Wolf Guard Captain WIP

[Ceaser_88]

Gday all. Starting a WIP thread for my WG Termie Captain - hoping with this one to take my painting a step further via greater contrasts over blended shadows/highlights; blending Wolf fur (which I’ve previously always drybrushed); and further improving my ability to paint faces.

Kicking it off with half a Termie (I paint in sub assemblies), i’ll be building up many very thin layers until I achieve a solid basecoat.



Critical feedback is always welcome. I’ll aim drop my progress into this thread fairly often.

[Chaotic Creations]

Cool, looking forward to seeing your progress...

[Meph]

Intruiging! *Pulls up a seat*

[oistene]

Too early to say much, just go at it!

[Zab]

Let's do this! Do you use a wet palette or dry? I just rediscovered my wet palette and wondered why i ever stopped using it. its very fast for sketching in basic tones.

[Ceaser_88]

Wet palette Zab; a homemade version using a plastic tupperware lid, paper towel, and baking paper. Love not having to worry about paint consistency changing (drying out) while im working.

[Ceaser_88]

Reckon that’ll do for now on the Greaves. I’ve progressed the belt buckle through basecoat/topcoat/shade as it will be difficult to reach once the Torso is attached. Currently blessing my Captain with a left arm before i proceed to basecoat the various torso elements (time to ponder the best colours to paint the disparate elements on the model; cape, fur, face, hair etc.)

[Ceaser_88]

Pushed on with Basecoating (I take a long time, maaany thin coats) and got him to this stage:

Having achieved a solid colour with the red, I decided to shade the cape (havent painted a cape, was looking forward to it). I mixed the base red with green until I had 4 shades of purple - each with more green and the last with a little black. The result of my afternoon trialling this shadow colour is on the edge of the cape here; best photo I could manage::

Needs some smoothing out with glazes and general tidying, but what do you reckon of the shadow colour and depth?

[Ceaser_88]

First setback! I began highlighting the cloak, trying out different mixes of red until I settled on a highlight path to orange. After much trial and error I began to see a smooth gradient, but felt it looked a bit glossy. So i slapped some lahmian medium over my work. My work which apparently was not fully cured, and was hence ruined. A valuable lesson on what not to do in the future.
In chronological order over the first two hours of my Sunday:

[Zab]

Oh man it looks pretty good still.

[Chaotic Creations]

It’s still ok, it’s not ruined as such... I haven’t painted a cape like this in a long time, but I used to always base colour it, then lay down the darkest shades to the deepest recesses and work up to the base colour... then stick the legs on and go for the highlights (you don’t want to have highlights in places that would be shadowed)...
And for the glossy look I’m hearing you about that, it drives me nuts but I’ve learnt (through mistake) to just live with it until you get to the end, and what I do then is a very light tint over everything (1 part ink to about 5/6 parts medium) and this tends to help with the blend and creates a kind of even texture over the whole surface, kind of a Matt look... not sure if this is the professional way of doing it but it had always worked well for me...

[Ceaser_88]

Hey thanks for the feedback guys Good point re: the legs Chaotic, although in this case I googled me some examples of the finished Termie to get a feel for where the cape highlights will be. Moving forward I’m going to give your advice on the final matte tint right at the end a go, thanks for the tip. As it stands I will try to cover this mishap; I’ll see where I can get to and post my result

[Ceaser_88]

Pretty happy with the rework, now I’ve really got to get a move on painting this guy :P finding the time can be half the challenge!

[Coyotebreaks]

the cloak turned our really nice in the end. blends are smooth

[BloodASmedium]

Looks very rewarding so far. Hum as for getting slick parts on models. What I do might help you. I first off use Leah Ian medium to cut my washes/ paints with. First off shake your paints really well.
,as it can be a result of not enough drying pigment which should be mixed universally by ...wel...by mixing your paint.
Now the Lahaina medium was created specifically to use with those GW washes .it was made so that they assure using your washes will end up Matt. Just remember to shake the Lahaina medium before you mix it with your already shaken paint-

[Ceaser_88]

Thanks for the feedback guys, and the tip Blood

[Chaotic Creations]

The cloak looks extremely good... very smooth bending, you should be very happy with that!!! Keep up that work on the rest of the mini and this figure is going to be epic!!! Looking forward to seeing how this guy progresses

[droidworkshop]

Keeping my eye on this one! Coming along well, the cloak is very nice

[Ceaser_88]

Appreciate all the feedback and encouragement guys slow pace; moved into basecoating the Wolf Pelt and adding some progressive highlights towards the edge of the coat (using Timber Wolf pics to guide me). With the Pelt just about ready for fur highlights, I’ve put a hold on this and moved back to the cape; making inroads into shadowing the rear side;

[Canny]

nice work, great commitment and it's working well. wolf pelt looks great too.