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King Tiger Tank Commander (plus thoughts on painting directional lighting & color palette for face

Discussion in 'Completed Figures' started by storm_zh, Jun 7, 2016.

  1. storm_zh Well-Known Member

    Country:
    China
    Hello PlanetFigure friends,

    Here is the latest work I finished painting recently – the 1:10 King Tiger tank commander bust from Life Miniatures. The sculpting and casting quality is of top notch, which makes the painting process a very pleasant experience for me. In addition to posting the pictures of the painted bust, I’d like to share more info about this work.

    Painting Directional Lighting
    In many cases, I prefer to paint a directional lighting illusion. Taking the face of this bust as an example here, I paint the front side of the face with a value (brightness) range which is much brighter than that for the two cheek sides, imaging there is a main light source coming only from the front, though there is also global lighting from all the directions but the global lighting is less stronger than the main light source. Apart from face, directional lighting is also painted for other parts of this bust; however, it is true that in reality not every material is affected by directional lighting in the same way in term of intensity and therefore they should be treated differently in painting as well. My painting preference is to paint strong directional lighting in additional to the relatively soft 360 degree general lighting all around because this can help make the overall result more convincing and compelling.

    Color Palette for Face
    Additionally, since I first posted the pictures of this bust on Facebook, I have been asked a few times either privately or publicly regarding what colors I used for painting the face. So, I am summarizing the list of the main colors I used and sharing it here as well. It may not be a complete list because it is possible that I used a bit of other colors here and there in an improvisatory way that I can no longer exactly remember; but the list should be very close to what I have used.

    Base Color: A mix of Brown Sand and Beige Red and then with a bit of Basic Skintone and Mahogany Brown added.
    Highlight: Add colors like Sunny Skintone, Basic Skintone, Sky Blue and Offwhite to the base color or mix two of them directly for extreme highlights.
    Shadow: Add colors like Mahogany Brown, English Uniform, and Olive Drab to the base color or mix two of them directly for extreme shadows
    Tone: Colors like Red, English Uniform, Purple and etc. are applied very dilutedly as glaze for adding subtle tones to different areas on the face.


    My two cents. As always, any questions, comments or feedback are very welcome. Thanks!

    King_Tiger_Tank_Commander_By_Jason_Zhou_01.jpg
    King_Tiger_Tank_Commander_By_Jason_Zhou_11.jpg King_Tiger_Tank_Commander_By_Jason_Zhou_10.jpg King_Tiger_Tank_Commander_By_Jason_Zhou_02.jpg King_Tiger_Tank_Commander_By_Jason_Zhou_03.jpg King_Tiger_Tank_Commander_By_Jason_Zhou_04.jpg King_Tiger_Tank_Commander_By_Jason_Zhou_05.jpg King_Tiger_Tank_Commander_By_Jason_Zhou_06.jpg King_Tiger_Tank_Commander_By_Jason_Zhou_07.jpg King_Tiger_Tank_Commander_By_Jason_Zhou_08.jpg King_Tiger_Tank_Commander_By_Jason_Zhou_09.jpg
    Mat Lambert, Dekiman, Redcap and 34 others like this.
  2. Tutilo17 PlanetFigure Supporter

    Country:
    Switzerland
    Great painting! ... and thanks for the mixes.
    Stefan
    storm_zh and anstontyke like this.
  3. brian A Fixture

    Country:
    Scotland
    A truly inspirational piece of painting Jason.
    Brian
    storm_zh and anstontyke like this.
  4. Oda A Fixture

    WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Oda.
    storm_zh and anstontyke like this.
  5. Ferris A Fixture

    That is very impressive indeed Jason! Amazing and inspiring.

    May I ask, do the skintones have a very slight satin finish, or are they totally matte?
    I don't think you usually mix in matte medium with acrylics, do you?
    Just a question after studying your pictures, no criticism of any sort! I note that after many many thin layers and glazes of acrylics they sometimes become slightly satin. An effect I quite like on skintones as it can add to a very natural effect on skintones.

    Cheers,
    Adrian
    storm_zh likes this.
  6. Dan Morton A Fixture

    Country:
    United-States
    Incredible! (y)

    What camera set up did you use to take the first (largest) photo? How far away from the bust was your lense?

    All the best,
    Dan
    storm_zh likes this.
  7. Nap Moderator

    Country:
    England
    Jason,

    That is brilliant and thanks for the mixes really useful

    Happy Nap
    storm_zh and anstontyke like this.
  8. Andre Active Member

    Country:
    New_Zealand
    Amazing, and its not until you hold your hand behind it that you realise just how small this bust is!!!!
    I tip my hat to you sir, thou art a master.....and I cant find enough words to say about your skin tones!

