Dear friends
I have prepared a small step-by-step of my last figure. It is a not very well known bust from H&V: a Neanderthal man. IMO this bust is crying for an OSL technique, from the very first moment I imagined the man near the fire, heating himself in the cold winter of 50.000 B.C. In addition I wanted to try something new, to step out of my comfort zone, so let’s get started.

First of all I primed the bust in black with airbrush. I used Vallejo black primer. Then with the airbrush I sprayed some white from the top to get an idea of lights and shadows from above.


I started painting the fur with browns and then the skin. I used in all the mixes a lot of blue to try to give a cold appearance to the overall tone. At the beginning my idea was to settle him at night, but my skills are not so good so I contented myself with a cold daylight tone.



The face has a lot of violet glazes to cold it even more and the hair is made with black, blue and white.

For the wood of the spear I painted the base with a medium brown and on top of it I used ink wood from Scale 75. IMO the tone of this ink is remarkable and very realistic. The downside of it is that it is very shiny and I had to matt it down a little. I also used smoke and black ink from Vallejo.


After the basic color was finished I started with the fire light. I experimented with a red led from different angles and sides to see what was the best for the figure. After I made my choice I took a picture of it use as a model.


I valuated to paint the light with airbrush or with brush. Finally I opted for the brush because I have better control of it (and because latelly my Chinese airbrush is not working very well!!).

The colors I chose for the firelight were scarlet, bright orange and orange fluo, all from Vallejo. I added to all of them glaze medium to have even better control.

Step by step I built layers with scarlet, stronger and wider on the bottom and reducing them as the supposed fire is more far. I increased the lights with more scarlet, introducing orange fluo and in the brightest zones with pure orange.



This is the final result. Maybe I could have gone further with the reflections, but I didn’t want to overdo it.



I really enjoyed this project. Mainly it has helped me to get rid of my fear and start trying new things.

Hope you like it!

Regards,

Fernando

I think that has come out really well. Congratulations.
Scotty.

Nice stuff..I think it worked well

Thank you my friends. Appreciated.

Very nicely done. I hadn't seen this bust before. I think I need one.