Qwudds ambitious motivate-to-paint-atleast-once-a-week WIP-thread

qwudd

qwudd

New member
Hi there everyone!
My name is Jonas, but you can call me by my online nick-name Qwudd if you wish!
Im a long time passive member of this site. I haven't really participated much other than that i uploaded a bunch of miniatures i painted a few years ago. University education, a wife and daughter, now four years old, hasn't really left me alot of time to play with my toys =(, though I've managed to paint a few more minis that I am uploading now.

The reason I am becoming active online now is a growing desire to paint more and also a wish to get more involved in the painting community.
Ive also come to the realization that talking about painting with other painters instead of my loving, supportive (but somewhat uninterested) wife might very well be a whole lot more fun/rewarding/motivating, and probably leads to a greater artistic development overall =).

That said, here is my first WIP miniature;
The exalted Vermin Lord by Forge world.

It's inspired by a miniature i painted before this one, a regular Vermin Lord:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/pics/pics16/img5240004b969b6.jpg

However I'm expanding that basic idea and going for more color, and an ambiance of light in darkness, as if "the light bends" round the creature (hard to explain).

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Im really rather pleased with where it's going at the moment (easily my best piece atm as i see it). I'm planning to build a little diorama to hide the base and give a more dynamic impact, but thats in the far future with my speed of painting.

The main problem areas as i see it is the legs and arms, especially the leather bands round his wrists which really doesn't play nice with the blue turquise theme on the arms. The back part is also in a rather sorry state compared to the front that mostly need some sharpening up (and some bits and pieces fixed). The back has something of a collision of color that needs sorting out (red, grey purple areas need to be believably worked together).

His glaive is also completely unpainted, in one sense it needs to be in darkness to support the general composition, on the other hand it needs to be painted in a visible interesting way.

Id be happy to receive any ideas and criticisms!
 
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TrystanGST

TrystanGST

New member
I use CMON (as well as the Reaper forums and the KD Kickstarter page) to talk minis - my wife's eyes glaze over when I start talking minis. So I know where you're coming from. This is off to a flying start - I like the sculpt and you're doing a great job with it. The orange eye in particular catches my attention.
 
qwudd

qwudd

New member
TrystanGST said:
I use CMON (as well as the Reaper forums and the KD Kickstarter page) to talk minis - my wife's eyes glaze over when I start talking minis. So I know where you're coming from. This is off to a flying start - I like the sculpt and you're doing a great job with it. The orange eye in particular catches my attention.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the encouraging words Trystan! =)
I bought dayglow pigments from massive voodoo and tried the orange here. It sure packs a punch!
 
me_in_japan

me_in_japan

New member
I really like the creative use of colour on this guy. It's something I've always struggled with myself, but I'd love to improve. I'm liking the eye, too. Just a thought - maybe you could play with the two-face nature of the sculpt and have different light on each side? I mean, more than it already is. Dunno if it it'd be more trouble than it's worth, though :)
 
qwudd

qwudd

New member
Thanks a lot Me_in_japan!
It's a great theme in the sculpture, a two-faced deity where one side is a rotting horrible inhuman mess full of crystals, as opposed to the other side that gives the impression of an erhm.. horrible inhuman twisted toothy rat face!
Kidding aside, thanks for the input. I'm totally with you on working on the crystal eye. in fact thats something ive been thinking about doing! Intensify and rework the glowing crystals. I'll probably work that and the legs next.

Ps i checked your gallery, you have a lovely Ork there that shows your passion for playing with color, id say your already quite good with color!=)
 
qwudd

qwudd

New member
Well, once a week is obviously a tough ambition, at least posting that often!

I've managed to get enough paint on him to warrant an update now. I've painted the crystals on his left side. Im aiming for strong light sources in a range of color from yellow to green to blue. Also done some work on his legs, though I'm far from happy with them. Atm they have one style of painting each, and no clear color scheme tho the right leg is closer to finished.

I decided to start over with the leatherstraps on his wrists, the colors didn't work at all, i just choose them because his loin cloth had about the same colors. So far I've only painted a base layer on each. In a color that blends better with the particular area of the figure.

Changing colors always in my opinion wildly affects the rest of the miniature. Atm these changes seems to have killed all of my more brownish skin tones. He seems mostly grey now. so making his skin interesting again is a "to do" thing.

Ive done a lot of regular art school painting before this, and my teachers always wanted to get down all the basics as fast as possible, to cover the canvas with paint immediately in order to work up a pleasing color balance and composition. That way most paintings start out quite abstract and then proceed to more and more detail, motion and space as more and more work is done. For me thats a way id like to paint my miniatures by more, so that i don't end up where I'm at now, alot of unpainted areas and some more defined ones destined to be wildy different to my eye after the unpainted ones are finished. Sadly i always fall back into the eavy metal style of doing one area to finish (or almost), before going to the next. this always for me leads to more work in the end!

