Lathiem, Conquerer

[demonelf3]

Hi, I just wanted to have this little log of my work on Lathiem here, to ge the comments of some great painters. So here goes.

I prepped, primed, and undercoated Lathiem. I used Blue Liner instead of Brown, while didn\'t come out as nice. Lesson learned. I also sculpted a certain part (unskilfully) that was rubbed badly, see if you can find it. Shouldn\'t be too hard, since I suck at using Green stuff. The premise behind this mini comes from 2 sources: My recent research of ancient Rome, and Microart studios.

I love reading about Germanic tribesman, and Lathiem seems to fit that theme very well. The broken base reminded me of some grand old structure like a church, so I put 2 and 2 together and said, \"Hey let\'s have a barbarian king sanding on the ruins of the church he sacked!\" Probably won\'t start for a couple days. What do ya\'ll think?

(Contrast bumped for reference)

Comments, suggestions and critiques welcome.

 

[demonelf3]

Painted his right arm. Took me about an hour and a half. I decided to paint him as a dark elf after looking at my Drizzt books. Good times good times. So lacking a recipe, I came up with one of my own!

Basecoat: Ashen Brown

Shadows: 1st- Add clouded sea. 2nd- Add Blue Liner. 3rd- Use Brown Liner to warm up.

Highlights: 1st- Add ghost white. 2nd- A spot of pure white.

This resulted in a very cool color. I took my inspiration from the great franciuus. Feedback always appreciated.

Sam

 

[demonelf3]

I swear to god this figure is awesome. I am so psyched about it. It might be my best yet at the rate it\'s going. I painted the face in about a half hour. Since I (foolishly) rubbed a lot of detail off the face, aka all the detail, I had to freehand it. I even rubbed off the nose, but TADAA, I sculpted the new one. I tried to give him a really evil look, and this face has really taught me a ton about painting faces in general. It does still need a bit of shading. The eyes I did lavender, which in such small areas look red. Lavender, Drizzt tribute. C&C appreciated.

 

[Amazon warrior]

His face looks good. I think if you want detailed crits, tho, you\'re gonna have to give us bigger pictures to look at. For at least the first couple of post in this thread, I knew there was a mini there, but that was pretty much all I knew.

...What do you mean by \"rubbed off\"? Was this an overenthusiastic prepping accident.....?

 

[demonelf3]

Thanks Amazon. I\'ll get closer pics. It was an overenthusiastic prepping accident, I rubbeda bit too hard with some sandpaper.

 

[demonelf3]

Ok, painted the chest but it still needs smoothing. This was the closest I could get without blur.

 

[demonelf3]

OK, skin is 90% done. Still need to smooth the blends, and glaze in a bit of liche purple. Feedback appreciated.

 

[Chrome]

I must admit that I had my doubts about your skin looking drow when you started out, but damn! This is turning into one beautiful piece!

 

[mickc22]

Loking nice as Chrome has said, some nice blending there, but for those of us \"visually challenged\" types it can be a bit difficult to see at that size,
so....I\'ve taken the liberty to have a play with one of your picks in Gimp

All I\'ve done is:
1. crop closer to the mini
2. used Auto level to adjust
3. re-sized to 600 pixels wide (better quality going down from an original pic than coming up from an edited one ) to give an idea of the size
I usually re-size from between 400-600 pixels depending on the mini, and being a supporter also gives the advantage of being able to go up to 200kb

keep up the good work

 

[Amazon warrior]

Originally posted by Chrome
I must admit that I had my doubts about your skin looking drow when you started out, but damn! This is turning into one beautiful piece!

Seconded! I wasn\'t sure where you were going with the brown, but this is looking very promising! What were the steps between the brown look and the grey look?

 

[demonelf3]

Thanks guys! And thanks fror the pic, Mick! I\'ll do it like that fom now on. OK, here\'s how I turn it from brown to grey. Basecoat RMS Ashen Brown. Then I take a drop of Clouded Sea (all paints RMS unless noted), and glaze that into the shadows. It takes on an almost verdigris look in the shadows at that point.

