CyAniDe's WIPs

[CyAniDe]

Thanks gorb. I'm trying more and more to think about reflections and try to observe how materials react with light in nature and how great painters translate it. Youtube really got great in that regard. It can become dangerous though if you spend more time watching videos with people painting then actually painting yourself ^^ For me it is also a great way to become motivated and get inspiration.
A real gem in my opinion is this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMFMFJQla6Y Dimitry is an oil painter who also paints miniatures and gives a really great (tbh the best I've ever seen) intruduction into oil paints on miniatures there.

I'm also really glad the forums are still alive and populated. Some others I knew kinda died over the years and people started their "one man shows" on instagram and co. Although I still can't see the benefit. Everyone kinda sits on his own island while back in the forum era people hung out together helping each other with tips and advice. But one small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders ... I guess

 

[ste022]

Your NMM looks fabulous. I can do a serviceable job at it, but don't enjoy the process so much and as a result haven't put in enough hours to really develop enough skill at it. I'm in awe at how nice a job you've done, I really like the colour tone you've used it really suits the figure.

 

[gorb]

...A real gem in my opinion is this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMFMFJQla6Y Dimitry is an oil painter who also paints miniatures and gives a really great (tbh the best I've ever seen) intruduction into oil paints on miniatures there.

I saw that video when the algorithm suggested it to me a while back, but I must say that even though I use oils for weathering and such, I am a far way away from using them in the way the Dimitry does.

Will definitely take a look again, but first I must throw away my set of students oils and replace them with some non-crappy ones

Yeah, there are still a couple of us here keeping the lights on here. A bunch of people have left or just ghosted - some because of the way CMON is treating the forums; photos & images from some earlier posts have gone missing, and it pissed a bunch of people off.
So please keep posting, it is a way for us to connect & chat about painting and share tips, something that instagram really sucks at.

 

[CyAniDe]

photos & images from some earlier posts have gone missing, and it pissed a bunch of people off.

Okay, so it wasn't a problem on my end. Was wondering already why there were no pictures when I browsed through threads. Well that sucks a bit :/
I use imgur as image hoster and just link the images from there. They haven't deleted anything yet and some of my pictures are several years old. Big plus is also that don't even need an account there. You can just upload and bookmark the link.

 

[gorb]

I use imgur as image hoster and just link the images from there. They haven't deleted anything yet and some of my pictures are several years old. Big plus is also that don't even need an account there. You can just upload and bookmark the link.

Yeah, I starting using imgur too, early on; mostly because I was cross-posting content here and on papermodelers.com, and uploading photos to both servers was a pain in the neck.
It's going to be a sad day when imgur gets bought & sold, and the new overlords start their own purge. From wikipedia, it looks like they are already the property of a faceless holding company, so we'll see...

In the meantime, show us some more of those mad good paint jobs please!

 

[CyAniDe]

Quick update straight from the desk

Slow but steady progress so far. Tried to introduce two light sources. A warmer more sunset like light from the left and a colder ambience light from the right. On the base I was about to add some greenish glow but I think I will remove it since I think it would be too much.

Got a new toy last week that kept me from painting a lot but I'm starting to get it to work. -> here is a sneak peak

PS. Opinions might differ about GW but their red tones ( Khorne/Mephiston/Evil Suns Scarlet) are amazing. The pods they come in still suck though :/

 

[ste022]

That Vampire keeps getting better and better, I wish I had your NMM skills!!!

 

[CyAniDe]

I wish I had Michal Pisarski's NMM skills xD https://www.instagram.com/lanstudio/?hl=de

Jokes aside. I stick to NMM since I can't get metallic paints smooth. When I used metallic paints I always got a grainy texture where you could see the small metal flakes. I tried a lot of brands GW/Vallejo Model Air/Model Color/Vallejo Liquid Metal ... The best results I got with AK enamel Metals although they're for airbrush only and not really practical for miniatures -> more for model aircraft. At some point more then 10 years ago I gave it up and paint NMM since. Also when I started NMM Rakham was at its prime and I really loved the clean NMM style of the Rakham boxarts and all the minis that people painted recreating that style. Was a lot of struggle in the beginning though to get the blends smooth enough and the amount of contrast right.

The first time it kinda worked was on this guy: http://www.coolminiornot.com/249602
But it took at least 10 failed trys before I could even paint a Speartip and call it NMM xD
On the other hand, painting really good TMM is quite hard as well and often isn't really much faster if you tint and shade the metal to give it a realistic look. It's faster for tabletop minis when a basecoat, highlight wash is enough to sell it as metal.

