painting - a tale of 3 sorrows and 2 ladies

So, finally got the time to 'complete' my sorrows.  I also did some work on Candy and Lady justice.

3 Sorrows and 2 Ladies

First off then the Sorrows.  Some work on 'rusting' the ironwork on the bases, believe it or not I also did their eyebrows and eyes.  Doubtless there's more work that could be done, in fact I've just noticed a few white spots on the bases to fill, however, this will do for now, or I'd be there forever.

Candy

Candy I had started last week, just worked on the base which still needs a little tidying up, however, this time it was time to start work on Candy herself.

Not the best photo, the light colours are so washed out by the flash.

Anyway, pretty simple stuff so far.
Her pale flesh is Valejo Ivory, her clothes a mix of Hermagaunt Purple and White with White lace trim.
Her hair was painted Sunburst Yellow and then washed with a watered down mix of Golden Yellow and Baal Red, though I notice I've missed a couple of bits with the wash which could prove tricky to replicate if necessary.

Reasonably happy with her so far, wondering how I'm going to make her hair look Blonde and not yellow from here. Also worried about doing her eyes, so difficult yet critical.

Lady Justice

Lasty, Lady Justice.  From scratch, wasn't sure how I was going to paint her so was just winging it.  I did once have a plan, but.. well.
She was part of my badly undercoated batch of figures so my first step was a black wash to reduce the effect of the rough finish.  Went with blue for the jeans.  It's a bright blue but one that I should be able to make look reasonable with washing and highlights.  Her flesh painted Bronzed Flesh and then began to highlight with Ivory.  However, I realised that highlighting and shading was probably unwise prior to painting her hair, blindfold, gloves and top.  Being not the most accurate of painters it's almost guaranteed that I'll be making some mistakes that will need correction.
Next up was her hair, I really didn't know where to go here, in the end it had to be red, but I'm aiming for a fairly 'natural' red.  So, I based her hair with Caltharn Brown and then washed it with Baal Red, however I notice I've not covered very well with the wash..  There's so much hair.  Just keep finding more bits of it to paint.. But it's key to this model, must make a good job of it.  her gloves, top and blindfold I've painted black.  I'm not sure I shouldn't have made the blindfold another colour, perhaps whatever colour I paint the scabbard.
The base was painted using foundation colours Khemri Brown and Knarloc Green.  The base will get in the way a bit, but nothing so bad that it can't be managed I don't think.  I've noticed through the photo that there are a few bits of undercoat showing through, especially around her trousers, however it should be easy enough to correct.
Taking photo's of your work is such a valuable painting technique.  It really shows up any imperfections.  Expect a dedicated post on the subject soon (ish).

(Previously published elsewhere November 2011)

painting - how to get it wrong

OK, this one is tough for me.  I have to show you my worst piece of painting ever.. Not that my usual painting is all that.
So, without further ado, here it is..

Pretty bad huh?
So what went wrong?

Bad undercoat.
Paints too thin
Badly posed (for painting purposes)
Should have been painted before being glued together.
Missed areas
Paint where it shouldn't be.






Is there anything else?  Could there be anything else?
Lets break this down..

Undercoat.  I have struggled for some time with white spray undercoats.  I'm fine with black, goes on fine, but white?  Shake it as much as I like, whatever brand, whatever temperature, it just goes on gritty and not smoothly.  This model was one of a batch that I did as a last attempt.  I should have stripped it but I didn't.  I've since started hand undercoating using Foundation paints as I don't like to undercoat in black as I can't see the detail.  I've also found that a wash applied afterwards counteracts much of the problems that arise from such a poor undercoat.
The roughness of the finish is murder on your brushes, and makes it difficult to control where the paint goes, especially if you..

Make your paints too thin.  Had a brain storm, decided really thin paints were the way to go.  Which maybe it might be in the right conditions, but with this rough finish the paints just get pulled all over the shop I think via capillary action or something similar.  Check out the paint from the hood on his face and the big line across his chest.  Again a pre-wash would have limited this problem, but never the less it was rather stupid and naive of me.

