OSL and Gandalf at Khazad-Dum

[Tinweasel]

I was more or less \"ordered\" by staff at my local GW Hobby Center to take a stab at involved OSL painting for an upcoming painting competition. I settled on a bitz order figure of Gandalf from the Breaking of the Fellowship set, but I decided to do some conversion so he matches a poster image I found that I\'m using for inspiration.

I don\'t plan on painting up anything other than Gandalf and (ideally) a section of the bridge across the chasm he\'ll be standing on - a la the image above.

This is what I\'ve got so far:

Like I said, I\'m trying to make the pose and the atmosphere match the scene from the movie. I\'m rather surprised that all the painted examples of this particular figure have been in the stock pose, but I\'ll have to admit that he has been a pain in the butt thus far to strip down and reassemble. Any feedback on the pose?


Secondly, I\'ve done some limited object source lighting painting and I have a pretty good idea on how I\'d tackle painting the bridge (the easy part) but I have a lot of different ideas kicking around on painting both same-directional light sources on Gandalf himself and was wondering if anyone had any advice/suggestions?

I\'m thinking I should probably paint his back in normal (if somewhat darkened) shades, with a sharp transition at the \"terminator\" line between light and dark. I don\'t really have any reference on his normal colors, though, outside of some reference pictures of his staff singly and a few waist-upwards pics - I\'m specifically wondering about his scabbard, pouch, belt, boots, etc.

So far as painting the rest of him goes, these are some of the different approaches I was kicking around: I paint the front side normally with a slight orange tinge mixed in with my paints and then apply successive white glazing to the areas affected directly by light from the crystal on his staff; I ignore the orange glow completely and mix white into my paints directly and paint as normally w/ shading, highlights, etc.; I paint slightly lighter than normal and then go back and add specific highlights of white + the underlying color + a hint of orange to all areas... any suggestions from more experienced folks on how to go about painting bright white OSL (with a secondary same-directional light source), as I\'m really undecided on this particular staff lighting effect?

Any/all feedback would be greatly appreciated!


(And yes, to clarify, I\'ve read the tutorials in the Articles section and done a few searches - I haven\'t turned up anything, really, though on bright white object source lighting and while I have some ideas on how to approach it, I wouldn\'t mind suggestions from more experienced folks...)

 

[Ritual]

If you haven\'t already, you should take a look at Karaikal\'s excellent version...

http://www.coolminiornot.com/102978

A picture is worth more than a thousand words...

 

[Tinweasel]

Here\'s the figure from front and back all GS\'ed and primed, ready to get started:

@ Ritual - very detailed and inspirational piece. I\'m aiming for something a little different, though, in that he\'s going to be posed and positioned on the bridge as in the scene from the movie where he\'s challenging the Balrog standing in the middle of the arching span in Khazad-Dum. Hopefully I\'ve got that \"You shall not pass!\" look down with the adjusted pose...

I\'m also hoping that between his reconstructed posing, a scenic base, and trying to do lighting effects from two different color lights in (relatively) the same direction, it ought to look cool... Great mini link, though, and if mine turns out even halfways as well done I\'d be happy!

 

[Ritual]

The conversion seems to have come out pretty well, at least! I\'m interested in seeing how this project will develop. Good luck!

 

[Tinweasel]

After hemming and hawing and fooling around with some colors, I sat down tonight and put in some serious work. I\'m thinking I have a decent plan of attack - going to do the white light from his staff as I paint successively raised areas of gear. A lot of the pictures/miniatures I\'ve seen aren\'t really \"realistic\" IMO in the lighting effects in that they don\'t have the lighting coming strictly from the crystal but apparently a slightly larger source in the general vicinity - case in point: due to the projections of the wood below the crystal, the body of the staff by rights shouldn\'t even be illuminated by the crystal on it.

I\'m probably getting way too finicky with this, but anything front-facing that isn\'t lit white is going to be lit/tinted by the Balrog\'s flames... dunno, guess I\'ll see how it turns out. The line on the base is roughly where I picture the Balrog facing from, but what with his wings and whip and all I\'m going to fudge the orange/red glow a bit more than I\'m willing to fudge the pure white...

