Part 5: The Head
Not learning by doing
I started and striped the head dozen times (no primer after try 3).
I got kind of randomly better on some tries but the last 5 got worse and worse. The last try looked like a 5 year old throw the peace in some paint pots.
It did crossed my mind to just
stick a bubblegum on the figure and call it an head.
After a 2 week break i realised the problem was the unmethodical approach.
If im able to paint something nice but cant reproduce it, its worthless. I have to structure everything in clear steps and only think and focus on the step ahead.
So no more tries. I primed the head and went for the final approach:
View attachment 54625
The Start: Primed B&W and base-coated
Eyes
Like i wrote on the pre-thougt post, i want to create the 2000 yard stare.
That means a big round iris in the middle of the eye, slightly upwards. I learned in a video once to first paint a red layer and then a white over it and leave the borders left standing. Thats how i did the red in the eye in the past, but this time i painted the off-white first and wet painted the red on it to have a more smother transition. As iris i used first a middle - then a light brown. The times where i can actually paint iris pattern are not there yet
The pupil is real black and the light reflection is real white (this is the only part of a figure where i break with the "No real B&W" rule).
Obvious the task of creating the 2000 yard stare on a miniature is very hard. Im not good enough to really create it. However the figure looks kind of into nothing, when you see it in real-life, so im reasonable pleased with it.
View attachment 54626
Steps of the eye.
Skin 1: Colors
I used the following colors for skin
Basecoad: Midland flesh (middle skin tone)
Dark1: Midland Flesh 2 : Blood tracker brown 1
Dark2: Khardic Flesh 2 : Blood tracker brown 1
light1: Midland Flesh 1 : Ryn Flesh 1
light2: Ryn Flesh
Skin 1: Area coloring
Many people do the complete Skin with glazes.
I tried to do that but found it very difficult to remember for each little area where i want what color (light level). So first i paint all areas with the final color.
To make the fading easier later, i wet blend the borders of the colors. First i mixed dry retarder in every color. I start with a new base-coat. Then i paint the shadow1 areas (everything that is in the shadow) and wet-blend it into the base-coat. Next i wet-blend the deep shadows with shadow2 into shadow1 ... and so on.
The problem here is that you cant wet-blend everything or you would end up with to many layers.
So i used it only for the big dark areas and painted the lights dry.
I mixed dark blue into shadow1 for the dark spots under the eye.
View attachment 54627
Finished Area coloring
Skin 2: Glazing
I mixed glazes out of all 5 ground colors and then used them to make the transition of the Areas smother. Sound easy enough but i spend more time here then on all other steps together.
Wash and Highlights
First i painted all folds with darks. What dark i used depended on the surrounding area.
In the past i used p3 Flesh wash with very little success. It took me a lot of time to find out, that you don't actually want to "wash" all the work you did with the glazes.
So i took the flesh wash and diluted it 5:1. I basically glazed the skin red.
After that i positioned my lamp exactly where my light-spot is and highlighted where the light bounces off the skin.
View attachment 54628
Finished glaze and highlight
Lips + Eyebrows + Beard + Color
Lips:
Khardic Flesh base, then different highlight lines and glazed in with khardic flesh again.
Eyebrows:
Just many very tiny lines that move away from the eye.
Beard:
I thought very long over the beard. First i did not want to paint it at all. Then i decided to give him a very thin one. However while painting it keeps growing...
I used one layer of brown thin lines and then washed the bread and the surrounding brown. For lightning i repeated the -line and wash- step with different browns.
Last step for the skin are the color glazes. Top yellow, cheeks red and bottom blue like BloodASmedium suggested.
On the middle picture it looks like i overdid the yellow, but it highly depends on the angle and light.
View attachment 54629
Finished beard
The Hair
My first brown hair so i had to figure out a color range.
First i used a brown glaze for the hairline (I actually did this step together with the beard).
And then i had a relapse.
wet-blend, highlight, wash, different highlight, wet-glaze, shadow-wash, highlight ...
short: blendgazewashighlightpaint
No clue what or how i painted it... looks like he was dark blond all along...
View attachment 54630
Hair
Result:
View attachment 54631
I learned a lot on this head and i have a strong love/hate relationship with it ...
I feel like buying a bust without a peace of skin for my next project
Left to do: Mounting, Final touch up and photographing.
Sadly my wood base guy don't have the base i want in stock right now, so it can take a while.
What do you think about the head? Anything you don't like or ideas for improvment?
No wrong restraint. I can take it.
