Higerborne

[Goblinho]

Guys I'm looking for a bit of feedback on this mini. It's my first contri and I rated it about a six. Sorry for the quality of the photos. I really want to improve my painting standard and hope work on any flaws you point out. Thanks in advance

http://www.coolminiornot.com/289318

 

[PegaZus]

Alert! Alert! Honesty forthcoming! All hands, brace for impact!

The colors are very simplistic (red, green, blue). And they also lack depth. The green cloak is nearly a single color, for example. The boots get drowned out by the wood stump he's on, so it may have been better to have contrasted them more. The stone work seems very, organic. And by that, I mean I can't really tell if it was meant to be part plant, or if it was supposed to be mossy covered in places. Oh look! Arrows! Again, not enough contrast. Not sure the red sword does much, either. Same for the blue hair. Oh, and there's a bow! It looked like part of the cloak decoration.

Now that I've finished ripping the mini and paint, time to rip the photo. The background was distracting. Find a single piece backdrop for the next one.

And there. I've finished being mean. Now on to the nice things.

The metallics are very nice, IMO. Skin tones aren't a problem either. The base sculpting is very nice, and I think you did a good job with the multiple levels. The roots could be thinner, but they'll do.

All in all, a well deserved 6.5 (where it stands at this writing).

 

[Goblinho]

Thanks mate, all the things you have pointed out are things I kind of thought myself. The cloak has a bit more depth IRL but still not enough. First mini I have painted in a loooong time but I have the taste back for it now. Colours wise I was limited in terms of what I have available (Basic GW selection and a few washes). Thanks for the pointer about the back drop too, never realy noticed how distracting it was till you pointed it out cheers mate

 

[jcichon]

I am going to agree and disagree with pegazus on this one. Your colors lack any depth and you can push your highlights and shadows a lot more. My hats off on the base because all too often basework is sorely neglected, myself included. Granted you can push your aforementioned shading/highlighting on it also. It's great you have gotten back into the hobby and dont stop. You have sound fundamentals and that will get better with time. My suggestion is to go to youtube and watch a few video's from Obsidian Painting. It's Gary Lucas' video's and I learned a lot by watching them. Watch this one http://youtu.be/xfnmDVfgxSM
It's on painting the wings to a sanguinor. It shows how he does glazing and I learned a lot by watching it. Maybe you will get something out of it too.

 

[Goblinho]

Hey jcichon, watched that video had to watch it with volume down due to a sleeping baby. What was he using on the wings in the first part, was it paint thinner? Seemed to evaporate pretty quick. Thanks for the feedback anyway. I don't think the photo is doing the painting much justice, so thats sometihing I need to read up on. Colourwise it has a bit more depth on it than in the photo.
When you say about pushing the contrast on the cloak it was goblin green with a green wash built up over a few layers then skull white mixed in to push the highlights. Do you just mean going darker on the shadows and lighter on the highlights?

Oh btw I've just listed this on ebay, hope to get £20 quid for it (Wishfull thinking) bearing in mind its £10.50 new.

 

[jcichon]

Not paint thinner. It was just super thinned water and paint. This is glazing. Say about 8 parts water to one part paint. Wipe off your brush well and then wipe the brush across the area to be painted. If you emptied your brush well enough thats about all you will see is the glaze dry almost instantly. This is basically how you build up the color transition. Notice how the color changes in the wing feathers were really seamless without transition lines. Thats what glazing is basically. If done right, you will not see any transition lines and to me it looks so good. Glazing takes longer but the effect is really nice. some painters get really nice transitions without doing a lot of glazing but I havent figured it out yet. Try some other videos. SOme of them out there are really good and thats the way I learn the best is by watching rather than reading it. Obsidianpainting has some good videos on wet blending also.
As for photograpy, I struggle with it too. My pics got a lot better when I changed my white balance settings but still have a long way to go for better pics. As for the green. Try and lessen the washes and go with glazing your highlight colors. Takes longer but you will be more happy with it. ANy other questions just let me know. I'll be happy to help with my limited knowledge!