(nudity) Hasslefree 40mm Artemis WIP

[Boss Ardnutz]

I think her body is finished now. The contrast from legs to shoulders is perhaps a little more subtle than I originally planned, but it's there. At most I might push the highlights on her upper body a bit more, but not until I've painted her face as I don't want to draw attention away from that.

Soaking of her face, I managed to thoroughly botch the first attempt, ending up with so much paint on her that I had to strip it back to the primer. I have since put a white undercoat down and will have another go with a finer brush.

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[Milosh]

coming along nicely sir. You might try taking a picture with a darker background. The white is washing her out. The nipples look to be on the very large side, they could do with being half the size. Also something that will help you get higher contrast is to pick out the brightest spots on her (top of shoulders, out stretched forearm, top of breasts) with your lightest skin color with a tip of white mixed in. From there blend into the shadows.

 

[Boss Ardnutz]

Thanks for the tip about using a dark background. I had a busy couple of days so I didn't get any painting done, but I did manage to buy some black cardboard to use as a background. I found that by using centre-weighted metering and -1 EV exposure compensation I got shots that were much closer to the real-life colours.

As you will have realised, my 'deadline' has passed and of course I don't have the mini finished. However I did get as far as these photos show, and I got a great response from my wife when I showed her the present :kiss:

As these photos show the highlights do go up to a mostly-white mix though I may add a final, pure white highlight in places. Overall I'm pretty happy with it although there are one or two places where the blending could use some work.

The nipples will be staying as they are - although she is pretty young, in my mind she has children and her body should reflect this. Overall I'm going for a sense of strength (hence the well-defined arm muscles) and her appearance so far is lining up well with the picture in my mind

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[Boss Ardnutz]

Actually looking at the photos I see that she has a bit of an overbite which is being emphasised by my painting. Any suggestions on how to bring that top lip under control? Is it the shadow under her bottom lip that's causing the problem, or the highlight on the top lip?

 

[TrystanGST]

I think the nipples look fine. There's all kinds of bodies out there, and you're the artist here. I think it's definitely the highlight on the upper lip that's giving that impression.

 

[KruleBear]

I think the lip looks fine as is and the background really helped. To me the shadow on the backside of the right leg behind the knee looks more like bruising than shadow to me ... May be the photo so take it for what it is worth. Over all this is really nice.

 

[Boss Ardnutz]

I agree about the shadow on the right knee. I was trying for a blue tint to show the veins behind the knee but it didn't work. I think if I brighten that area back up a bit and maybe use a green-blue shadow...

I wish mini painting came with an eyedropper tool like in Photoshop. Getting back to that shade colour is going to be a nightmare :sidefrown:

 

[Boss Ardnutz]

Further progress. After redoing lip colours, upper lip and cheek highlights and softening the jawline I am much happier with her face. I also dotted in a little darker colour in her eyes. I think they may be as good as I can get them now, given fairly poor eyesight and shaky hands.

I have corrected most of the errors on her skin and largely redone her legs to smooth out the blends and remove the bruises. I also had to largely redo her breasts after a stray brushload of paint put a big stripe of shadow right across one. I fixed that ok but had too much Scab Red in the mix - it looked like she was far too happy to see you, if you take my meaning. I was able to tone that back with some Codex Grey, Dheneb Stone, Elf Flesh and Carnal Pink with the odd bit of Bestial Brown, Thamar Black and Cryx Bane Base for shading.

I've had a go at her hair too. It's a Thamar Black basecoat, then Thamar Black + Scorched Brown with a little Scab Red for volume, then highlights with Skull White, Blazing Orange, Bestial Brown and probably some other colours, then washes of undiluted Chestnut and Brown Inks, with a final highlight of Skull White + a tiny bit of Blazing Orange. I was going for very dark brown hair with a bit of copper in it but not sure I quite hit the mark - any suggestions would be appreciated.

Finally I've basecoated the leather with Scorched Brown + Thamar Black. I will be using a lot of green tones in the shading, especially on the boots, because I think that looks good on aged leather and to keep the feet cool so they don't draw attention away from her face.

Pics are a little warmer than reality - the background is plain black cardboard, if that helps to make the mental adjustment.

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[KruleBear]

Excellent progress! Will be nice to see some more color to the armor and sword to see the fit with the skin.

 

[Boss Ardnutz]

I return after a long break to gather inspiration and to allow my stiff back to recover enough to cope with short painting sessions.

I wasn't happy with her hair so I redid it - twice. The first time I tried to place dotted highlights along the strands to simulate ringlets. It didn't work though, making her look like she had lizards instead of hair.

I'm fairly happy with this version, where I have basically ignored the sculpted strands and simply painted layered highlights in horizontal bands as if on a smoothly curved, flat surface. As always I'd love to hear any constructive criticism or suggestions for improvement.

I have also finished base coating the bronze. The colours are mostly Bestial Brown plus a bit of Blazing Orange and a dab of Bleached Bone.

As you can see in the photos I have a few stray bits of paint on her skin, which I will fix right at the end.

The colours in these photos are fairly spot on, on my mobile phone screen at least.