Comments and suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Really the only stuff painted at this point would be a more or less basecoat for the robes, the white illumination on \'em from the crystal, and then the back of the staff is highlighted and shaded, the front of the staff is highlighted, shaded, and pending application of an orange glow, and then the base is basecoated but doesn\'t have any lighting (yet).

 

[Tinweasel]

I toned down the white lit areas a little bit with a wash or two of the eventual orange color, and highlighted the fire-lit robes with several progressively lighter mixtures of a whole mess of paints and inks plus the basecoat which ended up somewhat of an orange-grey-whitish color.

I\'d really appreciate any suggestions or comments on the appearance in terms of stuff that ought to be lightened or darkened or what-have-you...

 

[Tinweasel]

Another scanned picture from a different angle in an attempt to fix some of the wierdness with the lighting that was present in the last one - I was assuming that everything else was darker because his staff tip was so close to the glass... no, the scanner apparently just doesn\'t handle stuff further away from the glass very well.

I\'m playing around with it, too, out of curiosity about using a scanner for getting pictures of miniatures. Right now he\'s mounted in a cardboard sleeve for a lightbulb split apart and taped into a rectangle, with the figure held sideways at one end with two-sided masking tape.

I also found that if I don\'t put a piece of paper or anything over the top of my little makeshift photo box, it leaves the background completely black - seems to make a nice effect in the final picture.

(Any ideas how I could replicate that in taking digital camera pictures once I get my hands back on it again?)

 

[OrkBoy]

That\'s a really cool mini, and with a great paintjob to boot! Conversion work is seamless too.

Congrats on the result! Well done! :beer:

As for replicating the black background, why not just put him in front of a black backdrop? ???

Anyway, great work.

Cheers,
Tom

 

[frenchkid]

Looks really nice so far. Look foward to seeing the rest

As for the black background, you could take the pic with a unified color background, somthing very different from the colors on the mini, and then use photoshop to get a black background in. Or just take the pic against a black baground, but that might not be the bet of ideas for lighting.

 

[Tinweasel]

I tried taking the picture against a black background, but it just looked off what with the ambient lighting in my light box. I might have to try some funky paper color and use the color selection tool in Paint Shop in order to swap it out with black or something.

I\'m really wondering what views would be appropriate for displaying this guy? All four sides, angles, or some combination of the above and inset close-ups... I feel this is one of the better (and definitely more involved) figures I\'ve painted and would like to display him in pictures online to best effect.

That being said, I took several pictures last night with the camera my wife brought back from her visiting with family, but I was only able to balance out a picture or so last night due to being over-tired and brain fried. Here\'s the first new picture with the digital camera, but I\'m thinking that the staff blocks his face a little much for a frontal view... or do you guys think this is okay?

 

[OrkBoy]

I would say that the staff does block too much of his face, and since the first thing a person looks at in a mini is the face, it is very important that it can be clearly seen. So I would say that a view where you can see his face would be needed.

Another thing is that perhaps the background is \'too white\'...but then again, maybe not...

The pictures show him up really nicely btw

Cheers,
Tom

 

[rosac]

i would like to see this develop it could work and probably will at this rate. keep it up and remember... take it s l o w...

 

[Tinweasel]

Here\'s a bunch of pictures I was able to take and edit tonight and I\'d really appreciate some feedback on which ones to use, crop, leave out, etc. for a \"collage\"-style image.

Likewise, if anyone sees anything that needs tidying up or fixing in these larger pics or have suggestions for additional details, by all means please let me know!

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

 

[OrkBoy]

Ok, for the picture collage I would use 3,4,5,6 and 7 because they are all against the same background and are the best pics. If you add a pic with another nackground on it looks unproffessional and less aesthetic - the consistent background colour will give the collage a unified feel.

That\'s my 2 cents worth anyway

Cheers,
Tom

 

[Tinweasel]

Originally posted by OrkBoy
Ok, for the picture collage I would use 3,4,5,6 and 7 because they are all against the same background and are the best pics ... the consistent background colour will give the collage a unified feel.

Not quite sure what you mean - they all have the same off-white background in the pictures? Hence the dilemma as to which ones would make the best collage, or whether I actually should use all 7 pictures and crop a few of the larger ones for closeups of the face, staff, etc.