Everyone is saying amusing lines on their titles about having a WIP thread!

[Bill]

Dark Elf Corsair WIP

Sorry for the dark photos, and please ignore the shininess in the scales - that is caused by ink. I\'m trying hard with the whole zenithal lighting thing on this mini, and I\'m quite pleased with the face so far (I used white with greys, purples, blues and greens - he has green eyes ). Ignore everything (Especially the colour test on the severed head lol) apart from the face and the upper torso. Axe is almost finished, I\'m trying (failing) to emulate Automaton\'s awesome blood splatter effects.

Any feedback appreciated

~Bill

 

[MathewBaich]

lookin pretty cool so far. the flesh looks pretty interesting. What does the term, \"zenithal lighting\", mean anyways. never heard it before.

 

[OrkBoy]

Nice work so far Bill- I\'ve always wanted to paint that model, though I doubt I will ever get round to it...:|~

I like the purplish tint on the skin, very cold and suits the mood of the piece well. I like the look of the green eyes, very evil
:evil:

The blood looks good, but maybe you should thin down the red, as the streaks wouldn\'t be as opaque as the high concentration in the middle. Just seeing automaton\'s ork (me likey very much) I think you should maybe increase the contrast between the darker and lighter parts of blood e.g. make the central mass of blood darker.
I think the blood will, however, look much better when you have glossed it over.


BTW, what\'s zenithal lighting? I\'ve looked over the articles section and can\'t seem to find anything. ???

Cool model, very cool paintjob. Great work
:drunk:

Cheers,
Tom

 

[Dragonsreach]

Zenithal lighting is the term used to decribe lighting from directly or almost directly above a miniature.
In the majority of cases this is achieved by priming the miniature black and then when the primer is dry, lightly giving the mini a dusting of White primer from above the figure so that there is still a majority of Black primer.
(Sort of like a dusting of Snow on a statue.)

The White primer gives the starting point of where the highlights and lighter areas will go.

 

[Bill]

Thanks guys

Re zenithal lighting, it was a term I heard used by Cyril and some oher awesome painters, and I used it because it sounded cool DR is right I think, most often it is achieved with a dusting of white primer upon black (you can see this in a CMON article by Cyril here somewhere), but I didn\'t do that myself. In fact, I didn\'t have any primer let alone white at the time, so I just painted him black lol

The way I interpreted it was to basically show more clearly where the light is coming from (here from the top), and highlighting accordingly. That\'s why highlights on his shoulder are pure white, and then fade to bleached bone, then codex grey with a bit of bleached bone, then codex grey... I also added small amounts of blue and purple to give a more shadowy feel to the shadows You can see a great example of the sort of effect I was trying to achieve on Cyril\'s Nurgle Champ. Luvly stuff.

Here are some less offensively huge pics of my elf which hopefully give you a better idea of what I was attempting

Tom: Good point about the blood. it\'s not finished yet, I\'ll take your advice when I continue :twisted:

Cheers folks

~Bill

 

[Avelorn]

lovely work so far! Might become your my favourite from you if you keep this up!

How do you do when you blend? You are already very good but it\'s always a good idea to evaluate your painting process and see if there is something to improve. Myself, I\'ve more and more starting to first put the lights out roughly and then mix intermediary tones and work on the transitions until they disappear. Usually I mix 3 highlights and 2-3 shadings on my palette and have them ready. One of the most important part of the blending technique is actually knowing which colour you have where. As long as you know that you can always fix mistakes. Doing it by eye can be difficult as many colours dry much darker then they are wet.

I also think you should consider to try priming with white as an experiment as you seem to take more care of the highlighting then the shading right now. It\'s easy to get a bit lazy when priming black and when you use white you force yourself to take more care of the shading step!

need to paint that mini myself as well sometimes.. might be my next project actually! Thank you, you\'ve inspired me!

 

[Orb]

Zenithal lighting is nothing more than directional lighting, but not object source lighting. Bill\'s description is perfect.
Over the years it\'s been refered to a the \"60 degree halo of light\" (Shep Paine - How to build dioramas, about 1982) and \"overhead lighting\" (Raul Latorre book in 1990 ish). The Zenithal description seems to be used recently by European painters, to describe a solid source of light that need not be from above. History lesson over.................


Sven.......sounds like you\'re using a similar technique to Jaume Ortiz (check out Glooms\' gallery on here). he lays out all the intermediate shades and when he lays on the main highlights/shadows it can look quite ugly, but then refines it by blurring the boundaries................

 

[Ogrebane]

The flesh tones are awesome bill. Man your a better painter than me already sigh. Oh well its only a hobby for me.

Love your work.

 

[demonherald]

looking fantastic Bill ...this is the next thing I need to practise and this is really kicking me in the butt to have a go.
keep it up I will be watching with interest.