Next, I take pure clouded sea and glaze that in to the shadows. It is pure verdigris now. So to bring back the real shadow as opposed to the sort of aqua blue, I add a drop of Blue Liner to the Clouded Sea and glaze that in a few times. This really makes the shadows come out. Then I glaze in pure Blue Liner.

Next I glaze in pure Brown Liner to bing back some warmth, as it\'s looking distinctly blue. Once I\'ve go the shadows realtively grey, I do midtone glazes and smooth. Highlights are simple: add Ghost White to Ashen Brown and highlight up to Ghost White. Then I decided the glaze in some GW Liche Purple. Shown below. Subtle, but I like how it looks.

Whew, a little lengthy, but I like the results! Thanks for looking, now does anyone have some ideas about what color to do the fur?

Hair was done with a basecoat of Ghost White, highlighted with Pure White, shaded with Cloudy Grey, Seafoam Blue, GW Liche Purple, and Ashen Blue. As always, your suggestions are invaluable.

 

[Amazon warrior]

Ok, you\'re gonna hate for this, but I\'ve got to say it. Something was bothering me a bit about the figure, but I couldn\'t put my finger on what it was, but then I was looking at your past pictures and it came to me. It\'s the highlights on his pectoral muscles - I don\'t think they\'re in the right place compared with all the other skin highlights. On his head, arms and abdomen, the light appears to be zenithal, but on his pecs, the light seems to be shining from straight on. It\'s more obvious now because the difference between the bright and dark areas is so clear now. I don\'t know if you\'d be willing or able to change it at this stage, but I hope you don\'t mind me pointing it out.

 

[Chrome]

I\'m not sure I agree with Amazon about the light... To me it feels like everything is reflected as if the light came from the front, almost zenithal, only a few degrees in front of him...

 

[demonelf3]

Amazon, don\'t be afraid to crit. That\'s why I post here, and your comments are very helpful. But here I feel like I gotta disagree (to an extent). The reason I didn\'t do the highlights up top is because the place I\'ve highlighted juts out more than the rest of the pecs. I checked some of the great Lathiems on this site, some have highlights up further ,and half have the brightest concentrated on the center. But I definitely understand your point, so I will change something. Again, thanks so much, I really appreciate it.

 

[Amazon warrior]

I think I\'d be convinced if there was a bit more highlight along the tops of the muscle groups, as well as in the centre. I understand about that bit being the most prominent part, but felt there was something missing. I\'m glad it was helpful!

(I\'m actually not a huge fan of the model, so I haven\'t looked at many variations on the theme.)

 

[demonelf3]

Ok, I see what you mean. I looked at Franciuus\'s version again, and he has three bands going across the chest, maybe I\'ll go for something like that.

 

[demonelf3]

Fur worked on a lot. I actually dug out my old unopened RPPs! Basecoated in Grey Liner, then drybrushed GW Scorched Brown. Then I began adding in hawkwood and layered that on, to pure hawkwood. Then from hawkwood up to griffon tan, then up to ghost white. Then I shaded back with scorched brown.

 

[demonelf3]

Basecoated the wraps in cloudy grey, then did the skins. I wanted to keep the cool theme going, but have this be a bit more neutral without hopefully disrupting the coolness. Also I thought some odd looking skin of an underdark beast would be nice. I basecoated with driftwood, a very neutral brown, and shaded with clouded sea, brown liner, green liner, blue liner, and ashen brown. I highlighted with ghost white. Needs extra work, but it\'s getting there. The chest highlights were expanded.

Any suggestions as to what to do with the wraps are appreciated. At present I\'m thinking of keeping it similar ot the skin.

 

[ScottRadom]

I\'d vary the color from the skin. Maybe a khaki or something. I\'m a big fan of VMC Brown Violet mixed with VMC Grey Green as well. Looking good, like the fur. I also agree with Amazon Warrior about the pec muscles. I also agree with her about not loving the model though, so also take that with a grain of salt. Good stuff, really like the muted pallete.

 

[demonelf3]

Sword almost done, put 45 mins of work into it. Need to smooth the blends here as well, really what I\'m starting to see with NMM is that blending is tougher because the highlight has shadow on two sides. I  feel like I said that before. =P


Basecoat of 80:20 cloudy greyale violet

Shading done in blue liner, highlighting from cloudy grey to pure white.