Bailey03's WIP

[Bailey03]

Thanks, Milosh. Very kind of you to say (although I think I still have a ways to go before I'm there!).

Demi, well the Saxon's other hand will be holding either another axe (boring!) or a beautifully painted shield with a touch of blood on it. Although I suppose I still have time to convert it.

BFK, here's one article I found about it http://archive.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/gladiator.html . While the body type seems pretty grounded in evidence, the bleeding part might be more conjecture. Although if you can find a fat historian to challenge we may finally get our answer!

Sorry I don't have any new pictures to post. I just got back in town last night. But hopefully I'll make some progress worth showing on the fat gladiator this week.

 

[KruleBear]

Not fat...we prefer to call that "reserve muscle".! Lol

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

There is actually a lot of dissent concerning the study that found gladiators to be fat. What is certain is that they were vegetarians, but likely forced to be one, not because it turned them into bulky fighting machines. The author of the study makes some very bold assumptions for reasoning why a gladiator should have been heavy.

I found this blog makes some good points: http://donmatesz.blogspot.com/2011/07/real-gladiator-diet.html?m=1

In some other studies I read, the authors make the point that Roman soldiers had a diet rich in animal protein. So if the gladiators were onto some sort of diet that improved their martial prowess, then we would have seen Roman soldiers adopt it....perhaps. Anyway, I find the debate an intriguing one, and I haven't made my mind up.

As as someone that fluctuates at will between 175lbs and my current bulking high of 243lbs, I can tell you that while I am much much stronger, my skinny self is much more swift. It comes down to which is more important when holding a sword. Since gladiators didn't wear much armor, I think I'll take speed over brute strength.

 

[Bailey03]

Yeah, definitely some good points there.

I always pictures the murmillo as a walking tank. Big bulky helmet, big shield, arm guard and greaves, fat or thin I don't think he was running around the arena too quickly. Compare that with the retarius who was designed to be quick and agile. He had almost no armor (just a arm guard). Remember that the gladiator is part entertainer and part warrior. So while you might prefer to be swift, if you're a gladiator you don't necessarily get that choice.

On a side note regarding brute strength vs speed, from what I've read the ancient roman odds makers usually gave the edge to the swifter retarius over the more heavily armored secutor (similar to a murmillo but with a rounded helmet less likely to be snagged in the retarius's net).

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

I do the same with the different gladiator classes, mainly because of an old Playstation game where they were sized in this manner. Thanks for the info tho and the history on the subject.

 

[KruleBear]

Man i love cmon...always good information getting shared.

 

[Bailey03]

That's part of the fun of painting historical figures, getting to learn about the subject matter (helps if you pick subjects that you find interesting of course!).

Getting back to the actual painting, I took a couple photos of the gladiator. The assembly has made accessing some areas tricky, although the need to fill gaps sort of forced my hand on a lot of it. I definitely should have planned out my approach better, but too late now. The focus so far has just been on painting the skin. The upper body is pretty far along while the legs are at an earlier stage (and the hands and feet are at a very early stage). The upper body still needs brighter highlights as some spots are a bit flat right now. After that I'll add some glazes for more color variation. With so much area to cover I've been breaking it up into sections. I don't want to get too far ahead in any one spot, that would make keeping everything consistent much more difficult. So I've got to catch up with the rest of the skin first before I move ahead with the upper body.

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Long way to go on him, but I feel pretty confident about what I've got planned for most of the figure. Still, there are a few fiddly parts that I can see causing me some trouble (that pelt he's wearing and the leather bits, still haven't come up with a good approach for that).

 

[BloodFather of Kharnath]

Hey congrats on once again making editor's choice at putty and paint. On a roll!!

It is cool to see your process with his skin. It looks like you start dark and lighten, and then add colored glazes somewhere along the process, but before final highlights? That sound about right? Personally I treat my skin no different than just about everything, which is midtone, shade then highlight. Glaze any distinct colors in at the end. I see merit in your way tho. It truly is an awesome sculpt tho and it should really reflect your strengths.

I seem even to recall someone working on a great cat pelt himself recently.... really though my pelt was so different in that it had the texture if a wolf or bear pelt that I don't feel that my experiences with it empower me to give any sound advice. To me it is very clear that we are looking at a lions pelt. I'm sure you know that their fur tends to be tan to pale yellow. Their mane is a sort of charcoal brown so I'd probably accent certain areas with this darker color, like near the paws. Anyhow, this is going to look great, I just know it. You may have said, but who is the manufacturer?

