand. My photography isn't good enough to be able to get a closer pic that's in focus, which I guess is partly due to the fact that I painted it to be subtle anyway. I've made the pics I've uploaded onto here quite big though so hopefully you can see it a bit better!

Cheers.