Mattrock\'s First WIP - Tara the Silent

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mattrock

New member
I know the photo still isn\'t perfect but I\'m headed in the right direction. Here\'s the official first piece of my work I\'ve posted here.

The colors aren\'t exactly right because I still haven\'t figured out my image editing software, but the background should be pure white and all of the colors used thus far had a bit of purple mixed in. The other thing I\'m proud of on this one is that this is the first one I\'ve been able to get color into the eyes on. You can\'t see that in this pic but her eyes are a fairly bright green...I hope to get better pics that will show it when she is complete and posted.

Here\'s what I\'m looking for: General thoughts and comments; and most importantly ...I\'m stumped on the color to do her hair in. I\'ll keep working on my pics, but without further ado...Meet Mattrock\'s Tara the Silent: WIP



TaraWIP.jpg
 
Friar

Friar

Dorks for Orks
The skin looks very good an smooth, I\'d even say she had a cute face if I was 2 inches tall and made of pewter :) the clothes are very well done too.

the hair I see her being either a redish brunette or doin the hair in dark purple or black with purplish highlights

look forward to seein your mini and your photos progress they definatly deserrve proper showin off
 
lizcam

lizcam

New member
Mattrock can paint! Photos? Meh. But then I shouldn\'t talk. Try an overhead light and a dark background. But then my minis always score low because of the photos so I\'m probably not the person to talk to. You might PM matty1001. He\'s pretty good.
 
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mattrock

New member
Thanks for the comments thus far guys...

@ friar - For the hair I was kinda thinking black with purplish highlights as well, I just want to make sure she doesn\'t end up looking too goth....her skin is quite fair as I used some pretty unconventional colors to create it. By the way, if you can surmount the size difference, I hear she\'s available lol

@ liz - I\'ve grown a lot in my painting and would love to see my camera skills grow at the same rate. This pic was taken with natural light using a white sheet of paper as a background and no tripod so..... I\'ll get better now that I understand the basics though. When I take the final pics of her I plan to put her on a darker background and use multiple light sources...wish me luck. I appreciate the complement though...means a lot coming from you as I admire your work.

@ manus - no grey per se. The skin is actually a pretty simple mix of straight bleached bone with some hormagaunt purple (GW foundation range) mixed in. To shade I added more purple to that mix and to highlight I added more bleached bone and finally just a touch of pure white.
 
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skeeve

Member
Lovely mini

More front light, please (because some of my comments could be completely irrelevant if this picture was taken with sufficient front light)

The face looks great and what I like the most is \"the Jesus style\" of the painting.- The face is considerably brighter then the rest of the mini, creating good contrast and focus for the whole piece.

Leave the hair as is, just highlight them a little may be some blue/purple, green would look good too. Whatever you do though, keep them much darker then the face.

AS for the rest I would like to see more color and contrast variety (i understand that it is wip, but..). Boots, weapon need more highlight. I would try some orange-ish highlights. It is leather after all but here there are number of possibilities.
 
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mattrock

New member
@ skeeve - Thanks for the thoughts on the hair...that\'s kinda what I was thinking too. In regards to your other comments: The black parts that you see now (boots,straps, weapon, etc.) are showing only primer. They haven\'t been painted at all. The leather parts will be more of a brown with yellowish nuance to offset the purple in the rest of the piece. As to the lighting...I agree that it\'s not perfect it\'s just that this is the best pic I\'ve been able to get thus far of one of my minis. The light source is actually simply natural light coming through a window so it\'s terribly imperfect for this application, but I posted it to at least give an idea of color and shading/highlighting and ask for direction on the hair. I\'ll work much harder on the final pics. To be honest, I didn\'t intentionally do the \"Jesus\" thing with the face, but I did spend a significant amount of time getting it \"just so.\" Now that you mention it though...it does kindof glow compared to the rest of the mini. Complete accident, but I\'m glad it appears to work.


My overall idea here was to use purple in most all of the colors on this mini to create a rather cold (but not necessarily wintery) kind of atmosphere. The result is that the contrast stems more from low light to highlight on this piece for now (although that may change a bit when the leather parts are added.)

Thanks for the comments.
 
M

mattrock

New member
Another question:

She\'s standing on one of Reaper\'s sculpted bases. It\'s a rock but it looks almost dome-shaped so I can\'t incorporate it into a base with slate or anything like that as the edges on the sculpted rock are too rounded.

Ideas on basing and incorporating the rock rather than removing it? (her feet are pretty slight and I\'m a little trepidatious of removing the rock for fear of de-pedifying her.) I\'d like to do something nice for her but I suck at basing so any ideas you guys can share would be great.
 
Friar

Friar

Dorks for Orks
Originally posted by mattrock
Thanks for the comments thus far guys...

@ friar - By the way, if you can surmount the size difference, I hear she\'s available lol
Click to expand...

lol I think thats a bit too much of a size difference plus I think my girlfriend would kick my arse if she thought I was checking out a mini lol

as for the base I thought she was on a mound of sand don\'t know if that could be worked into it, if it\'s an obvious rock you could always go with a lil display base that one can get worked into a few gs rocks to keep that one company maybe a fallen tree, some static grass and leaf scatter and it\'d look mighty nice kinda like she\'s just come out of a forest to the edge of a meadow and is checking things out :)

I was thinking a dark hair color cuz she stikes me as a sneaky assasin type lady bright blonde hair just doesn\'t work in my mind for stalking thru the shadows lol
 
M

mattrock

New member
okay, so I painted the basecoats on the leather tonight in my originally planned yellowish nuanced brown and it came out looking a little orangy against the purplish/mauve of the clothes.

My plan was to add purple to that brown to shade it down and I still may do that but currently I\'m not impressed.

Looking at her now I\'m thinking I may actually prefer the look of black leather with some highlights rather than the currently planned brown. The thing is if I leave the leather black and just highlight it up, then I\'m not sure how to create contrast between her hair and the shoulder pad she wears that butts up against it.

Any feedback?
 
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mattrock

New member
I split the difference.

I left he straps black but I painted all the other leather a fairly dark brown with the brightest highlights in the graveyard earth realm. I like it quite a lot at this point, I just hope there\'s enough contrast. I think with the fairness of her skin and with the differences between high and low light will be enough, plus there\'s some light colored baubles on her here and there and there will eventually be metallics as well.

Not sure what color to do the ribbon in her hair though. The hair will be black with purplish highlights...Maybe just a bleached bone would look good for the ribbon?
 
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