Badly Posed.  Well, I don't mind the pose really, but it makes it almost impossible to get every surface covered in paint.
Check out the crook of his bent arm.. There's a bloody great white patch, and trust me, there's more of it than you can see here, some form the arm, some from the torso, so multiple colours will be required.  We might have a view in form here but getting a brush in there?  it might be possible to get it all covered, but make a good neat job of it?  I'm not so sure.

Which means it would have been much better to have painted this model before I put it together.  My impatience has cost me again.  I rarely pre-paint and I really aught to, it can pay dividends.  The alternative is to find a pose that isn't going to cause you problems, but do give it some consideration before you apply the glue.
The base would have been much easier to make a good job of if I'd painted it before glueing the figure on, with the fallen statue facing the Executioner it's going to be a 'right laugh' getting any detail painted on it.  Might have to leave it as base coat and wash.

Missed areas.  This is just plain sloppy on my part.  If I have an excuse it's the poor light I work in most of the time.  Poor lighting is unhelpful with any of the issues I've had with this figure so do ensure you have plenty of lighting, daylight bulbs if you can.

Paint where it shouldn't be.  Again, this is just me being sloppy.  Mostly this will be easy to tidy up, but is just another example of things to get wrong.  Don't paint when you're tired, be careful and steady handed.  Odd misplaced spots are not unusual, but can be avoided.  Luckily they can also be easily covered, especially if you're using foundation paints that cover so well.

I think it's going to be tough to turn this into anything other than a poor figure, but I'll post my efforts once done.

(previously published elsewhere November 2011)

more painting and initial liquid green stuff thoughts

A little more painting done last night and my first use of Games Workshop's Liquid Green Stuff.

Elbow gap

First the LGS.
I had, as mentioned previously, stuck the arm on Santiago but the glue had left a gap.

Filled

It was my intent to fill this gap using LGS.  So I popped the lid on the bottle, selected a brush - Nylon bristled - and painted green stuff into the crack.


Worked  a treat, how simple.  Any excess was easily wiped away and the result seems quite neat, although there's still a little extra on there that I will have to trim off later I think, in the crease on the left hand side as you look at it.

Wash brush thoroughly after use, it's easy to do, comes off nearly as easily as paint, but I wouldn't use my best brushes for it.

The proof will be in the painting I think, so no formal conlcusion, but until then a big thumbs up.


On to painting then.  I did not finish off the Sorrows, which I aught really to have done, but decided to partly move on to something new from the Neverborn and partly make some further progress with models that were half done or less from my Guild collection.

Candy, Austringer & terrible Executioner

Here then is a picture of how the 3 relevant figures were when I thought I'd finished last night, as you can see the Executioner was simply awful, I was aware that he was in trouble but not quite how bad things were until I took and viewed this photo.  Just about everything you can do wrong with a figure I'd done wrong here.  I've decided to dedicate an entire blog post as a lesson to those that listen.  As I hope you can see here though, I've started to tidy things up where I can.

Candy, Austringer & still terrible but improving? Executioner

The work on the Guild models last night consisted in applying a wash of Devlan Mud on the Austringers bird.  On the Executioner I finished off his claws/ backpack and pipes, applied a dry brush of Gretchin Green on the base before tidying up the statue and applying a Devlan Mud wash to the statue.

The work on Candy was entirely on the base, I decided to complete the base before taking on Candy herself hoping, by dividing it this way, to keep it to two smaller projects to concentrate on and complete, rather than getting bogged down in too much at once.

Candy with base near complete.

Firstly I applied some Liquid Green Stuff arounf the edge of the base insert to fill the gap, this worked nicely but I should probably have been more patient and applied a second layer before painting.

The stonework and sewage were treated the same way as the sorrows, though it looks like a re-visit with the wash on the sewage might be required.

