BloodFather's Axis of Chaos

Canny

Active member
kickstarter's are so tempting my mini account is in ruins at the mo. The start on the bricks looks great, good highlighting. accedent or not I like how the highlights are more at the top and middle.
 

oistene

Active member
You're welcome, BF - I'm trying hard to NOT back the KS, spent way too much on Kickstarters last year...

But it is so much FUN... :D
 

Khonner

New member
I think that's a pretty solid TMM for your first attempt at it. It's better than my attempts and there's been more than one. Not sure if that helps or not. Also, sorry to hear that you are not going to be at Crystal brush this year, hopefully you can make it out next year.
 

Bailey03

Well-known member
Looks good. I really like the color and you've got some nice shine to the lighter sections.

TMM can be hard to critique since the lighting conditions of the photo can change how things look, mess with shadows, etc. So, take this advice with a grain of salt and evaluate how the figure actually looks in person. My advice is to use pure citrine alchemy (undiluted) to hit more of the edges on the brighter metal sections. A thin line along the top of those arms going out from the center, along the very top edge of the whole piece, and even on the sides (not all along the sides, but the sides are jagged, so in spots where it's angled to form an upper surface).

I attached a compilation images from some of my projects. There are a couple shots of Sumothay's armor, notice the thin bright lines along a lot of the edges. On the boy Arthur's shield, notice the bright line on the right. And then there's the trumpet from the Officer of the Guide.

When you try to paint those thin lines, you can repaint the colors on either side to help narrow the highlight line. You'll have to decide which mix to use based on the color of the armor in person, but I'd probably use something like 50/50 Elven Gold and Citrine Alchemy up to pure Citrine Alchemy (varying the intensity of the highlight line as I got towards brighter areas).
 
Bailey of course you hit the nail on the head. I knew in the back of my mind that more edge highlighting would do the trick. It's not showing up too well, but there is quite a bit in some of the areas that you mentioned. And I even did some with pure elven, some others with citrine, and others still with a mix of both. And what's more, I even intuitively knew not to dilute them so as to make it easier to apply. I do admit where I came up short though, on some of those inside edges I lost patience and didn't build up a nice edge layer, because I kept over painting here and there. Thought about actually dry brushing the edges, actually, to avoid getting citrine alchemy mixed in with my darker under tones. Suppose it's just patience and surgical brush control, eh? Thanks for the tips, mate!
 
The more traditional metallic shapes are no problem when it comes to TMM. Also, when they say that True metallics and non-metallics follow the same light principles, well, they ain't lyin'. Not perfect but I sorta rushed it due to time constraints and it's not half bad when the light hits it just so....
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Bailey03

Well-known member
BFK, I really like the contrast on the blade. Nice darks on the blade!

Digga, it's the same figure. How you use the camera can really change how big the figure looks. I treat it like portrait pictures, I step back and then zoom all the way in (as opposed to zooming out and then standing closer). Try both sometime and see the difference.
 
Thanks friends. Glad you like it but Gokan just ain't tootin my flute lately, so been pursuing other projects. Completely randomly, and more as a side project, I started on a Chosen a Chaos that I've had for years and have always wanted to paint. He is going to be a dark blue steel, but more importantly all the trim is done in NMM gold.

A bit of background on my gold NMM. I've never been happy with it. AndyG provided me with some great one on one time long ago, and while his lessons were spot on, something just wasn't adding up for me. I was using, among other experiments, VGC Leather Brown as my base. The choice of this base color is important, because this color is pretty much just given more and more ivory to desaturate it, and that's it. So if the base is off, it's not going to jive. So I decided to order a pot of Snakebite Leather, which Andy uses and I wanted but had to order from Italy. It arrived recently, and I wanted to test the results out on this Chosen. I think we have a resounding success...
 

Canny

Active member
BFK that is looks astonishing compaired to your last efforts! next level there mate. Great progress pic looking forward to some black in there and afew glints of white and you got it :)
 
Right. Forgot those. I added a purple glaze on the face mask, but nowhere else. Got too excited with the result and started snapping photos :) Also, I put down some tiny pure white glare points, but they are mostly placed next to already bright areas so they're hard to see. I suppose it's wise to place a few in areas where they will contrast more and stand out.
 

Bailey03

Well-known member
Your projects keep getting better and better. The snakebite leather is really working well. I like the shadows on the mask but the rest could be a bit darker, especially on those huge pieces on the standard/staff. I think adding the rest of those purple glazes should take care of that. Really nice work!
 
Ok so I did this here dark armor. It's a black gradient so mostly dark coming to sudden light highlights. I think it's ok, and will likely look better when all parts are highlighted, yet I can't help but think I could do better. The alternative would be to use my go to steel gradient. This is a spectrum with equal parts black, gray, and white. So your standard steel gray. However, I would go over it with dark glazes when complete to try to make it darker. Please tell me if I should keep it. I am leaning towards not keeping but perhaps I am wrong...
 
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