Photos & thoughts of older projects

Witchwater · Feb 21, 2009

For Christmas, I gave my mother two minatures: Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax from Micro Art Studios; they had JUST come out with a line of Discworld minis, and those are her two favorite characters.  Perfect Christmas Gift. Unfortunately, the amount of time I had to assemble, sculpt, and paint was short.  I did what I could in the time that I could, and I feel they came out all right.  Mom loved them, and that’s what important.

  (At least that’s what I’m making myself believe; I have that artist’s self-criticism: “Well, what if I was to just, yanno, do it over...?  Make it look better...&rdquo

I hadn’t had the opportunity to take photos.  So last time I was over at my folks’ place, mom let me borrow the minis to take pictures. Since I was taking pictures anyway, I thought it might be a nice idea to take photos of earlier miniatures, and then start playing with positioning and such for if / when I was going to post them to CMoN. So, like...I did that. It has reminded me of several very important things: I really must ask my mom for some help with the camera.  I follow the instructions that the manual gives me, and if I take two of the same shot, using the same settings, the pics will come out two different ways. >.< Oh yeah, photography *does* bring out every little detail and imperfection and lack of blending.  You look at the mini and everything looks nice and smooth.  You look at the PHOTO of the mini and ask yourself what ten-year-old painted that.  (But then...on the plus side....that makes me double-proud of my Carnivean.  ‘Cause his photos show his smoothly-transitioned skin.  Hee!) That truth aside, I MUST IMPROVE MY BLENDING AND HIGHLIGHTS.  Note to self: mangle a few of your test miniatures.  Those old Musketeers should do the trick. Good god do I need to get Photoshop again.  Having switched from a PC to a Mac, I have lost my Adobe Photoshop and all its sweet little bells and whistles, and am currently stuck with a much, much lesser program.  Moreover, the program I *do* have on the Mac is buggy, so I can’t even pull up or use one of the important graphics menus.  So I can take two views of a miniature and slap ‘em together, but I can’t make it look like it’s one solid picture. I have no blend, I have no color match....so everything looks boxy. And then when I try to color-match my WW logo, it eats up a few lines of the logo itself (‘cause I can’t create an invisible-background logo with this program). So for now I’m doing what I can with what I have, but I am SO looking forward to the day when I get Photoshop back. For my own reference, I am going to post up the test pictures.  I only found one of them good enough to post up on CMoN itself (that being Thorgram). One of the first minis I tried to paint.  He was one of the first to use layers of color to try to bring depth to his details:   <a href="<a href="><img src="http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg133/Witchwater_album/Miniatures/WWKoboldWar.jpg" border="0" alt="Kobold Warrior" /></a> I have always had a soft spot for this Kobold Sorcerer.  I just love his cape.  It’s hard to see on the photo, but the rim of his cloak is dirtied.  I was so proud of that.  He’s another one of the first minis I tried layering on: <a href="<a href="><img src="http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg133/Witchwater_album/Miniatures/WWKoboldWiz.jpg" border="0" alt="Kobold Sorcerer" /></a> Discworld’s Granny Weatherwax, a gift for my mom for Christmas.  The photo says Granny needs much more highlighting.  The miniature itself looks bright to me already - she *is* wearing a black cape, not a white one.  I have to work past my own reservations of “but that’s TOO HIGH a highlight!”: <a href="<a href="><img src="http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg133/Witchwater_album/Miniatures/WWGranny.jpg" border="0" alt="Granny Weatherwax" /></a> Discworld’s Nanny Ogg, another gift for mom.  Her face was *hard*.  And it really could’ve used more detail.  But I will say this: I liked her apron, how it was dirtied and used.  And I really liked sculpting the cobblestones.  Those were fun! <a href="<a href="><img src="http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg133/Witchwater_album/Miniatures/WWNanny.jpg" border="0" alt="Nanny Ogg" /></a> And finally, I HAD to take pictures of Thorgram.  I was so, so proud of him.  I still am.  He was my first entry into a painting contest (a Strategicon), and I won third place with him!  I only wish I knew how many others had entered!  (It was a small contest, and that season had it rather disorganized, due to the fact that the gentleman who was supposed to run it had something come up and couldn’t make it.  Thus, no display case, either.) <a href="http://s247.photobucket.com/albums/gg133/Witchwater_album/Miniatures/?action=view&current=WWThorgrim.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg133/Witchwater_album/Miniatures/WWThorgrim.jpg" border="0" alt="Thorgram, Dwarf Warlord" /></a> I love his eyes.  And his beard.  And his belt.  AND THE GEM.  I *rocked* the gem.  Even the highlight on top of it. So...yeah.  I can see how I’ve improved from the Kobolds.  And that makes me happy, knowing that I’m going to get better and better. Now to brush up on my photo skills.

Later!

Photos & thoughts of older projects

Witchwater

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