 

[ste022]

I have Kiril Kanaevs FAQ book and his NMM is mind blowing, it's hard to believe you're not looking at a real piece of metal. I love the look of NMM but never really enjoyed the process, so I've put very little effort into it. I think that my exalted hero of chaos might be the only miniature I've ever done NMM on (http://www.coolminiornot.com/234564?browseid=12858917). I've had a love for metallic paints from when I first started painting so have always stuck with them, I like to paint everything worn and dirty and so I think the graininess helps in fact I often use Model Color metallics because of their huge particles. The SQUIGTREIBER you linked definitely shows a Rackham influence. NMM is definately something I would like to focus on at some point.

 

[CyAniDe]

Put a couple more hours into the vampire. The Red cloak did cost me some nerves. Started with acrylics and brush like on the smaller cloth piece at the front but it got very patchy and uneven so I decided to try it with airbrush. Wasn't happy with the result either since it looked too smooth and I lost the sharpness to the shadows in the folds. I finally repainted it with oils. It turned out quite nice but I will probably deepen some of the shadows with glazes. I finally found a red that quite works for me. Red gave me a lot of troubles when using oils. Most red pigments are transparent or semi transparent so they tend to not cover well (or not at all) and leave a lot of brush marks. The most commonly recommended red is Cadmium Red Light (PR 108). It's quite expensive and ones I got don't really are what I hoped I'ld get. The one I got from Schmicke Norma range is very orange so not really a red in my opinion. The other tube I bought from Old Holland is more reddish but still very warm and leans slightly into orange. It also kinda doesn't stick very well and peels off when blending -.- .The one I tried now was Old Holland Schevenigen Red Light (PR 112) mixed with some Carmine for the mid tones, mixed with Dioxazine Mauve + Alizarin Crimson for the shadows. After drying for roughly a week I coated it with semi matte varnish to be able to continue with acrylics and kill the shine.

Today I started the mace. It's quite tricky to get right and I had to start over 2 times. Looking at some reference finally gave me the idea to add the shadow reflection of the perpendicular "wing" which looks much better now imo. Not quite happy yet with the reflections of the cloak on the back of the armor though. Still looks quite rough and sketchy and I'm not really sure if the spots are correct and if I should reduce/remove the bright spots.

But it's quite fun to experiment with those reflections of the surroundings. And for the first try I kinda like where it's going so far. Starts to look more realistic then the more stylized NMM I painted so far. But you have to put a lot more thought into it then just "following basic rules" and it feels a bit like painting little freehands on the metal parts.

 

[gorb]

Wonderful work. And thanks for sharing your insights into the oils. Very helpful.

 

[CyAniDe]

Sadly the weekend is over already but I could get a lot of painting done.

Continued on the Vampire. Painting the mace was tedious but I'm quite happy with the result. I switched to oils since blending is much faster and I'm slowly but surely get a feeling for the colors and how to tame them. If you don't add enough tones it looks flat, if you add too much and "overblend" it you get some muddy mess.

I also went back to a six year old WIP. I painted this Chaos General from a Warhammer Starter Box along with Ben Komets great tutorial on Painting Bhudda (still on youtube) but at some point lost the hang of it. Yesterday I grabbed it when I put the vamp into the "WIP-Closet" to dry (better to let oils dry in a more or less dust free enviroment).
I pushed the chroma of the red armor with an oil-glaze (Alizarin Crimson thinned with Liquin Detail -> fast drying oil medium) and the gold parts with a glaze of Indian Yellow. I then brought the brightspot highlights since they also got tinted down as well.
I also painted the skull on the shoulder pad and the metal skull thingy on his chest. Both completly with oils.

I also started a new mini. I printed it 2 weeks ago and it's my first 75mm scale mini. I gave it an acrylic base layer for the skin and the green dress. Everything from there was then painted with oils. It needs a lot more shadows but I'm careful on the skin. Since female flesh quickly looks really wierd if you overdo it with the contrast and to deep shadows. But the dress and the autumn leaves that are wrapped around her underarms and anckles will get some more shadows after the base layer is dry.
So far I'm quite happy how she turns out but I'm a bit nervous about how much contrast to add since it feels very different to smaller scales. Since figures this size already have a lot of natural shadow it feels really wierd to boost that like you would on a 35mm scale mini.

 

[gorb]

Man, this is fantastic work.

 

[CyAniDe]

My hollidays have begun, motivation is still up, there are no tempting games out and since more or less lockdown, there's no reason to leave the house. Best prerequisite to slay some grey.

