Another WIP from anotherpainter

[anotherpainter]

About me:
Hi, i paint for half an year miniatures. Are a member of this site for a few day and have no other experience with miniatures or painting. But it take it quite serious.

So i decided to try to improve my painting on my next model and why im at it make a WIP Thread so you guys can help me and point out mistakes if you like.

My Galerie

The Goal:
Become a better painter and if absolutely necessary and cant be avoided, have some fun meanwhile

The Way:
I will describe and show the Work in Progress, step by step, in detail.
So that you guys and girls can hopeful help me on the way, bring ideas, critic, praise me or just laugh at the many mistakes that i will make.

DIY
1: Brush & Toolholder
2: Paintrack
3: Plinth Disaster Part I
3: Plinth Disaster Part II
3: Plinth Disaster Part III
3: Plinth Disaster Part IV
3: Plinth Disaster Part V
3: Plinth Disaster Part VI

War Photograph
1: The Figure
2: Assembly
3: Color Scheme
4: Body
5: Head
6: Touch-up & Plinth & Photographing
Gallery: Finished Bust

 

[anotherpainter]

Part 1: The Figure
​

The Goal:
On this Bust i want to try to improve contrast and lightning.
Not to an degree that it looks comical but way above my other Busts.
For that i try a new technique to paint the skin and also try to add more contrast to the Body.

Figure:
"War photographer" From Life Miniatures Based on a Photo of Larry Burrows

Box Art	The Inspiration	Colorized Version
View attachment 53987	View attachment 53986	View attachment 53985

Box and other Art:
http://www.lifeminiatures.com/war-photographer-vietnam-war-1971
http://mmzone.co.kr/album/showcase.php?dbname=gallerymain&id=44588
http://www.planetfigure.com/threads/war-photographer-1971-life-miniatures.72849/
http://www.planetfigure.com/threads/war-photographer-1971-vietnam-1-10-life-miniatures.53615/
http://www.planetfigure.com/threads/war-photographer-life-miniatures-review.50091/
http://jaywhitsminiatures.blogspot.de/2012/09/war-photographer-vietnam-war-1971.html

 

[anotherpainter]

Part 2: Assemble
​

EDIT: Step 1: Throw the wires in the trash! See end of this post why...

Pre thoughts

First the miniature is very clean and very good molded. There are not even any mold-lines!
BUT assemble is a A PAIN IN THE A**!

View attachment 53988
Picture source (http://www.planetfigure.com/threads/war-photographer-life-miniatures-review.50091/)

The Camera on his back is attached to wire that is attached to resin strips that are glued on the mini.
So its not only hard to do correctly it will be also very fragile when finished.
On top of this the resin strips are full of mold connections don't fit good to the torso and don't end up on the right spot.
So they have to be sanded very careful and then bend, glued and gap-filled.
I never bend resin but i read you can do it with hot water. I will try that.

TO Glue or NOT To Glue that is the question...

Like always the hard decisions is what part to glue when.
Obvious the back Camera will go separated because its connected with wire anyway and would be to fragile to paint connected.
I don't see any reason not to glue the resin straps and the lenses on all 3 cameras.

The head is not a perfect fit.
the gap between is scarf and the neck is to big for my liking but this is very hard to change and looks intended.
No other painter changed this one.
I will preset the head with milliput to make it a perfect fit but glue after painting.

The searchers for the front Cameras:
Glued on place they make it hard to get to the body behind. Glued later could add unwanted lines.
I dry tested several times and then decided to again make it perfect fit with milliput first and glue later.
This one is a visible glue so i have to be very careful to not whiten the paint later with the superglue (i learned this one the hard way...).

Missing Glasses:
Jason Whitman http://jaywhitsminiatures.blogspot.de/2012/09/war-photographer-vietnam-war-1971.html modelled the missing glasses to the figure.
I think he did an awesome work with it but im not a modeller and the main purpose of this figure is to improve my painting.
So i will not try the same.


Assemble

Assembling was even harder then thought.
Obviously the resin strap had to break in half.
I could not find any mold line, molding mistake or other detail that needs fixing.
But i had to fix every single connection and there a a lot of them on this figure.

View attachment 53989

Red Cycles shows you where i had to fix connections with milliput.

At the green cycles i did bend the strips. I did not use hot water as planned.
I did come up with the idea of heating a piece of metal and holding it against the part i want to bend with a little bit force.
I repeated that several times and got the exact angle i needed to later attach the third camera.

At the blue cycles i had to connect wire to the strips and the camera.
Even my smallest drill was to big for my liking. So i heated a needle and slowly punched 4 holes.
Because the resin thats left was really thin i decided to strengthen it with milliput.
And of course they broke of....
So i come to the conclusion to attach the third camera before priming. Its just to dangerous that it will brake when attaching it after painting.
For one hour i try to make this wires work. The problem i have are:
They don't allow me to position the camera where i want it, they add instability to the figure, they are really hard to bind and most important: they look bad!
After another 15 min of fighting with the wires i suddenly think: WHY DO I NEED THE WIRES AT ALL THEN????
I glued the third camera directly to the strips.
Now the camera is in the exact position i want it. The make the logical connection i glued tiny peaces of the wire as fakeholder on it afterwards.


