Edonil's Painting Log

[Evilbleachman]

Weren't they called "Shas'Five" in the day?

[edonil]

(blows off dust) One day...I will have less than two months between updating this thread. One day. Anyway, in the meantime, here's current project. Garryth, the Blade of Retribution, from Warmachine. I know I've got quite a bit of touchup to do (damn eyebrows screwed up a perfectly good job on the face...), and still need to get the leather done. On the whole, though, I'm quite fond of this color scheme. Oh, and I need to finish the bullets on his belt...thing...

[Webmonkey]

Looking really good. I dig the way the purple came out.

[edonil]

So, started work on the crews I picked up at Gencon. This is the first of the Death Marshals, themed for my eventual painting of Tara. I'm pretty happy with how a lot of this is coming out, but frankly I'm not sure what to do about the skull. I was aiming for it to look somewhat charred, but didn't end up with it at all.

[Malicte]

I actually personally like the skull!

That said, interesting that you decided to assemble him without the coffin. I haven't attached the coffin to mine yet since I couldn't get it to sit anywhere I liked.

[Webmonkey]

Very nice ed. As for the charred look, i'd say to do the usual bleached bone with white highlights, then add some black pastel powder around the edges and such

[SteamHammer]

I like the colour choice for the flames.

[Dracomax]

First, awesome job, better than I could do.

Now, for suggestions.

a glow inside the eyes of the skull would help. I'd also consider painting patches of the skull different colors of gray. A skull would not char evenly, and even chared would have depth.

That being said, I think the thing that stands out to me is that the skull almost looks like a mask on a fireball. there is a pretty defined line between burning/not burning that almost just looks like an oval. Maybe a bit more transition, or adding some freehand flame tongues to it would help. Also, I definitely think that adding some directional lighting sourced from the flame would make work really well, if you have the time to do it. It would integrate the skull to the flame, and would make the coat and flaming head pop a bit more.

As for making it looked charred, that's mostly a matter of texture. I don't know if you have enough room to really add texture visually. adding some material to do so might work, but again, it's a really small area. Here's a pic of the skuyll from the second sghostrider movie to show what I mean:

Open Spoiler

[Lussuria]

The shading on the death marshals jacket is AMAZING. I absolutely cannot for the life of me paint black. I'm so jealous of how effective that looks! Awesome!!

[nagash13]

for charred, id say go back to a normal bone/bleached white color scheme, then stipple on either black weathering powder. if you dont have any of that and dont want to buy it, drybrushing can produce a nice chalky effect. done with care not to hit your flames(small drybrush) and some layers of it, you should get a nice built up soot look.

if the idea of drybrushing that close to your completed flames worries you, id say prep your drybrush like normal, but instead of side to side, stipple it on. will take longer, but in the end its more controlled.

[edonil]

Thanks for all the kind comments, and all the advice on how to do the skull differently! I'll have to give some of those a try, they're all good ideas. Especially the glow effect, can't believe I didn't think of that one!

I actually intend to get the coffin on him, honestly. Just for painting, I wanted it to be a separate piece to make life easier on getting the painting done. I'll be doing that with Lady J's sword too.

And if people are interested, I can put up the recipes for literally everything...one of the tricks I picked up at Gencon was using cardstock to see how paints look when dried, and I took that as far as writing down my recipes to get things consistent. For example, the coat:

Open Spoiler

(All paints are Reaper Master Series unless otherwise noted)

Paints Used:

Nightshade Purple/Imperial Purple/Stormy Grey/Cloudy Grey/Misty Grey

Nightshade Purple, first layer

1 Part Imperial Purple/ 1 Parts Stormy Grey/ 1 Part Nightshade Purple

1 Part Imperial Purple/ 2 Parts Stormy Grey/ 1 Part Nightshade Purple

1 Part Imperial Purple/ 3 Parts Stormy Grey/ 1 Part Nightshade Purple/ 1 Part Cloudy Grey

1 Part Imperial Purple/ 3 Parts Stormy Grey/ 1 Part Nightshade Purple/ 2 Part Cloudy Grey

1 Part Imperial Purple/ 3 Parts Stormy Grey/ 1 Part Nightshade Purple/ 3 Part Cloudy Grey/1 Part Misty Grey

I also use Reaper Flow Improver to make the paint mix better and flow better. All in all, I use five paints in different amounts to create the next layer up, and just use it in tighter and tighter allotments. I've also got that kind of info on the flames and the leather, if people want.