Well, enough talk, here's some pictures, and all comments and tips are welcome!

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W

Wombat85

New member
Didnt think much of that first post but WOW, that second post is just amazing, its like my 16yr old sister in law's wardrobe.
 
qwudd

qwudd

New member
Well thanks guys! =)
I take it that I'm moving in the right direction, which always feels nice! Yeah Wombat, it's the revenge of the 80's kinda neon thing going on here! Hopefully it all will fit together by the end!
 
Meph

Meph

Cat-herder Extraordinaire
Crikey! That's looking very impressive. I love the subtle colour variations and how the crystal really seems to burst through quite aggressively.
 
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S

SkelettetS

New member
the "interesting" thing about this sculpt is that it really has its ups and downs. especially from the side (first angle) it looks super cool. i remember i had lots of trouble to make the chest and other side look good though as it is, imho, rather poorly sculpted in some spots. if i did it again id probably resculpt the chest.

anyway, paintjob is for me pretty nice and original, and works well even though the suicidal color combo ;)
 
qwudd

qwudd

New member
Well wow thanks for the encouraging comments, trystan, Meph, SkelettetS and Moetle! Makes me eager to get more painting done!

SkelettetS: Yeah, im with you on the sculpt! It's the worst ive painted so far, i haven't established a good habit of smoothing out all rough surfaces yet, but this sculpt makes that skill a priority in the future! Ps: Kul att se en annan Göteborgare här :) Måste ge dig en komplimang, du har en hel del vackra målarjobb i ditt galleri!
 
wargamesculptor

wargamesculptor

New member
Your colour choices and blends are amazing, and while they may not be traditional I think works fantastically. Afterall this is a creature of chaos and just an image the human brain can comprehend. Your glow effect is also excellent, had to look 3 times at the orange eye to work out the effect !
 
qwudd

qwudd

New member
Wow thanks Wargamesculptor! Thanks exactly the aim of the look i'm trying to achieve here, great to hear that you see it that way!
 
qwudd

qwudd

New member
So finally got some painting done again on my little rainbow rat-daemon, and also tried my hand at some sculpting!

First ive tried getting a decent design on the cracks between the crystals. Before this they where looking like trailing lightning and i found it abit to much OSL, it's still a whole lot OSL, but abit more integrated and sharp hopefully. Adding a closeup here to show.

View attachment 23427

Ive tried to block in most color on him now. I really need to work out the tail, and do the rats below him to see where im heading i believe. Also, i want to make the three "leather armor" areas relate more. As of now they differ abit to much in color to believably be of the same material. Ive started painting Skaven patterns on them in an attempt to emphasize their sameness. Im not home yet i belive, need to think of something more or change some color.

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Now whats really been fun doing lately, i tried my hand at some sculpting! I've done a little art school scuplting in larger scale before, but nothing this small. My thinking was this, I'm putting more effort into this miniature then any miniature ive painted before, upon contemplating this i realized my present base is a real let down, it won't do in the end! So i had an idea, ill make a small diorama for him, he is obviously perched atop some ruins of probably dwarf origins. So I've decided to make some kind of ancient dwarf hall for him to throw some OSL around in and do whatever exalted verminlords do, underground. For this end i decided that a number of statues of large dwarfs would do the trick and promptly started sculpting a dwarf.

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In my enthusiasm i forgot to measure scale beforehand, this bust, as it is now, is about 4-5 cm tall and abit to large to make into a full figure compared to the vermin lord. Also, after awhile sculpting this fella something felt wrong. It really doesn't look like warhammer dwarf aesthetics to me. I thought about making him more blocky and stylized but that wont do it probably. So, im gonna do another, more like this below (googled grungni) , a bunch of proper stern dwarf gods will probably fit the bill better.

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Well, thats it so far. Im thinking of casting the grungni styled one if i get it good enough, just six of them or so to make a hall. More things to buy, expensive hobby....
 
wargamesculptor

wargamesculptor

New member
Liking the new colour blends, they portray the effect better.
The Dwarf head is very good but as you say not really suited for a statue as he looks too natural the stylised one will definitely work better as a statue, look forward to seeing your progress on this !
 
Zab

Zab

New member
Yes "blech". That sculpt is very life like "and terrible". You should definitely "not" make castings for other people to paint.:sarcastic: Now drop the words in quotes and read it again ;)
 
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