Cleaning & Priming

Not much to say here.
Sanded down where needed, cleaned with Isopropanol and primed with Black&White.

View attachment 53995


Work hours so far: ~9
The longest assembly i ever done.

 

[Webmonkey]

Note: for bending thin resin strips and other such pieces, I highly recommend the plain ol' hairdryer. It allows you to get the heat fairly localized and applies jus enough heat to make the material plyable. Trust me, I use this trick all the time.

 

[anotherpainter]

Its not my day!
I was using hairdryer for painting in the past and was allways carefull because i was afraid the heat will bend my figure.
Now when i want to bend my figure i did not even think about the hairdryer...
Also check the update on the assembly post. I just wasted 1:15 h trying to make something work that i dont need and want.
Enough for today...

 

[anotherpainter]

After this stressing tiny wire disaster yesterday i decided to go for something complete different today.
My Workplace was a mess so i went to the tool-shop and build an Tool/Brush holder.
Just 3 boards connected with a ton of wholes to put stuff in:
View attachment 53992

 

[Zab]

Aces! I likes that

 

[anotherpainter]

Part 3: Color Scheme
​

Everyone uses the same Color Scheme. Its kind of set in stone.
Because its a miniature based on a picture, you paint it like it was.

However there is one thing i don't like in all the interpretations that i saw.
Other people painted him as just another person. As an Photograph doing his job.

This is not a average Joe at his workplace. This is a war photograph in Vietnam.

Face:
This man saw more then a man should see. Always on the hunt for the perfect picture but afraid of what this picture might show.
Hes job is to capture reality in a frame but he disconnect himself form reality a long time ago.
Last time he slept was 24 h ago in a helicopter and last time he slept without waking up in the middle of the night was couple of years ago.
He saw more war and misery then most of the soldiers he travels with.
He is empty and hopeless. But more than anything else: Tired.

Eyes:
There is only one type of look that would fit this man and it fits him perfect:
The 1000 yard stare:

View attachment 54009View attachment 54010
picture source (Wikipedia.org)


Jacket:
Like i said in the beginning this one is set in stone. I will go with a slightly darker green tho.

Cameras:
The Task here is to hit the unique metal that this old cameras had. Im not quite sure how to mix it.

 

[anotherpainter]

@zab thank you!
There was a little adapting problem to my new setup.
At start i was so used to wash my brush in a glass, that i did not use the plastic cup of my holder but my beer instead...

Frist Face Try:

View attachment 54011
Only wetblend no real highlights no washes.


I first tried to paint step by step like this tut suggests: http://www.lifeminiatures.com/step-by-step
Did not work at all.

I did like some of the suggested colors (or better my p3 ambivalent) and used the pdf mainly as lightning guide.
But i wet-blended every color, like i normally do on my heads.
I focussed on having more distant colors at the start and checked every 20 min that the darkest brown and lightest skin is still the orignial color after all the blending.

Still i think its not enough. The contrast could be higher and he don't look desperate and tired enough.
I have to experiment more with the blue eye rings and think i have to add one more different color, to all the blending.

Suggestions and Critic welcome.

 

[Captain927]

Hi Painter,

Just been catching up on all of your posts. First off, I admire that you have jumped into some very nice busts as your first attempts. I was apprehensive to spend big money off the bat when I got back into painting. I too have taken a shining to busts and am working on improving my skills as well.

I think you are doing a great job so far. I agree that the contrast can be pushed a bit further, but should be able to be done easily enough. Everyone has their own methods for painting daces and I'm sure you will find what suits you best. I usually work on the eyes first, then the skin around the eyes, then the rest of the face. I dont have the confidence to paint all the shadows and creases and highlights, then risk overpaint when I do the eyes. Lots of tutorials do the eyes after the first few shadows and highlights though.

Keep doing what you are doing. Practice, practice, practice.

Cheers

 

[pariahrob]

Looks lovely i.e. it's coming along well. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and methods. Really interesting.

 

[Meph]

Very nice stuff man, it's cool read about the trial, tribulation, and techniques.

 

[anotherpainter]

@Captain927
Thanks.
I also paint the eyes first (For the same reason you mentioned).
This face is a test. I striped him down by now 8 times and still don't like the direction.
I will do the same for the eyes only.
I think i go back and select a bit different colors. Also im thinking about sanding his beard away.

About the expensive busts:
If you take the money for the bust in relation to the amount of time i will spend on it, i come up with a kind of cheap money/hour hobby.
Thats at least what i tell myself to justify spending 150 bucks on small plastic parts.

@meth & @pariahrob
Thank you. You will see a lot of try here ^^. It looks like nothing i do works at the first try.
Im allays wondering if other people cut out all the mistakes and problems or if im the only one struggling with every step.

