Elisha Lightedge

[kmdl1066]

My first submission. Kinda, I submitted something ages ago but that was in connection with a question. Also, the first figure I have painted for non-wargaming purposes in about 3 years.

Vote on it here.

The leaf pattern freehand on the cloak is quite subtle, so I had to up the contrast on the photo a little to get it to show, which unfortunately makes the final skin highlight whiter than it actually is.

I give myself a 7 for the figure with the following comments:

1. Thin paint more. I\'m not comfortable with semi-translucent yet.
2. Get better brushes. This figure was painted with $2 Testor hobby brushes. See my rant below.
3. Subtle freehand does not photograph well! In future use a higher contrast color.

Comments and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

My rant:
I\'ve got a bunch of GW brushes that I\'ve had for 5 or 6 years and they\'ve been great. But by now they\'re only good for table-top stuff. So I got some more GW brushes. They\'re #&%$@ awful! Don\'t hold any sort of a point and every one had a couple of extra long hairs. They\'re not even as good as my 5 year old GW brushes. I had a couple of new cheapo Testors brushes which at least held a point. Has anyone ever bought anything from Dick Blick Art ? They seem to have reasonable prices.

Sean

 

[supervike]

This is very well done.

Just the sheer attention to detail makes this much higher than a 7.

Subtle shading and detail is something that is tough, because in real life, It works/ and looks so much better than it can be photographed. Especially when you need to bump up the contrast to see something else. I\'m assuming the little dragon and the highlights on the hair gets washed out a bit along with the flesh.

One other criticism, is that the photo is a bit blurry. Don\'t ask me how to fix it, cause all mine are blurrier, but maybe one of the many digital camera gurus can help you out here.

I certainly hope this is the first of many submissions we will see of yours.

Oh, and I\'m not as stingy as you. I give it a 9!!

 

[Infidel Castro]

If you get the contrast sorted on the mini and just liven the piece up a bit, you\'ll have a damned fine fig on your hands. Your painting is otherwise excellent. Said the same thing to a guy on another thread earlier on today, but it pays to repeat these things lol

 

[Broke n English]

Been and voted...

Firstly,lovely figure,I like the breasts and the cloak (not often you get to say that without receiving a smack in the chops!) The freehand elements to the cloak look nice,I\'m impressed that you did that with Testors brushes,if they\'re anything like the GW ones.What size was the brush used for the detailing/freehand? I use Daler-Rowney as thats all thats availailable to me,a 2 and a 5/0 usually cover most things for me! I looked at that shop you posted but I couldn\'t find anything I\'d use,I\'m hopeless lol Nice figure,cheers

 

[donga666]

Looks good, everyone has said it all and I will shut up now lol

Gave her a 8

 

[kmdl1066]

@supervike : Good point. It\'s not blurry on the original. I need to experiment with the different resizing algorithms in paint shop pro.

@reverend : Good advise, I\'ll try that out.

@Broke n English : I used a 5 year old Standard size GW brush for base coats, size 0 testors for almost everything else, size 000 testors for the little flower inside the cloak and some highlights (eg. the gold highlights on the cloak braids).

Thanks for the positive and helpful feedback.

Sean

 

[Celthulhu]

Damn brushes

Jim and I go through soooooo many brushes.
We have a paintbrush graveyard in our living room/studio. A pile of old, curled brushes that are only purpose is to hold up some of my house plants.
We use Loew-Cornell brushes, which we buy at Michael\'s (a craft store in the US). We use the spotter brushes for most of the painting. Jim has said that the larger spotters like a 0, 1 or 2 are better for glazing, and we use liner brushes for freehand work and darklining. We\'ll usually go as small as an 18/0.
They all start to curl on the tips within days of use, but they don\'t seem to curl as fast as other brands we\'ve tried.

 

[Broke n English]

18/0...

...and I thought my stripped down 5/o\'s were small! @kmdl 1066--I imagined you using giant brushes lol

 

[kmdl1066]

Ignore me. <edit now that I actually read things properly>

Sean

 

[Wappellious]

Dick Blick art supplies

Like Cathy said, we use the L.C. brushes for the most part.

I have bought art supplies from Dick Blick for many years, and they are very good.

If you buy a certain amount of stuff, the shipping is free. That is about $200 these days, unfortunately!

I noticed that you did some freehand stuff on your mini, and it looked fantastic. If you are getting yourself some new brushes, a few nice liner brushes could make your life easier.

They are useless for almost everything else but freehand, since they are longer and flexible than a normal brush. Still, a great thing for any freehand maniac to have around!

Best of luck with your painting!

 

[kmdl1066]

Updates after feedback

To give the figure a bit more visual oomph I brought the little dragon up to another level of highlight, made the leaves on the staff more golden-yellow than red-brown, and changed the freehand from subtle green to copper. I also tried to learn more about light & color balancing in Paint Shop Pro.

The copper freehand looks really really good in real life. It\'s very bright and reflects light off the highlights very nicely. Unfortunately it turned out to be a bugger to photograph. The best I could do with diffused light was get the above halo type effect, where the lines look thicker and slightly blurred. Most of my photograph attempts ended up with the light from my lamps reflecting as silver instead of copper! Like this:

No wonder people like NMM for photos.

Its been fun examining the differences between what works for real life viewing and what works for photographs. Because I\'m useless at black, when I next get a chance to paint I plan to try a vampire figure with a big black cloak.

@Wappellious and Celthulhu : Thanks for the feedback on Dick Blick. Their prices for WN series 7 are less than GW brushes at the local store! At least the smaller size brushes are.

Thanks again for all the helpful suggestions.

Sean