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[Boss Ardnutz]

Holy threadnomancy, Batman! Having stalled thanks to far of messing up what iI had managed so far, this one went into a box and ihave only now gathered up the courage to have another go.

I wasn't happy with her hair - I have now run thin Thamar Black + Sanguine Base into the recesses and sharpened up the highlights, also the highlights now go all the way up to VMC White.

I have started on the crest, too - I am aiming for alternating black and red down the sides, with a central grey stripe visible from the top and front. These happen to be the colours of our karate club and the freehand design will relate to that shared interest as well.

The red is Sanguine Base, then Khador Red Base, Khador Red Highlight, and Khador Red Highlight + Menoth White Highlight, followed by final shading with Sanguine Base + Thamar Black and a glaze of Khador Red Base to try and remove the orange-white cast. I'm still not entirely happy with it but not sure how to get it to pop without making it look either orange or like a thin red wash over white basecoat.

The black and grey are both Thamar Black and Greatcoat Grey in different proportions.

Pictures:

 

[GreenOne]

you've given her really nice eyes
Some areas where the shading is a bit stark notably the inner thigh.. and wherever the tone turns too grayish, altough maybe you already planned glazing these, the light mapping is very acurate i think, just needs more vividness in colors for the darker shades.

 

[Boss Ardnutz]

Thanks! The eyes took many, many tries before I was happy with them (or at least, confident I couldn't do any better).

I agree about the grey skin shadows. I was trying for cool shadow vs warm highlight for contrast, but ended up with desaturated shadow instead. Not sure what colour to glaze in to fix the problem, either. Possibly green?

This next series of pictures shows progress on the metals. I'm using the technique in NMM Bronze and You. I had to make a few changes because I don't have any Bronzed Flesh. I tried Tallarn Flesh but it was horrible, and ended up with Vermin Brown + a tiny bit of Sanguine Base in the basecoat, a bit more Thraka Green and Badab Black wash in the shadows, and using the basecoat for the first highlight instead of adding anything to it. I'm happy with the sword and helmet, but the shield will probably need some more work... I might paint the inside of it, glue it on, then do the freehand and fix any problems in the outside bronze surround.

Pictures:

 

[GreenOne]

Id use soem green but not too much, along with muted (not too strong) brown. You can 'ondulate' between warm cold, within a same shaded area, both tempering each other. blue to brown to green to purple or wtv, as long as you dont go crazy, use thin glazes and respect the general 'palette' of the mini.

 

[Meph]

Aaaaah! Nipplesss! Quick! Call the Christian Indecency Moral Enforcers! Oh, wait, I'm European... carry on...

I'm liking the whole look the model has, the flesh tones, the hair, with the bronze tones. It looks nicely balanced, and as GreenOne said before, really, really lovely eyes.
I'm no expert in NMM by any means but it seems like the bronze could use some more yellowish highlights here and there to liven it up a bit, if that makes any sense?

 

[Boss Ardnutz]

Thanks!

I think I can see a couple of places I could add more Bleached Bone highlights. I guess what you are taking about is taking the orange-y base colour and adding abit of yellow and using that as an intermediate level of highlight?

I had in mind a dark bronze, i actually didn't realise just how shiny the material could be until i found this: .

I had in mind rather a dark bronze, more like this:


Looking around, it seems like bronze weapons could be almost any colour from dark brown to silver, with new weapons likely to be much brighter, which is of course not what I've done here!

 

[Blackadder]

"Nudity" Well you certainly know how to draw one's attention. Glad to see she isn't actually an amputee although it will be interesting to see how you are going to attach the arm; (you are going to attach the arm?) because if you aren't the face is far too serene for such a recent wound. Flesh tones and washes are well done although I question the need for the helmet considering the rest of her "battle dress"........

Yeah, I watch 'Sherlock.'

Forgot to ask, and I don't see it mentioned in the text. Who is the manufacturer of the mini?

 

[Boss Ardnutz]

Hopefully the arm will go on ok with a bit of gel superglue. II did some green stuffing on the join before taking it apart for priming, though you never know... I just didn't dare to pin such tiny parts as I was sure I'd only end up drilling right through her hand.

The model is the resin 40MM Artemis, by Hasslefree Minis.

Sherlock is a great show, isn't it? I love the modernised stories, and Cumberbatch and Freeman are terrific in the roles. I was a bit less keen on their take on Moriarty though.

 

[Boss Ardnutz]

A draft of the shield design. I considered trying to re-create the Kumiai Ryu dragon as another nod to my wife's martial arts journey, but felt the Japanese dragon wouldn't fit with the mini:



So I went back to my original plan to paint the rod of Asclepius:



The colours and the design of the snake gave me some pause. I started thinking about red, black and grey and considered gold and black line art, but ended up opting for a dark grey snake with a reddish-brown staff on a grey-toned white background. Likewise I started with a symbolic-style mouth-open snake (based on the RACGP coat of arms) but ended up with a more naturalistic style which I think fits better with the staff (and is much easier to paint - something about the symbolic snake just does my head in, I can never get it to look right):



I dare say transferring that to the actual shield is going to be... Interesting.

 

[Boss Ardnutz]

More work on the back of the shield as I want to glue it in place before attempting the freehand. I am going for a wooden look, suggestions for improvement are welcome!