A painting post this week. I’ve got another Scibor miniature in the photo booth for this instalment. I really love the sculpts by this maker, and have bought quite a few from their range. The models are a real pleasure to paint, with great detail and a lot of character in the poses and expressions.
I’m continuing on my path of trying to improve all aspects of my painting, but with a focus on non-metallic metallics (NMM), which I think looks amazing on fantasy and sci-fi miniatures (I prefer true metallics on historical models, for whatever reason…).
To the photos!
For this model I tried a different NMM recipe, sticking to more grey tones than the bluish ones my previous paint job had. I think I prefer this scheme as it provides a more neutral base for more advanced techniques like object source lighting (light given off by a lantern the model is holding, for example), and sky-earth non-metallic metals (where the blue of the sky and the brown/green tones of the ground are reflected by the metal). I also just prefer the appearance of this recipe.
While my blending has a long road of improvement ahead of it, I feel I’m getting a better feel of how to make the paint go where I want it to, and behave how I want it to. The key thing I’m finding here is diluting the paint well when glazing, and wicking a lot of the moisture off the brush before applying, to give greater control. I’ve been playing around with a few different techniques here, and I’m gradually coming to understand them, and when to use which, but lots more practice is needed!
I need make faces more of a focus in my efforts. They’re the focal point of any model, and I’m really not giving them the attention they need. It’s neat enough in the details, but there’s not enough contrast, and the face is a bit flat as a result. I’m also not that happy with the sword, which ended up a bit too stripey for my liking. I’ll approach this differently next time.
I’m underwhelmed by the heraldry I chose for this guy. I think the sculpt deserves something better, but it looked great in my head! Perhaps three narrower zig-zags would have been better.
Blue was my colour of choice to focus on for the cloth. I’m again taking the ‘push the contrast’ approach here, but my blends leave a lot to be desired, and this is something I’ll need to pay attention to going forward.
That’s all for this week. Next week we’ll be taking another behind the scenes look at my work, with my current trilogy, Blood of Kings being the topic! See you then!