 

[dennis.]

No peace anywhere mate, your french mini's up on my fb feed, congratz. How consistent does flesh have to be 54mm? wish my legs were the same as my belly which is different from my arms and my face is like ww1 battlefield... i think you could pull off variation no problems,

 

[Bailey03]

Thanks, Dennis. Well, my concern with consistency is more about the level of highlights and shadows. Ideally I'd like to highlights to get subtly brighter as I move from the bottom of the mini to the top.

BFK, the whole midtone then shadow then highlight seems to be the most popular approach, but I started painting before getting involved in the online community so no one told me that. Going from shadow up to highlight just made sense to me so that's what I did. I've done it that way for so long it's hard to do anything else. I have experimented a bit with midtone first but it doesn't work as well for me. I used to start with the shadow everywhere (and using black primer) but it meant the I had a lot of layers built up under my highlights. What I do now is a slight compromise between the two. I start with a base coat of the midtone over white primer and then sketch in the shadows. Then I start to layer over the shadows dark first to blend up to my midtone. That's where I am on the legs. Then I continue up into the highlights (where the chest currently is, well at least most of the way).

For tricky parts I might glaze along the way to help with my blends. You can see some issues with the transition on the rear of the left leg. So before I move on to the highlights I'll use some skin midtone and shadow glazes to try and smooth that out along with a few other spots. But I will probably do my top highlights before I go in with the red, blue and purple glazes. You get an idea of the progression from the gladiator WIP but you can probably see it better in the brief SBS for the skin on the Dragoon's face from a few pages back. It's the same thing for the gladiator. And that's basically how I approach everything, not just skin. I'm more confident adding colored glazes with the skin, but I really want to push myself to try that with other parts of the figure.

Oh yeah, that pelt should be fun. I was definitely watching your work on Maagaan since I knew I'd be doing something similar. Of course the sculpt here is much more smooth and about 3 times the size, so that will change things a bit. In the box art they use a tiger pelt and I'll probably stick with that. A lion skin would certainly be appropriate too (and maybe I'll change my mind and go with it), but for now I like the idea of the more interesting tiger pattern.

The figure is from Alexandros Models. They tend to do larger figures (75mm like this one, 90mm, and busts) but if you're looking to try a historical display figure I recommend checking them out. They've got some really nice sculpts and a wide range of subjects.

 

[Bailey03]

I took a break from the gladiator (trying to get smooth blends on all that skin was starting to feel like busy work) and began painting the Saxon. I'm doing a presentation for my local painters group in November, so I decided to make this the subject. It will be another step by step so I figured why not share it online too? Once it's done I'll compile everything and post it. In the meantime I'll share what I have here. Just two nights of work, finished the face and helmet.
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I'm following the same approach for the face as I did on the Dragoon. I started with a base coat of Rosy Shadow and base coated the surrounding sections (in this case all with Brown Liner). From there I blocked in the shadows with Chestnut Brown and Mahogany Brown. The darker brown went under brows, the nose, and chin (image 2). I then took care of the eyes (image 3 and 4). With that done I blended the shadows into the base (image 5). I like to start dark and then gradually blend in the base coat until I'm 100% Rosy Shadow. After that I started to mix in Fair Skin into the Rosy Shadow to create the highlights (image 6). Once I finish that I take a step back and reevaluate how everything looks from different angles. I go back in and tweak anything I think needs it. In this case I adjust the shadows at the corner of the mouth and along the cheeks. I also take care of the lips with a little Violet Red mixed into the Rosy Shadow, then highlighted with Fair Skin (image 7). The last step is to go in with some glazes (GW red, blue, and red+blue for purple). I use the red in the cheeks and nose, blue for the 5 o'clock shadow, and purple for deeper shadows in the cheeks and under the eyes.
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I'm going to give this guy a pretty thorough weathering, so I began with the corroded helmet. The approach comes from a post by Ernest over at PlanetFigure. He used it on a bust, I just tweaked it for 54mm scale. Over a base of dark brown I added some black to the lower portion, then orange brown, red mixed with brown, and a touch of yellow. Most of this was stippling thinned paint to get a subtle random texture. Next I switch over to the metallics and start to create scratches and dab on the raised edges (middle image). I continue to build up the metals and dirty rusty tones until I'm happy with the look. I also added a bit of purple here and there, just for more variation and visual interest.
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[Meph]

Is it just me or does that guy bear an uncanny resemblance to Jean-Claude Van Damme?

