Pegazus's Pile of Pminiatures (WIP)

[PegaZus]

Krule, you've been at the top of three of the last four pages on this thread! I've always wanted my own stalker! Kidding, kidding!

My plans over last week changed quite a bit. I'd packed up everything to take and paint, but then had unexpected visitors where I was planning to do most of my painting. Family is more important than painting, so the figures had to take a back seat. However, surprisingly (or, at least to myself) I managed to complete the dire rats. I thought about posting each step into an individual post, or putting everything into a single giant posting, but just realized that it would probably be in better taste to just show a couple sample pictures and do the article offline. This is a Work In Progress thread, not Worked In Completion Steps. Or something like that.

But before I start that, I wanted to say I've taken a big step towards putting up some videos of me painting. Got a new YouTube channel setup (PegazusPaints, in case you're curious; don't go look now as there's nothing there) and picked up a new web camera. Now, from what I could find, my iPhone has the same HD resolution as the web camera. I didn't go overboard buying one, but I didn't just buy the cheapest one either. I'm guessing that having a dedicated camera for the videos will make it easier on me. But I'm planning on having some videos up shortly, and the link to the channel will be in my signature when it eventually has something worth looking at.

Here's an interesting spot, since how to fix mistakes was mentioned as a good thing to show. First, I put too much blue on dry brushing the rat fur, fixed by washing with black:

And here's the final shot, showing all that I did to these little guys:

+3 pts, 216 pts total

Next post will be for the completed article.

 

[PegaZus]

And there it is! A hump like a mouse ear! It's Moby Mouse!

I shouldn't post this late. I get too goofy. Here's the link to the article just put up: Painting Reaper Bones -- Dire Rats.

Spell checks, grammar violations, and other affront to general sensibilities welcomingly pointed at out to me.

Gah. English fail. See that I didn't screw up too much, will ya? Thanks!

 

[RayzrYR]

Good work PegaZus, they look like perfect little gaming rats, also no language fowl-ups noticed.

 

[KruleBear]

Must wait to be at top of next page :dance:

 

[PegaZus]

Good work PegaZus, they look like perfect little gaming rats, also no language fowl-ups noticed.

Thank you, I rather enjoyed them myself, and glad to know that nothing popped out wrong. My wife thinks that monsters and other figures where there's not a "defined" look are my biggest ability. They always seem to turn out really nicely for some reason. People not so much.

Must wait to be at top of next page :dance:

I should end the thread and start anew just to thwart fate.

Anyway, just jumped on here to state that I've cleaned my painting desk! Yay! Six months worth of clutter all organized and put away now. We won't mention the box or sack next to the computer. Nope, not going to do it.

But the funny thing is that I've been painting on my ONE ceramic tile for at least three months. The other one was in need of cleaning from the putty during the casting attempts with Flash Juno. And I'd been procrastinating on that, so I've had to constantly run back up and wash the tile in between sessions. Found two other tiles under all that other debris, so I'm stoked that I can paint more consistently. I should just go to the hardware store and purchase a stack of 20 or so. Only would have to do my "dishes" once a year or so!

 

[PegaZus]

OHGODOHGODOHGODOHGOD. I don't think I've ever been more frightened in my life. I spent the entire day avoiding making the first video, and procrastinated at all cost to avoid it. But, it is done, and my first video is up.

WARNING!!!! No actual painting occurs in the video below.

If I can keep the kids from stealing the camera ("I wanna make Littlest Pet Shop videos!" "NO! I want to make a gaming video!") I am going to try to make the first brush strokes on the way to making the wench article.

Now if I can just keep from throwing up dinner anticipating that. Who knew you could get stage fright from just a stupid video in your basement?

EDIT: THEY ARE NOT BEING HELPFUL! LAUGHING AT ME! ME! That's it. I'm putting them both to bed early.

 

[PegaZus]

Progress again! Started painting the wench tonight. Little tired, so I think I'm going to just post the pictures and wait for the article text until tomorrow. Basically, I've had the primed mini, then put on the base coat of skin color.

And this was completely recorded, so I should be putting that up soon. Didn't intend to do every brush stroke, but that's what it turned out to be. Still stumbling along, and just found the ability to do intros to the video. Luckily, I feel I had enough sense to avoid the more, how do I say it, tacky transitions? I'm really not sure why they'd be used since they just absolutely don't look professional.

+2 pts, 218 pts total.

 

[chompsky]

Stop being nervous, the vid is just fine. Some good info in there, thanks for taking the time to make it!

Now I hope I didn't steal Krule's spot at the top of the page...

 

[PegaZus]

I'll try to stop being nervous, but I'm a shy person to begin with. Standing up and talking to a room full of people? Shoot me. Shoot me now.

Talking to the entire world potentially? It's like being hooked up to a Total Perspective Vortex, and have my mind utterly destroyed. So, it's hard for me to sit down, talk coherently, and ignore that potential demon breathing heavily over my shoulder.

He smells like tuna.

Anyway, absolutely huge headache this morning shooting straight to hell all plans that were made for today. Sad part is, it was so debilitating that I could go home from work as sick leave. Had I not already taken the day off as a vacation day. Lovely. Simply lovely.

So, the video is a little late, and I'm hoping to make the next one shortly. Unfortunately, it's already 10PM at night, and I'm rather exhausted. I wouldn't be surprised if what I had was considered a migraine. I've never known anybody to have one, so can't really tell. Okay, so I had to go check on the Repository of All Knowledge (wikipedia), and I'm pretty sure it was. Feel really rather hungover, and that's a post-migraine symptom.

