My first CMoN submission -- Blood Bowl dark elf

lahatiel

New member
Finally, after being on these forums for three and a half years, I\'ve submitted my first miniature to the site -- taking that long because he\'s the first miniature I\'ve done in over four years. Comments and criticisms are most important to me, as they\'re far more important to the improvement of my skills than is a numeric score. So if you want to offer a comment without having to click over to the actual submission page, here\'s the picture followed by the explanation I wrote there:

darkelfcatcher.jpg



This is my first miniature, so please indulge me a bit of preamble. I\'ve painted a dozen or so miniatures before this guy, but the most recent was more than four years ago. Back then, I had no clue about the finer points of painting -- I used paint straight from the bottle without thinning, with cheap, poor quality synthetic brushes, had only the most rudimentary concept of shading and highlighting, had no idea about conversions and green stuff, etc. I\'ve spent those last four years reading CMoN and a host of other mini sites every day so I now know a lot about painting in a \"book smarts\" sense, but this is the first time I\'ve ever attempted to put any of that newfound knowledge to use. Obviously I\'d have liked to have done better, but I guess I\'m happy with him as a first attempt and know I\'ll get better with more time spent actually painting rather than reading.

The figure was done as part of a group project, so certain aspects were pre-determined by group vote. He had to have red-with-bone armor, light blue, on a green base with sand and grass, and my forum name had to be on the base in yellow (which, in Blood Bowl, is associated with the \"catcher\" position).

The figure is originally from 1988 and is a receiver in Blood Bowl, Games Workshop\'s fantasy football game -- loosely based on American football, so the figure is supposed to catching a thrown ball. By way of conversion, I\'ve cut off the left arm, which was originally molded across the body, and sculpted a new arm and chest from green stuff. The right arm and head have both been turned 90 degrees to the front and the legs were adjusted so he\'d be leaping. I also cut a spike off his left shoulder pad, and built the right pad up a little more.

Coincidentally enough, the same original figure was part of the last group I\'d painted, those four years ago. So if you\'d care to see what the unconverted figure looks like, as well as what my painting was like back then, have a look at http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v668/lahatiel/miniatures/old_catcher.jpg

Finally, although comments matter more, I wouldn\'t actually mind votes -- so if you\'d care to do that, too, you can do so here (the text there is the same as the above, so don\'t bother reading it again!):

http://www.coolminiornot.com/131079
 

mistamick

New member
That\'s pretty cool. I like the number 13, it looks pretty jazzy, and I like the 3D writing on the base. The eyes are good too!
I think you should paint a model with a bit more detail in it so we can see your painting skill
 

lahatiel

New member
Thanks, Mick. I\'m hoping that having completed this guy will have gotten me over my procrastination hurdle, and I can get to working on miniatures (somewhat) regularly again. I have a lot more of these older figures from the same era that needed to be converted and painted -- as Blood Bowl is the only game I actually play, and I like the older figs for it -- but I\'ve also collected a lot of the newer, highly detailed figs from Reaper, GW, Rackham, etc. over the last few years, too, so more intricate figures will be forthcoming... eventually. ;)
 

Hoblit

New member
Nice, I like the way the 13 pops out at you.

The blending on the skin looks a little rough, but considering you haven\'t painted anything for 4 years, it\'s quite impressive.

(P.S. did the vote thing)
 

lahatiel

New member
Thanks. The blue is obviously the weakest part of the figure and I think that stems from two things:

A) I didn\'t want to do the skin that color in the first place. Personally, I think that the light blue skin would look like crap with this color scheme even if I had executed better on the shading. But the figure is my contribution to a team being done as a forum group project -- and the majority of the group overall voted for light blue skin, so there was nothing I could do. :rolleyes:

B) I tried glazing the blue skin, whereas I did the reds with simple layer after layer. Since this was the first time I\'d ever be trying either technique -- and the figure was just being given away for free once finished, anyway -- I thought I\'d try them both and see what happened. Obviously, layering worked better for me than glazing. But I guess that\'s the point of actually practicing rather than just reading tutorials all day -- I learned something by testing each technique, and I\'ll be able to apply that to the next figure! :)
 

lahatiel

New member
Ah, the joys of the popular vote: last I\'d looked he had a 6.0 after 47 votes; next time, 5.6 after 63. Now, a high-5 to low-6 range is what I\'d like to think, objectively, he deserves, so even the 5.6 is fine with me. But a little basic algebra tells me that to get that drop the last 16 votes have averaged a 4.4... maybe I\'m biased, but I\'d have hoped he\'d at least rate as table-top! ;)

Guess some people just don\'t like Blood Bowl...

Hee hee -- gotta love this place! :D
 

DrEvilmonki

Active member
It can also mean some people are just harsh judges. I would expect about 5.5 but for some people their view of table top is higher than ours.
I actually took off a couple of my first figures when I first started posting because I thought I was being judged to harshly. Fortunately I realised it was because I was crapper than I thought!
 