Or like in this case to create some grey^^
I printed a bust and attempt to paint a bust for the first time. Since I already struggle with contrast on 75mm figures, I watched some more painting videos (in this case for canvas oil painting) and stumbled across "Grisailles" . It's fancy french for painting "monochromatic" eg. in black and white to study values (light and dark) without having to deal with hue (color tone) or chroma (tone saturation).
On small scale minis natural shadows aren't really a thing but this whole game changes with bigger scales. Also while painting I get the feeling that the whole exaggeration of light and shadows I'm used to painting 35mm looks wierd and wrong.
On the other hand I have the feeling that my 75mm figure looks kinda flat. So I still need to find a balance on how much contrast is enough and when does it look artificial.

Here's the result after the first two oil layers. I started with a kinda zenital priming -> main light coming from her left side. Could have been finished after the airbrush priming xD But that wasn't the goal of the exercise.
I mixed 4 grey "tones" for the start using Vine Black; Raw Umber; Titanium White. The Raw Umber was mixed in in small amounts to get slighty warmer, neutral greys.
I blocked in the first highlights and shadows with a bigger flat brush and blended the transitions -> which is the fun part of using oils

Today I looked around for some reference. I found a pic with a nearly similar pose and light situation and desaturated it using GIMP. I then took "color" samples of highlights, mid tones and shadows of the skin, fabric and hair. What I think I learned was that the skin was mostly dominated by mid tones while the white fabric was much brighter in general. The hair had just a few mid tone spots and a lot of dark shadows and some very bright highlights.
So today I refined the shadows of the skin a bit further and painted in the eyes. Painting the eyes helps a lot in my opinion since you get an expression and I think I can judge the face much better with the eyes in place.
The hair is mostly primer at the moment. Just started to paint the shadow where it meets the face. I also painted the cast shadow on the throat that is created by the chin. Under the lamp it is created naturally but painting it reinforces it and it stays in place when you move the bust around. I think it looks good but I'm not sure if this is usually done on busts/large scale models :/

Venus Bust by Artisan Guild

I also worked on a bit on my 75mm. I fixed her eyes (she had a strange stare since the right eye was looking in a slightly different direction) and worked a bit on the green dress. I hope it's dry until tomorrow so I can varnish it and work on with acrylics to add some more shadows with glazes.

Pixie Soul of the Forest by White Werewolf Tavern

Last but not least I started to sketch the armor on my printed Vampire Lady. Initially I was just about to create a foundation for a red armor but I now kinda think that it would look quite good as silver NNM as well.
What do you think? Glaze it with red or refine it a bit and make it silver?

Daughters of Lilith by Archvillan Games

 

[CyAniDe]

Between all the christmas feasting and watching some movies/series I painted this guy.

Had him printed a month ago and after watching the second season of the witcher I had to paint him.
Was a fun somewhat faster project, painted in 4 days.

Hope you like him

http://www.coolminiornot.com/461851

 

[CyAniDe]

I continued on my old 2015 Chaos General project and sank some hours into his doggo. I started blocking in the main color areas with oil paints 2 weeks ago and varnished it after drying for another week to continue with acrylics.
The Color zones I kinda remembered right from BenKomet's tutorial on PaintingBuddha but I didn't want to watch the whole video again before painting on so I went on "my own way".
I first applyed a rough shade with the airbrush using a dark brown also desaturating the vivid red. Then I refined highlights and shadows with acrylics using glazes and stippling. Meanwhile I watched/listened to the tutorial again. The resemblance is there though mine lack some more drastic highlights I think. I hope I can still find the base somewhere to rebuild it along the tutorial. Otherwise I'll probably print one.

 

[CyAniDe]

Quick update for the doggo. Some more refinement on shadows and highlights. Currently working on the arm with the chain and building the base. Hope I can get it done this weekend.

 

[gorb]

I love seeing updates in your thread, there is so much inspiration and reading your thoughts behind what you are doing and why you are doing it is always insightful.

Love the work on the doggo, especially the claws and teeth. Are you using UHU glue for the drool strands?
Vernon Roche looks amazing, the texture on his cloak is great as are all the little metallic bits.
The grisailles work you did on the bust is super cool.
Keep it up, and a happy new year to you!

 

[CyAniDe]

Happy new year to you too.
Yes the drool is good old UHU xD
Bought a tube just for that one since I wanted to try it.
Sadly my holidays are over so I most likely will just paint on weekends. After work I'm kinda too tired and unmotivated. Even during my holidays I mostly painted during the morning and afternoon. Used to be the other way around when I was younger :/
But this 6 year old project comes to an end soon. I started to build the base and primed it today (had still enough to hold a spray can). Hopefully I can finish it on the weekend.

 

[Graishak]

I like progress on the doggo. In general you're showing such a high skill on painting clear details; inspiring - as Gorb stated!