The Ironwork I treated a little differently.  The phones flash has, to some extent, washed out the detail and shading.  I went for a brighter finish this time.  Boltgun Metal base, then Shining  Gold was over-brushed onto parts of the flat surfaces very lightly.  I did not apply the black wash this time though I think maybe I should have.  The 'decoration' on the pipe was painted with Shining Gold.  Burning orange was applied to certain areas to represent rust and then the whole thing was washed with Gryphone Sepia.  As gaming quality was the aim I think this will suffice.  If I was aiming for better I would have applied some highlights along the edges of further Boltgun Metal and applied a black wash before the rust and Sepia wash.  Need to apply highlights to the stonework, then I'm ready to go to work on Candy.

I look forwad to cpmpleting Candy.  The Executioner will be a pain in the neck.  Look for a specific post shortly.

(Originally painted elsewhere November 2011)

painting sorrows pt 2

Last night I was able to spend a little time doing some further work on my Pandora crew, specifically the 3 sorrows I've been working on.


Bearing in mind that I'm only aiming for 'table top' or gaming quality.  I'm not expecting to win any competitions with this lot.

Nearly completed.

1st off, the sorrow I showed you last post, this week I've been working on the base, touching up a little and applying washes.  In the case of the iron work I've used Gryphone Sepia to give it a weathered, rusty look.  Around the pipe you'll see I've applied some Orange, I thought this might be a bit heavy handed but I'm actually quite pleased with the result, be appreciative of any views you might have on this, should I apply more of this to look like rust?
On the sludge flowing from the grill I applied Ogryn Flesh wash, I like the result.  I was going to do a highlight on the sludge but might leave it as is, after all, as I said, I'm only after gaming quality.  Lastly I applied a highlight of Adeptus battlegrey to the stone work on top of the Black wash I'd applied earlier.

Pointing Sorrow, nearly finished

This is the most progressed of my Sorrows but here's another one that's almost done, the base is less interesting but I've followed the same process as described above.  The camera flash has rather taken out the effect of the wash on the metal work.  Might have to apply some 'rust' to this too.








Finally here are all 3 sorrows.  One more session and I think they'll be done.
The one in the middle is very weak.  It bends with no provocation so needs to be treated carefully.  If you're building them.. you've been warned.

3 Sorrows

I've also painted the bases, these are GW foundation paint Hormagaunt Purple, but I'm wondering if I should bring them up to Liche Purple.. any thoughts?





(Previously published elsewhere October 2011)

painting sorrows pt 1

This is another post about an incomplete paint job, but these ones are on the way now.. I'm using a fairly quick technique involving the use of washes and consequently I've 3 nearly complete figures after about 4 hours of painting which is dead quick.  For me.

I base coated them white, then washed them with a coat of Badab Black.  Then after setting to dry I washed them again with Leviathan purple.

Next session I dry brushed over the purple wash with Skull White before another wash of Leviathan Purple.

Malifaux Sorrow, part painted.

After that I used foundation red on their tongues and skull white on the teeth.  I will shade the tongues and teeth a little though I'm not sure how yet.
The bases, which are sewers, were Adaptus battle grey base coat for the flag stones, Gretchin Green for the sewage and Bolt gun metal for the metal work.  I've washed the stones and metal work on one of the bases heavily with Badab black and started the sewage with a Ogrin flesh wash.

The white undercoat wash method seemed a good approach for these figures.  They are convoluted and I don't have the patience (or ability) to do all that by hand.  Using this approach gives you a nicely shaded figure with minimal input.. The only real issue for me is they don't have the 'pop' that I like on the table top.  But perhaps once they're finished a manually applied highlight may help.

The camera flash makes the figure look lighter than it does in real life.  As you can see haven't done the eyes yet and the base needs finishing.  need to highlight the stone work, weather and rust the pipes and complete the sewage.

I do like the way it looks like it's emerging from the grill.

They go into battle tonight.  ;-) Wish me luck.


(previously published elsewhere October 2011)