    Slainte,

    Andy
    storm_zh and anstontyke like this.
  9. Jeff T A Fixture

    Country:
    Australia
    Jason, I saw this on Putty and Paint the other day and was just blown away by how good it is!

    This has to be my favourite work I have seen this year.

    Absolutetly brilliant!

    Cheer's,
    Jeff.
    storm_zh and anstontyke like this.
  10. montythefirst Well-Known Member

    Country:
    United-Kingdom
    Fantastic work
    storm_zh and anstontyke like this.
  11. MrBMB A Fixture

    Outstanding!!!!!
    storm_zh and anstontyke like this.
  12. Aveleira A Fixture

    Country:
    Portugal
    Stuning!!
    storm_zh and anstontyke like this.
  13. maxag Active Member

    Country:
    Brazil
    Perfect! (y)(y) Beautiful work
    storm_zh and anstontyke like this.
  14. storm_zh Well-Known Member

    Country:
    China
    Hello, Stefan, Brian, Oda, Adrian, Dan, Kevin, Andy, Jeff, montythefirst, MrBMB, Aveleira, maxag, thank you very much for your taking time to write comments and much appreciated for all of you for your kind words! I am also glad to hear the color mix receipt is helpful :)
  15. storm_zh Well-Known Member

    Country:
    China
    Hi Adrian, thank you for your kind words. Yes, the skintones have a very very slight satin finish. IMHO, I think real human skins should avoid being painted completely matte. Otherwise, the skin would look less realistic and sometimes even turn out to be chalky. This is the reason why I usually do not use super matte paints (such as Jo Sonja or Scale75) to paint skintones. But the super matte attributes of those kinds of paints are useful for painting other materials such as cloth, fabrics for which I want to achieve super matte effect. By the way, a tiny bit of Tamiya X21 can be added to acrylics paints to kill any satin or glossy finish, though I myself seldom use it.


    The finish of Vallejo paints is suitable for painting skintones in my opinion. I don’t add any matte medium to paints, though I sometimes may use a bit of glazing medium when doing glazing. It is true that the application of many thin layers of acrylics paints (especially Vallejo paints) will bring a slight satin finish, which actually may be something desirable for skintones. But we need to be careful and to prevent the finish from becoming too satin. This can be controlled by less applications of glazing or using matte paints such as Jo Sonja for glazing.

    Hope this has answered your question.
  16. storm_zh Well-Known Member

    Country:
    China
    Hi Dan, glad you like it. The camera I use to take the pictures is actually very old. It is Cannon SLR camera 450D which I bought a couple of years ago. That module was already out of production for a long time and was replaced by a few new modules. Actually, the camera itself does not matter too much as long as it has enough pixels (such as 8 million pixels or more) and some flexible manual settings. Any entry level SLR camera will do that. What really matters is the lens. I use Macro lens which can capture extreme tiny details that can even hardly be seen by human naked eye. More specially, the module of lens I am using is Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro Lens. You can easily find it by searching its name online (such as Amazon) or in your local camera equipment store.

    As for other settings on the camera, ISO should always be set the lowest value which is 100 for my Canon 450D to decrease the noise in pictures as much as possible. For the F value, I usually use a value between F11 and F16 to have a manageable depth of field. Another two tips are to (1) place the camera on something steady and avoid hand-holding it and (2) use a remote control shutter instead directly pressing the shutter button on the camera. These can be helpful to achieving sharp pictures by avoiding any possible shake (which results in blur pictures) when the pictures are taken.


    Hope this helps.
  17. SLR Active Member

    I'm speechless...

    Very much better than the boxart
    storm_zh and anstontyke like this.
  18. anstontyke A Fixture

    Country:
    United-Kingdom
    Absolutely stunning!!!!
    Thanks for passing on the tips, these are a big help for beginners like myself.
    anstontyke
    storm_zh likes this.
  19. phil_h A Fixture

    Country:
    United-States
    Utterly exquisite; fantastic. Painting like this is very, very inspirational (y). One of the best paint jobs out there bar none (and I'm not even a fan of WW2 subjects).
    Phil
    storm_zh and anstontyke like this.
  20. Viking Bob PlanetFigure Supporter

    Country:
    United-Kingdom
    Love the cammo , spot on. Superb painting.
    Regards
    storm_zh and anstontyke like this.

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