---

Also i finished a color-holder that goes together with my brush-holder:
View attachment 54052
(yes i did run out of wood screws ^^)
I glued little bars on the backplate to force the pods in an angle.
Then i sanded the buttom of every whole to right grip-balance.

 

[Zab]

Yeah i had to move where i kept my tea when i finished re doing my room and desk because i kept washing my brush in my tea! Easliy fixed right? Get some color in that face and hell look bagged. Also dirt and grime will help too

 

[Captain927]

If you are going for a ragged war-worn look, I'd keep the beard on. It looks like a light beard anyway. Just dont paint it thick.

I like the paint organizer. Mine are in an old tissue box. Ha ha

 

[anotherpainter]

Every try of the head got worse and worse so i stopped it all together and painted the body now first. (pics soon)

@zab
Im not sure about the dirt. Specially with the white scarf underneath. i first wanted to make it dirty but changed my mind, can be that will change it again tho .
I will right more about that in body part2 ^^.

@captain927
You are right. Im not sure how a sanded beard will look anyways. I will try to wash a 3day beart on him.

My paints were in a tupper box before. I was sick of searching for a colors in it.
Also it helps when you see the darker and lighter version right next to it in case your change your mind about what color to use in the last second.

You can buy all kind of holders pretty cheap online but i needed one that fits exactly in my "paint stuff" box.

 

[BloodASmedium]

Lemme help you out bud,and give you some direction when dealing with faces. What I'm showing you is basically a diagram of where to put 3 glazes yellow,red and blue....yellow on the top 1/3 , red on the middle 1/3, and blue where there is the stubble on the lower 1/3 of the face. These glazes are painted in on the face AFTER all the basic highlighting /shading are finished.View attachment 54153

 

[anotherpainter]

Part 4: Body
​

Jacket:
The base code is "olive green".
I filled all really dark areas with "thornwood green" and then spend a lot of time wet-blending every color in between.
After that, i highlighted and washed it. I used a very thinned down (double thinned to my normal wash) "saphia" ink as wash.
Still i think i could have gone even thinner. After that i re-highlighted in 3 color steps up to a very light green.
The task was contrast, so i used the full green color spectrum on this jacket, from the darkest to the lightest green i have:

View attachment 54157

At several points the lightest highlight and darkest base are right next to each other.
I hope i was still able to keep the look realistic besides the color range and the excessive highlights.

Several people painted the top part of the jacket in a different green.
But after closely watching the connection, i realised, its not an undercoat.
Its can be folded inwards but is connected to main jacket. Because it is made from the same materiel i used the same color.
Besides that, i used nearly the whole green spectrum and to paint two peaces with only slightly different base code right next to each other, does not add contrast it just makes the figure noisy.

I thought longer over the zipper colors. My research said iron and copper was both used in parkers at the time.
I went, like every one else, with copper. It looks so good, that i hesitated to wash it at all.
But the zipper is in a central spot and the shinning compare to the dark jacket is to dominant, so i washed it darker in the end.
I will keep this colors (olive green + Bronze) in mind for future projects. It can be an unusual but really awesome armor combination.

Straps:
I wanted to go for a black leather. The way i do black lather, starts with an base of dark brown.
After completing the base, i liked it so much, that i kept the brown.
I decided to keep the "worn out" effect to an minimum. The jacket is chaotic enough.

Scarf
A white scarf in the jungle in the middle of virtnam. Did not really know what to do with this one but decided in the end not to make it crazy dirty.
The white touch in the middle of the figure is kind of nice.

Progress so far:
View attachment 54202


UPDATE:

Scarf:
Repainted it completely. This time even cleaner.

Camera:
I found both Cameras:
Leika m3: http://www.kenrockwell.com/leica/m3/m3-de.htm
Nikon F: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/f.htm

I used an grey/cold-steal mix for the metal parts.
The Lenses are pure black with "wet effect" weather effect.
I painted reflections on the black plastic (not sure about this ones).

Decals:
I found the old leika logo but had to recreate the nikon logo of that time.
Then i printed them on decal paper and attached them to the cameras. The small text of the leika logo is even with 4200 dpi not printable so i cut it out. This was my first used decal ever! But printing and using was easier then thought (two tryes only).



View attachment 54203


---
I also fixed a lot of highlight mistakes that i noticed in the picture above.
The only thing left, is the final touch up at the end.



View attachment 54204

 

[anotherpainter]

@BloodASmedium
Thanks, i will try that. I was wondering what everyone means when they talk about color when it comes to faces. I thought they talk about the different skin colors.


While working on the camera i encountered some problems:

2) I bought few months ago decal paper for my printer and never used it.
Im thinking about printing some "Nokia" icons and raster-marker for the cameras.
Is this considered cheating?

3) Lenses: i have no clue how to paint glass... will delay this problem for later
EDIT: solved? see updated body post.

 

[Lone Lemming]

Check out the Hush, used decal, and nobody called it cheating.