 

[Swordwind]

I think we\'re gonna have to break Bill\'s fingers soon. He\'s making the rest of us look bad lol

 

[Bill]

lol Thanks guys!

Sven: you\'re right about the blending; With this one I am mostly focusing on the colours. I usually use a basecoat (here a thin Codex Grey), and then highlight with wetblending as well as regular layering, so here a glaze of Bleached Bone over the highlight points, with white added incrementally to this and focused more on the high points like his shoulder. I have always udnercoated in black before, but am finding it a bit irritating now, expecially with yellows and reds... so many bloody layers :evil: I\'m going to try a lovely white undercoat on Ahnamoth and Kaernus, which I\'ll HOPEFULLY get for Christmas, so I can paint \'em Allan C style Glad I inspired you lol

Cheers folks!!

~Bill

 

[Avelorn]

Originally posted by Orb
Sven.......sounds like you\'re using a similar technique to Jaume Ortiz (check out Glooms\' gallery on here). he lays out all the intermediate shades and when he lays on the main highlights/shadows it can look quite ugly, but then refines it by blurring the boundaries................

Yeah.. the first inspiration I got from Arkaal actually, but he does it in another way. I have always used intermediary layers (namely.. new layer glaze over the transition and so on) but when I read the bust tutorial by Jaume Ortiz I realise that it is a far better idea as you have much more control where you put the lights.. and how long the transition will be if you understand what I mean. So now I\'m experminenting with that. I\'m not puttin out all lights/shades yet as he do, but I will try that very soon.

@Bill Good luck!

 

[Highbulp Billy]

Bill, I\'m seriously impressed. The style of this mini reaks of evil atmosphere and is very evocative (trying to sound like a professional art critic). The stark colours work so well with the sculpt I can tell that this is going to be something special from you.

 

[OrkBoy]

Sorry Bill, guess I didn\'t read it carefully :drunk:

Anyway, keept on at it!

Cheers,
Tom

 

[Torn blue sky]

Looking gooood. The colour for the skin\'s perfect (cold one) really like whats going on there :yes:
I like to blend dark to light personally. I stop at colours so I can take a break. Like scab red mix to crimson gore
That way I know exactly where I am

Keep up the good work..that is all, carry on.

 

[OrkyDave]

great choice of colours Bill and the overhead lighting is looking very nice. Those scales are awasome but not as awesome as the face!!

Have you given any thought to the base yet? I am only asking cause if you were thinking of a snow base, would this reflect light and affect the highlights of the lower portion of the model? Just a thought and something to consider, but ;A) I am not that technical a painter and may be talking out of my arse, and
B) You may not do a snow base so what I said doesn\'t matter anyways!

Anyway looking great, will be cool to watch this one progress.

Cheers,

Dave

 

[Bignastyshark]

oooh eyes

Great start,

I love the eyes on this bad boy,

I like the idea for the zegemathingy painting, might have a go at that my self,

well i ll keep an eye out on this post,

Cheers Iain

 

[Bill]

Cheers all :beer:

Dave: re snow, he may well have a snow base, but he\'s suppose to look like he is in the dark with only moonlight to illuminate him, so to be honest I can\'t be arsed to paint light reflecting off the base

I redid the axe, after some great advice from automaton, so here goes:

Sorry for shitty photo again I did Seb\'s recommended glazing on his forehead too, and it helped a lot, but I couldn\'t get a photo to show it properly I did what he described with the axe, and I hope you will agree that it looks a lot better! I shaded it with shadow grey, regal blue, ice blue, liche purple and scorched brown - overall it has quite a similar cool feel to the tones of his face, which I like. The blood also looks a bit better too Please ignore the red skirty thing, and the severed head... I need to think of a new colour for the skirty thing (the red doesn\'t fit in at all well with the colour scheme), and the head needs more work

Cheers!

~Bill

 

[MathewBaich]

looks nice. the dark elf\'s head and the blood look much better now. Why don\'t you try a blue or the bone color you used on the scales on the skirty thing.

 

[OrkBoy]

Wow! That\'s ace!

I see what you mean there about the zenithal stuff - before i read the explanation I could easily see the effect you wanted to create. You pulled it off superbly! :beer:

The axe looks a hell of a lot better now! I still think it needs a slight highlight on the bottom inside of the blade though.
And the blood looks better as you said.

The face looks a lot smoother, it is one of the best parts of the piece. For me the best part is the scales - they are tres cool!

I think the severed head is coming along reaaally nicely - looks really battered IMO!

As for the cloth colour, maybe try a brown/ grey colour to tie in with the scales?

Great progress Bill. Thumbs up from me!

Cheers,
Tom