Wren

Member
Originally posted by lahatiel
B) I tried glazing the blue skin, whereas I did the reds with simple layer after layer. Since this was the first time I\'d ever be trying either technique -- and the figure was just being given away for free once finished, anyway -- I thought I\'d try them both and see what happened. Obviously, layering worked better for me than glazing. But I guess that\'s the point of actually practicing rather than just reading tutorials all day -- I learned something by testing each technique, and I\'ll be able to apply that to the next figure! :)

I wouldn\'t give up on glazing. Come back to it again after another figure or three and see if it goes a little better. My guess would be you either had the mix a little too thick, and/or too dark, or had the brush a bit too wet so it acted more like a wash and puddled splotchily rather than colouring evenly.

I voted and commented directly on the fig, great job, and I hope it will help you get painting actively instead of just reading.
 

lahatiel

New member
Thanks, Wren. I\'m guessing the comment hasn\'t been approved yet, as I can\'t see it on the page? At any rate, I think you were right about the glaze being too thick, because I was thinking while I was doing it that it seemed rather thick -- but I was hesitant to thin it too much with water, for fear of killing the very properties I was trying to get from the glaze medium. I\'m assuming you use glazing to get at least some of your own (absolutely freakin\' amazing!) blends -- if so, what medium do you use? I was using Golden and, having no prior experience with this, wasn\'t sure if it should\'ve been as thick as it was, if that was normal and I should just be thinning it with more water, too, or if there was something else I should try that might work better.

(And this is why the comments are more important than the votes! :) )
 

the death korp

New member
the base looks cool and so does the the skin i also like the shading on the tuniky thing. for the first model in 4 years its very good!!!:beer:
 

Wren

Member
Originally posted by lahatiel
I\'m assuming you use glazing to get at least some of your own (absolutely freakin\' amazing!) blends -- if so, what medium do you use?

Yep, I like glazes, and tend to use them in three main ways.

1. Colour Toning
If a colour doesn\'t turn out quite right, glazes can help. This guy\'s hair didn\'t turn out nearly red enough, so I thinned down some orange ink a lot and painted a few layers over. (This guy is older, but it\'s maybe helpful to know I\'ve been working with and practicing the technique a while.) I did this skin on this figure using gray paints, then lightly glazed over with khaki green to try to give her a sickly look.

2. Skin Shading
For skin, I generally start with a base on the darker end. Then I glaze over that to establish some shadows and just give general depth to the skin. For female figures with their softer contours, that\'s usually all I\'ll do, male figures or other minis with deeper shadow areas will need additional layers of shadows painted in traditionally. Skin glazes can still be tricky for me. If the glaze is just a little too dark or not quite thinned enough, or I\'ve got too much on the brush or I\'m in a rush, I\'ll get a bit of a splotchy effect, but it\'ll usually smooth out as I layer up the highlights.

3. NMM
I tried using the traditional layering technique for NMM, and my results looked like garbage, so I tried Jester\'s approach as outlined in the Darkson Designs book. I start pretty close to my highlight colour, paint in the white hotspot, then all the rest is glazes down to smooth in the hotspot and add shadows. I\'m not sure if it\'s because it\'s grayscale or what, but these glazes are thinned down quite a bit, or it gets streaky and doesn\'t look smooth. My first try at this took like 2.5 hours to do 1/4 (one facet) of a sword blade. It\'s since gotten a bit faster (I can generally do a whole sword blade in around that time), but it\'s still lengthy, and it\'s still tedious. There\'s a lot of going back and forth with the colours to smooth out the blend.

For functions 1 and 2 above, or anything else where the paint isn\'t going to have to stay workable for a really long time, I usually just add flow improver and water. I use Reaper Master Series paints and their flow improver currently, but other flow aids are pretty much the same thing.

For the NMM, since it takes a while, I still add some of the Reaper flow improver, but also 1 drop or so per well of a flow improver/retarder mix. The consistency is pretty watery. I know it\'s around the right paint to other stuff ratio for me if when I draw it up the sides of a ceramic palette, it immediately flows down leaving just the lightest touch of colour behind. Adding the retarder to the mix adds shine, by the time I\'m done the NMM item will be outright glossy, but Dullcote or coat or two of thinned brush on sealer banks down the shine. I think it\'s a Liquitex retarder. I also think there are two of those, I use the liquid rather than the gel one.

I have artist\'s glaze medium, but I haven\'t as yet tried it. If what you\'re using is as gel like as it sounds, maybe it\'s worth trying just water or flow improver plus water for a more liquidy feel and see how that goes? You could just paint a square of base colour on a card then paint half of it with a glaze to see if it dries smoothly and how much of an effect it has on the colour? Maybe do a couple different tests with different paint to water ratios or using different additives.
 
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