Doll Face painting blog

[Doll Face]

Hi all !

I hesitate a long time before starting a painting blog... in English. But participate to excellents Wyrd contests plus my frien the dictionary (and my wife ...) helped me going through it. I hope you will be more indulgent with my gramar than with my minis (it is easyer to upgrade your level with a good critic...).

So let start it with my olds minis. As I said in my welcoming post few month ago, I stoped painting for almost 2 years (with two little exeptions on local contests). Since the last haloween contest I came back to the hoby (a kind of raisedead for haloween...).

Here is my beter paint IMO :

Sebeki are great minis !!

followed by mi first try in NMM :

Yes, I love wargods minis (more than the game ...)

Now another mini, just cause I love it :

I have maany Rackam minis painted but not so many pictures....

Lets continue with some actual works (here is mi last mini before the Iron Painter contest):

this is for game purpose. I'm not happy with the feathers ; I start to brush it then I took me an hour to mask the horible effect the brus gave to it.

Coms are welcome (especialy on the last one). I will post a wip of an Anima Tactics minis as soon as pictures are done ^^.

DF

[v22TTC]

I really like the pale blue used on Cheshire (the AT mini) - unusual is good! I suppose my only crit would be that it all looks a bit aetherial and all the detail too similar in tone - I'd bang some more shading in there to give it a bit more definition (dark blue in the feathers and dark grey/black/slightly blue on the metal - polished metal has dark, dark shading).

[Peterdita]

Good looking stuff! I like the colors on the last one and the sword is cool. The first alligator man is great as well!

[Moavoamoatu]

Superbe...en plus je n'avais pas fait attention : un p'tit français de plus.

[v22TTC]

Oh yeah, I mentioned Cheshire specifically because you asked - for the record, I think the others are great and there's less to improve upon with those, since you've gone for fairly classic schemes and done well with them. Experimentation's harder.

[elzaeer]

Superbe travail !! Bienvenu a toi par la même occasion !!

[Xenon_Wulf]

Tout simplement génial - du bonbon pour les yeux.

[demonherald]

Tout simplement génial - du bonbon pour les yeux.

does that mean eye candy ?? Hmmmmm bons bons

overall I like your work nice bright and refreshing to look at ...

The master of words is my favouite.. Had him on my desk for a long time and that colour scheme really works great use of different greens.

I think the last one culd benefit fro a few deeper blue shades to just make i t pop a little more and provide some different points of interest on the piece.

All in all though great stuff....

[Doll Face]

As said v22TTC and demonherald, the shading is one of my bigger problem. I use to paint from a basic color to a light color but sings become more difficult when I have to go from mi basic color to dark ones. There is few "juce" I use like old GW black ink and dark green on coper NMM but it is more like a wash than a glazing efect. If I go from a too dark base color, it become difficult to go to a clear color with a good harmony in the color. I think I have to work on flat/simple surfaces to train before working on too complex minis....

" du bombom pour les yeux " mean monre like candy for eyes.

DF

[v22TTC]

I don't want to sound like a vulgar barbarian [always a risk when talking with French people;)] but I think you can get the texture of the Cheshire sculpt to work for you - thin washes, carefully applied, tidied as you go and built up over time will get into the recesses of those feathers. Then reblend or rejuice the raised parts of the feathers to restore that harmony and subtlety.

For the weapon, metal tends not to have lots of nice, blended areas - it has some (varies but not usually more than about a third of the total surface area) and the rest is discrete blocks/lines etc of colour. There's pressure on painters to have everything all smooth and blended but I think reality's a better guide and most NMM (except SENMM) benefits from some boldness and refusal to blend.

Depends how realistic you want it to look but I'd try painting with a few colours, applied without any blending at first: black; dark grey; mid-grey; light grey; almost white (almost to minimise chalkiness). Best to be consistent in whether the greys are warm or cold. When you've got a light/dark distribution that looks good to you (maybe compared to a real world reference beside you), then blend the few areas that would look blended in reality. Selective glazes/juices then pull everything together just enough, then paint the hotspots in white and glaze them as you see fit (not all metals have straight black at one end and straight white at the other so juices provide just enough tint to those extremes to look more realistic).

For different metals, insert different colours, but the above is a general principle that works (for me anyway...).

Ummm, I love the French, in case I haven't mentioned that recently....