My First WIP Skink with Spear and Shield

[VendettaUF]

Hi CMONers,

This is my first WIP on coolminiornot. The purpose of this WIP log is to help motivate me to get off my ass and practice practice practice. This log will cover the painting of a Games Workshop skink miniature. The skills I will be working on in this project are my selection of colors, use of lighting, and blending.

The Miniature:

The miniature has been fully assembled and primed. I have attached it to the end of a wooden dowel with an alligator clip taped to the end of it for ease of painting.

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Having taken these shots, I've noticed several imperfections I will try to repair before painting begins.
1) Green stuff the arm seam
2) Trim flash off top of sword.
3) Possibly clean up the spear a bit if I'm feeling brave

The photos will also serve as a basis for my lighting practice as they were taken with a nice overhead light source.

This miniature and his brethren will be used to represent a Dungeons and Dragons Kobolds. I have been unable to find any miniatures that I really like that look similar to D&D Kobolds which have a somewhat draconic look to them. I felt the skink model had the right kind of reptillian look and since kobolds tend to be swarm monsters, the GW kit gave me a good opportunity to make all kinds of different poses to prevent the attack of the clones.

Colors:
Now here is the tricky part, I've watched several painting videos and dabbled in color theory...but in practice I haven't had a lot of luck with color selection. I'm going for a nice red, but I want it to look like something that lives in the ground...not too bright. However, I may just stick with simple and worry about earth tones another day.

I have access to pretty much the entire P3 paint line.
From those, I'm thinking of using the following for the base flesh:

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Either Khador Red base or Skorne Red as the base, shaded with Exile Blue, or possibly Cygnar blue.

If I'm feeling particularly brave, I'd thought about giving it a nice thin wash at the end with Bloodstone to give it and earthier tone. I'm a little stuck on a highlight thought. I'm thinking of going with an orange...but not sure what to use from P3. Either that or go with a darker shade of red as the base and highlighting up to khador red.

Any opinions or suggestions would be appreciated! Thanks in advance

 

[Jericho]

If you want it to be an earthy red, I'd say go with Sanguine Base and hilight with Skorne Red. Maybe a bit of Khador base as a final hilight on some bright spots. That should leave him nice and dark.

Good luck with the plog, I find it's useful to have people give some encouragement and/or make fun of you when you don't get anything done. I painted 5 Chaos Warrior shields tonight so people on the internet won't judge me. Hooray

 

[VendettaUF]

Looking at these macro shots really makes me see all the imperfections in the plastic. Do you guys think its worth it to apply one of those plastic filler/primers to the surface to get a smoother finish?

 

[VendettaUF]

Also, I'll look into the Sanguine base when I get home. I definitely want him to be dark, but red. I don't want the highlights to get to garish.

 

[CreganTur]

I would suggest going back over the roughest sections with your needle files or gently scrape the area with the edge of your hobby knife held perpendicular to the surface. For the small gouges on the tail I'd suggest leaving them- just shade them with a darker color so they look like scars.

 

[VendettaUF]

Had a chance to apply a little 600 grit to this guy to smooth him out a bit. While doing so his arm popped off, so I figured I'd go ahead and try my first pinned joint to reinforce it. I used a GW hand drill and some brass wire my wife had left over from some christmas ornament project. It was amazingly easy to do. I don't know why I was so intimidated by it. The extra strength it provided was immediately obvious. After pinning the joint and sanding him, I decided to try and use a little green stuff to blend the shoulder joints better. In the picture, they are a little lumpy. I've since smoothed it out a bit more, but....I find this stuff really hard to use. I have some milliput coming in the mail I may try if it arrives soon. Scrap out the greenstuff and try again. Anyway, here are some pics, before I smoothed the greenstuff a bit more.

I'm not sure greenstuff sands well, when it cures I'll find out I guess.

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