The painting is awesome as usual, of course

 

[Alexandra]

And nice tutorial as well. Don't forget to post the link when you have all complied.

 

[Bailey03]

Thanks. You know, I thought he looked familiar. All he needs is a haircut.

 

[Demihuman]

Okay I can see it and I can read it. Just can't quite figure it out. How did you figure out how to place the little crescent shadows at the corner of the mouth? Something with the eyes too. You took him from "stern warrior" to "bemused actor thrust upon life's stage" in the last three steps.

Are you just being true to the sculpt, or starting to have a little fun? Pretty sure it's not just the stubble.

I keep going back to this chest of colors article on painting faces:

http://chestofcolors.com/how-to-paint-faces/

Some of it is starting to work for me, but getting expressions is usually more luck than intention. If I do get a nice expression I just try to accentuate it and consider myself lucky. I would love to see a little bit about your creative process in the SBS.

I do have the 54mm Andrea Aragorn in the hopper!!

 

[Bailey03]

Hmmm... interesting question. I guess I start with the sculpt and see where it needs to go from there. Take a look at the base coated Saxon head. There's a bit of vertical line at the corners of the mouth. I think the larger crescents are also there.
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The problem is a lot of these are subtle details so if you're not paying attention when you shade and highlight it's easy to obliterate them. But if you're looking for them you can emphasize them and really bring out the details. After I lay down the initial shadows and highlights I stop and reevaluate how everything looks. You might need to add details, increase shadows or highlights to make some stand out more, or decrease shadows and highlights so they don't stand out as much. There's a lot of little tweaking that goes on in those last few steps.

As for the eyes, this sculpt wasn't quite as detailed there as I'd like. But generally you're going to have a highlight running along the top edge of the lower eyelid, right below the eye. A darker line below that to separate it from the cheek. You can make this dramatic or subtle. For the upper eyelid I've got a dark line right above the eye and then more moderate highlights as it'd be shaded by the brow.

The larger the face the easier it is to work with. I'm getting pretty comfortable with 54mm scale but it would be rough to take this down to 28mm and get the same level of detail. Going up in size we can revisit the 90mm Roman face I did a few months back. I'm working with the same ideas, just with more room to develop them. Focus on the 2nd image into the 3rd. I sharpen up the lines under the eyes. I fix the creases on the mouth. The sculpt on the left side didn't extend above the mouth so I had to fake it there. I also reduced how far down they went as I'd gotten a little carried away. The line separating the tip of the nose from the rest of it was added in. So were the creases in the forehead. In both cases I'm mostly playing around with highlights to create the details.
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For a figure like the Andrea Aragon one, I'd look at reference images and see what features are most prominent. As you work on the actual figure, start with what's in the sculpt but periodically stop and see how it looks next to the reference images. See what's working and what isn't.

Not sure if all that quite answered your question, but I hope it helped.

 

[Kretcher]

The previous post is just GOLD very nice and informative. Wish that I was living closer to where you live top participate in the painter club.

I think I will test your way of doing faces, which is very different from my approach today.

/Kretcher

 

[TomasP]

Mate, I really do appreciate the SBS face posts you've done... thank you very much...

 

[Demihuman]

Thanks for the reply Bailey! As you know, I am mostly painting 28mm figs so the canvas is smaller and the sculpts not usually as detailed, but your answer to my questions lets me know I am on the right track. I am still working on placing highlights just right to get the desired effects/expressions. Thanks again for taking the time to share, and answer my questions.

As for Aragorn, I might just put him in an astronaut helmet

 

[Bailey03]

Thanks, Tomas and Kretcher. Careful Demi, you don't want to get typecast at astronaut guy. Take it from historical guy. :tongue:

I could use some advice on the Saxon. I'm not sure what I want to do with his tunic and pants. I've seen quite a few versions of this figure online, they mostly paint him in dull browns, blues, and greens. But when I look at other barbarian figures, Germanic figures, celts, etc. I often see more colors, border details on the tunic and pants with stripes or checkerboard patterns. So I'm wondering, with everything else going on visually with his equipment would extra clothing details be too much or would it help make him more interesting? I'll of course be doing a pattern of some sort on the shield in his left hand.

So far I've been painting around the parts I'm not sure about. I've done the animal skin and the bronze armor. I may add some verdigris to the armor but I don't want to go overboard, just a little bit.
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