Unless someone over in the Freak Bar slipped me a mickey. Which I wouldn't put it past 'em.

Just scared myself. The video appeared, but it was HORRIBLE! Uh, turn off 3D settings and it looks just fine now. Sheesh!

 

[PegaZus]

And did some shading on the mini late tonight... oh my is it really 12:30?! Crap crap crap.

Video is up.

And wow. Look at that picture! Garbage! Looks like I'm going to have to try fixing the leg with highlights. That, or I'll need to go back over it with some base color first.

+1 pt, 219 pts total.

Wonder if I should start giving myself some points for doing video? Hmm. Not that I'm actually following my original intention with them anyway. Also, I was debating if I should put a gallery picture of the rats up, and just remembered that I get points for that.

 

[KruleBear]

I can not tell you were nervous and the quality is much better than a lot of stuff out there. I think mistakes " happy accidents as Bob Ross would say", add a comfort level for the beginners you are targeting. to help with nerves it may help to imagine you are making these as a legacy to your kids and they are the only ones ha will see them.

The biggest thing I would suggest working on is the inconsistent focus issue...an I gave no idea how to help you with that.

 

[PegaZus]

The biggest thing I would suggest working on is the inconsistent focus issue...an I gave no idea how to help you with that.

Yup. Next vid is going to have a fixed focus, with the figure's temp base touching the table top. Figure that way, if the base is touching, it should be in focus.

 

[PegaZus]

Continuing on, I think I've improved the focus. Well, not so much on the first 20 second snippet, but on the rest of the video I think it's much better. So I've got that all sorted out. Plus, I have the title return. It seemed an important bit, and I managed to do it this time without killing the rest of the video. Have no idea what Microsoft Movie Maker did, but it chewed up Ep 2 quite badly.

Here's the image that I managed of it, and the leg looks much better.

+1 pts, 220 pts

 

[PegaZus]

Now comes an interesting job, doing the one eye. I finally managed to get something halfway decent. The closeup photo is really, really close, so it looks really, really bad. It looks a little strange from a distance too, so I may have to do a touch up later down the line.

+1 pts, 221 total

 

[PegaZus]

Interesting thing I learned tonight: When you hit the spacebar on the keyboard while recording a video, it dumps all the video in memory and switches to playback mode. I'd go make myself a stiff drink, but I've got one sitting here. *sigh*

 

[PegaZus]

Okay, finally time to catch up. Series of pictures are below, and go from left to right.

First, got the basecoat of the dress done with Sapphire Blue (9016). Then shaded it with Imperial Purple (9023). Then this is where the video dumped on me, and had to rebase the dress to get the videos done. Then back to the shading. Third photo is highlights on the dress done with even mixture of the Sapphire Blue (9016) and Pure White (9039). The last picture is going over the entire dress again with Sapphire Blue (9016) in order to try to back off the shading and highlights a bit.

The video will be done either late tonight or early tomorrow morning.

+4 pts, 225 pts total

 

[PegaZus]

Took a bit longer on the video than I thought. Surprising how many free editing programs couldn't do the HD video that I wanted. Kept putting to a smaller format. That, or I just didn't know how to work things. But, things are getting better each video. I realized last night that I'm not nervous anymore about doing this. It's just something I've done.

I am concerned about how much time this is eating up, still. But I'm not sure I'd paint any faster if I didn't have to make the videos. So I'm probably motivated more because of them. Eh. What was my point again? Oh yeah, post the video.

 

[Milosh]

She looks pretty darn good sir. Your videos are also well done and will be helpful for a lot of people.

 

[PegaZus]

She looks pretty darn good sir. Your videos are also well done and will be helpful for a lot of people.

I certainly hope so. It's taking a bit more time than I imagined. You've got the recording of the video itself, then it takes the same amount of time for the recording software to compress the 1080p file. Editing isn't that bad, and especially since I've learned how to better use Windows Movie Maker to do that. Then the upload itself to YouTube, the titles, description, and annotation links to the previous episode and next. Still, I'm enjoying it.

Got the ruffles on the dress done. Used Pure White (9039) for the base, then a wash of Sunlight Yellow (9008). I really wanted to stop at the pure white ruffles. They did look attractive. But, it needed just that added touch. The yellow may have not been the most inspired choice, but given the limited pallet, it'll work. Just worries me that it's cub scout colors.

+2 pts, 227 total

 

[PegaZus]

I think this is the most I've painted in one month in for, well, ever really. Which makes me happy. The motivation to paint hasn't really been there, but I fret about not painting and so I do. And enjoy it of course.

Got the base color of the hair done, and the first set of highlights. I'm thinking that I shouldn't go any further on the hair highlights. What does the forum say? I think if I were to try another layer of highlights, it wouldn't really do much.

I'll be holding off on the video until the decision on the hair is made.

+2 pts, 229 pts total.

And as a reward to myself, at 250 pts I'm going to let me buy some more minis (WRONG DIRECTION, NIMROD!), probably from my CMON wishlist. So close, so close! Course, I could drop the rats into the gallery for a quick 10 points, and the wench is nearly there. But I'm not that interested in putting the rats up right now. Oh, and I could do the orcs! Another 10!

EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to jot down the paints. used. Muddy Brown 9028 for the base, and Tanned Skin 9044 for the sole highlight. I'd use the Fair Skin 9047 for the next shade up.

MUCH LATER EDIT: Added the video as I decided the hair was good to go.