Started this yesterday and its going good so far. Painted in vallejo acrylic, except the armor which is testors gold. Just base colors so far except the face ( He has a helmet so ignore the gray areas ), the white on the skirt was dabbed on there to make it easier for the second coat of white, which I have already done and outlined in red which will be obvious in later posts.. Looking for suggestions and or tips. Criticism only makes one stronger, go for it!

great start. My advice is to outline the eyes so that the white is less prominent.

Marc

Looks great so far. I agree with Marc. The eyes need some attention.

Your painting is neat and tidy, now you could add a staining wash to the armour. By doing this you'll see that it not only makes the armour look older and used but it also pulls out the detail.
Good luck with the rest of the painting but above all have fun..

groeten, Willem

Good, i'll get on that.
@megroot: Outline with more flesh or dab some more shadow around it?

@wps: I have black ink wash, would that work?

Will have some more posted today ( hopefully )

For the armour in Testors gold, see if you lay your hands on a sepia/ brown ink.

Much more subtle, and will keep the 'warm' tone of the figure.

Good progress so far.
and I agree with the others, eyes will make the face. (something I am still working on....)

cheers

Hi Corey,

The eyes are so important to creating a good face. My suggestion is to increase the size of the iris so it covers two thirds of the visible eye surface. To add definition to the bottom of the eye, try adding a thin wash of red along the bottom of the eyeball to define the top of the lower eye lid.

I've found it helpful when painting eyes to have a small mirror on my work bench so I can look at my own eyes while painting. They are your best source of reference.

Ok, heres some more progress. Tried to redo the face.. I washed the underlids in red tony but the pupils havent changed and I wasnt going to throw all my effects out of the window if I were to have a hand twitch and smeer black everywhere, I do have smaller detail brushes coming so hooray. The helmet has feathers ontop which will be next and right now the helmet it is drying so I will wash it in some brown tomorrow

Ok, getting there.
The lighting set up kinda throws off some of my observations; just a limitation of technology.

maybe just push some of the highlights on the nose and cheekbones, will help add to the figure. (maybe base shade of your flesh tone, plus some white)

The helmet - is that a black ink wash? has changed the tone of the helmet, so it seems to be made of two different metals... but has darkened it a far bit. Just try dry fitting the helmet to the head, see if it affects the results of the face (it would be equal to a dark picture frame around a face in effect - just make sure you are happy with it before you commit to glue)

Coming along.

Cheers

Actually thats the light reflection deceiving us. It is just painted in gold, no wash has been given. If you were looking at it in room light and able to look at it in all angles you'd see it as gold, but pictures do their own thing sometimes.. And luckily his head kind of pops in there and stays, might not have to glue him and I can paint the rest of his head and have the option of wearing the helmet or not on the final piece.

Hey Corey,

Good to see your progress on this one, its looking good so far, one thing i always use for eyes and flesh tones in general is oil paints, essentially they give me time to revisit things if i am not happy on reflection. i used oils for the mad staring eyes (modelled on my own i might add) on my Luftwaffe FD figure that we corresponded about !

Have never tried an ancient figure before but i am about to start a roman signifer after i have completed my german sniper, so that should stretch my comfort zone !!

Anyway great to see you posting - enjoy the hobby mate

Best Regards

Kirky

Thanks kirk! I am in lack of oil paints right now.. don't have any since I have been building up my collection of vallejo and collecting some testors enamel along the way. Possibly in the future I will buy a "starter" pack or something and get my feet wet in it. Realizing I am a beginner, I am working good with the dry time on the acrylics because they recoat quite easily, and right now basic shades / highlights satisfy my current goal. But as said, I will want to raise the bar quite soon though!

I want to see that sniper when you're done, and the signifier.. I believe it has been posted by someone on here already so possibly a good reference.

Mag~

Corey, if you're going to buy oils please buy the best choice you can get. One tube will last for years so make sure you buy "fine artist oils" f.i. from Winsor & Newton or Talens.
To start you only need a few colors.
Burned sienna, raw umber, titanium white and yellow ochre and f.i. a soft red color like indian red.
Just look around in different threads and read what others use.

groeten, Willem

Right, wrote them down.. will take a look around, I do have mona lisa thinner which is esp for oil paints, can use that to make washes and set highlights and shades I guess.. good good

More progress

Ok, glued the face into the helmet and added the straps to armor. Fixed up the skirt and gave it some shadowing. Here are some more pics, arms / sword / shield / feathers on helmet left to do, will keep updated. Any suggestions or tips, go for it

Reds look very good, can see the shading.

The whites have a smooth finish, shading them will be a challenge.

For some whites, I used the Andrea white set, but the break down of colours was a creamy shade for the base, heading toward a cream with a mouse grey tint for the shadows.
The highlights progressed in the other direction, with straight white as the top highlight.

I have a colour swatch of the paints at home, I'll post it tomorrow, if you want to see what I mean.

cheers

Yeah for sure, or maybe a wash of gray to tone them down, I dont know though

Corey,
paint swatch as promised.

Black shade over white will just make a grey shade.

If you want, find a scrap bit of plastic or a junk figure, and try. Then see if the result is one you want on your figure.

As yo can see from the swatch, the base is actually a cream colour, the dark shades are increasing mixes of base and mouse grey. * Just looked at the preview - the camera and light gives it a brown tone when I look at it on my monitor. Still, lots more control then straight black!

The highlights are decreasing mixes of cream base to increasing proportions of white. Not hint of black in the mix.

In my experience, it is too easy to shift a colour by adding black to it, and allows no subtlety in control.

A mixture of about 7 parts white to 1 part mouse grey might work (at least as a starting point), drawing from your colour palette. A dash (read; piffling, tiny, minuscule, small amount) of light pink would give the white a warm tone, help match the white to the red and gold warm tones already on your figure.

FWIW

Cheers

Good stuff, I really havent dove into 5 step highlights to shades yet.. will do the 7 part white to gray and see where thats at after. ( Have a bunch of warhammer figs, I think its time to try this stuff out )

Corey,
meant that mix as a suggestion if you want to try mixing your own base coat, before highlighting with white(s)

Sorry if I confused you.

Having a junk figure or scrap bit of plastic to test out on I have found handy. I have a piece of plastic sheet, covered with I don't know how many layers of primer, tests, primer, more tests, etc.

Saves me doing an experiment on a figure, and getting a little disappointed when the figure is ruined..

Cheers