The latest work I finished painting recently – 1:10 WW2 German Paratrooper (Fallschirmjäger) bust from Nutsplanet.

It has been a pleasant experience for me to paint this bust. I tried to paint a directional lighting effect with a few degrees offset to one side in order to add some interesting points to the bust because the pose of this bust is sort of too symmetrical for my taste and I just want to introduce something to unbalance the symmetry to some extent.

This bust took more time for me to finish painting than any of the other busts I have painted so far. It has a lot of equipment and details to be painted as various textures and different surface materials. Before and during my painting, I collected and referred to quite a few historical pictures to get a more accurate idea on how the originals look like.

I have also written a quick tutorial regarding how I painted the textured parachute and it is shared in the following post of this thread.

Hope you like it. As always, any comments or suggestions are truly welcome.

I would like to share something about the process of my painting this parachute, especially the dot textures on it.

1. I first paint the parachute normally by lighting and shading it according to light direction. The overall value of tones I used here is darker than the final result I want to achieve for the parachute because I will later apply dot textures which are lighter than the areas where they are applied.


2. Then, I paint some 45-degree cross thin lines using diluted paint to form a grid that I can later refer to for applying dot textures in a neat way.


3. I prepare colors of several different shades (maybe 7-8) and dot them onto the areas to create the textures. Generally speaking, dark dots in dark areas and light dots in light areas and very light dots on certain places like edges. In order to make the dot texture visible, the dots are always a bit lighter than the areas where they are applied.


4. Also, I need to take the directional lighting and global lighting into account, which means that the front side of parachute is generally brighter than two sides and the top area is also generally brighter than the bottom area – this helps add some extra effect to give the whole parachute a volume and contrast. As I am not using a zenithal lighting setting for my painting of bust, the brightest area is approximately in the middle top area of the parachute instead of the very top area which is not visible from these pictures.


5. The paint should be less diluted for the purpose of painting effect dot textures.


6. I try to keep dots small and as consistent in size as possible. I try to follow the grid lines to make sure the dots are aligned and distributed in the right direction. Sometimes when I make a mistake in some small area, I just overpaint it with the base color and then repaint the dot texture on it.


7. I sometimes deliberately paint some irregular set of dots that stand out from other dots surrounding them to simulate some imperfections in thread weaving.


8. It takes much patience and time for me to complete painting the texturing of the whole parachute. After the texturing work is done, I use glaze to bring in some more subtle tones, add some stains and increase contrast further.


9. Next, I continue to paint other small elements on the parachute like the white strap, greenish edgings and etc. For the white strap, I paint its texture using very thin lines to make some difference.


10. Lastly, I paint the rope that are contained in the parachute. Each strand of the rope needs to be lighted and shaded to represent its volume. Similarly, the rope in the opening on the top is painted generally brighter than the rope in the opening at the bottom.

It is very, very hard work, but the result is excellent !

saw this on FB,
utterly amazing, that rope is something else.... well it all is.

the work on the texture is absolutely amazing.

Great job !!

The uniform may be a little too green...

Excellent painting!

Stunning paint job!! Well Done!

Superb painting, the highlights and shades are magnificent as is parachute pack.

Chris

The level of patience and mastery on display here is just stunning (ludicrously so, I might add).
Thanks so much for sharing these miniature masterpieces with us, and the insights into your technique.
Just lovely, lovely work.

Regards,
Phil

fantastic work. thank you for sharing your techniques with us.
the level of detail is just stunning, i love how you have got all the different textures so realistic.

tony

Simply AAAMAAAZIIIING

Marc

Amazing! And thanks a lot for sharing with us your techniques!

Wow the level of detail is just absurd. You need to do some sbs video's on YouTube my friend.


Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

AWESOME!!!

Awesome, bloody awesome. Gobsmacked at the level of detail achieved on the cloth/canvas etc.
I will bookmark this page for future ref.

Extremely nice....Thanks for taking the time to explain your technique.

Wayne

Now this could be used to illustrate the definition of brushwork! Absolutely lovely!

Joe

Thanks a lot to all of you for your kind words and comments. I am really happy that you like this latest work of mine and think my sharing of the painting process of the parachute is useful.

Amazing painting it's just brilliant......stunning work. John

Well now that you have explained how to do it, it's simple isn't it!!!!!
I don't think I could even paint the grid lines accurately.....

In awe of your talent.