By the by...I'll highly recommend the cardstock trick. It makes life so much easier to keep things consistent, but also to help you really select your colors. I had a completely different method for black I wanted to start with, but by the time I had it worked out and drying on the cardstock I hated it. By doing it on paper first, I was able to avoid repainting and wasting all that time on unproductive work. And the on paper bit only took me about 15 minutes to really test out with swatches.

Edit: Always helps to make sure you get the recipe right when you post it...

Edited August 27, 2013 by edonil

[edonil]

Here's a quick WIP of an Ice Gamin for the Wyrd Place Sept. Competition. Hope to have this little guy finished by tomorrow at the latest.

[Lussuria]

Love how that blue is coming out. The highlighting is so smooth and cold feeling. Can't wait to see him done!!

I think I would have reached the stage he's at now and said 'Huzzah! He is complete and amazing'. Haha.

[edonil]

Heh, that's pretty much where I'm at. *wink* All that's left is the eyes, claws and base. And, if I can figure out what it is I'm looking for, I want to try to have some blood dripping off the icicle. Which I need to go bug Mako for...

And honestly, this little guy is 100% drybrushed right now. Three different shades of blue and a white/grey.

[Viruk]

He looks... cool

[Evilbleachman]

Vanilla Ice!

GO TURTLES!

[edonil]

So, got a better picture of the Gamin with some better lighting, and I've got an update on Tara's first Death Marshal. Ended up painting it bone, then adding some black weathering powder. Not totally sure that I'm sold on the effect, but I do like it better than what I had! Still need to fix up some of the OSL on the coffin, but still happy with how this guy is coming out.

[Lussuria]

These look absolutely stunning. And the gamin looks sooo amazing! Very jealous of your ultra frosty dry brushing skills.

[StormLordXIII]

Looking awesome! I love the flames on the Death Marshal! Very cool.

[Webmonkey]

Excellent. The coffin helps set it off. And I see you managed to pull off the charred bone look on the skull. Very nice.

[edonil]

And an Update! There's a lot to this one, gotten quite a bit accomplished the past couple days, including a few early teases and previews of later projects. So, to start off, an update on Rasputina's stuff.

First, the Gamin. Both of whom I forgot to do the final highlight on. Whoops. >.> Oh well, I can correct that easily enough.

Then we have a WIP shot of the Ice Golem. It may not look like it yet, but he's eventually going to match the two little guys up above. Well, assuming I don't harm him cause I'm sick of painting all the large surface areas...

A boy and his Golem...ish. *grin*

This is another update on the ongoing journey of Tara's first Death Marshal. He is properly on his base now, just a last few details on his gun and the OSL around his wrist to go! Oh, and touching up whatever I screwed up. Details!

These next two are an early Alpha of the Nothing Beast. I really want to give these guys a feeling of blurriness. As such, they are going to be fairly dark colors, and very messy. What do you guys think?

And finally, we have a quick tease of the lovely Tara, whose face came out gorgeous.

[Lussuria]

Everything is looking so cool. Can't wait to see how your Nothing Beast comes along.

And holy cow - you're not wrong about Tara's face! That came out GORGEOUS.

[edonil]

Thanks Lussuria! I'm very pleased with how they're all coming along, but Tara's face especially came out great.

[edonil]

Another update! First, the lovely Rasputina:

Still need to do some touching up, plus the eyes and lips, but I'm waiting on a finer brush to handle that. Also, incidentally, the resemblance to the Amestris soldiers from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood is, odd as it may sound, completely accidental.

Next, the Gamin on their bases:

A shot of everything painted so far:

The bases aren't completely finished yet, need to put down snow on the bases and some water effects for the ice.

And a quick WIP of the Wendigo.

[Wings]

I really like the blues on Rasputina, and the Wendigo's looking lovely so far. It looks like you need to thin your paints a bit more though - Raspy's skin is looking somewhat rough and bubbly.