Request for comment - Asaliah from Helldorado

[gohkm]

Hi everyone,

Here's my latest submission: http://www.coolminiornot.com/400252.

However, I'd like some commentary on it. I thought this was one of my better pieces, but the scores do not reflect that. I'd like to get some opinion on how I might improve it.

Is it the photography, the blending, or something else?
How may I improve on the piece?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Dragonsreach]

Commenting here, Kelvin, rather than on the gallery, but the skin looks somewhat flat and without any shading.
In addition the red dress just seems to lack contrast.

One thing that spoils it for me are the Eldar decals. Sorry but they are just too recognisable to be used as decoration.

 

[gohkm]

Thanks, Dragonsreach. How can I remediate those weaknesses? I'll have another go at the skin, I think I know how to fix that, but how could I fix the red?

 

[MAXXxxx]

what I see:

- skin looks flat. The highlight is there, but the shades not that much. Also the light OSL on a light skin doesn't show even makes it worse
- brown cloth: looks patchy as you just hit it with a dark brown wash and left it like that
- red cloth: I think the contrast is there, but the placement of highlights look a bit weird (some parts facing to the ground are lighter than those facing up)
- hair: highlights look randomly placed.

and imho the 2 biggest:
- The highlights you did (I think following James' style) are super for a force/painting service, but look too rough for a single mini that wants itself rated. And this goes for the white-ish highlights on the red and the strong lines on the skin too
- probably good ol' snipers (aka Zab )... I have multiple pics in the gallery that are now between 7 and 9, but in the first few days were 4-4.5 .

 

[gohkm]

Thanks, Max. So, deeper shades on the skin I can do. The white highlights on the red, though, if I understand you correctly, these are too prominent, too forced?

I don't care about the snipers, but I would really like to improve painting the red. It's a favourite colour of mine, but I cannot make it look good no matter what.

 

[MAXXxxx]

I'd take them as a style thing, but most who rate the pics would say they are very rough highlights.

Reds... I like them darker, so I like this:
- Starting from a dark one (FireRed) shading down to a dark red-brown (HullRed/Mahagony) highlighting to a strong, but not light red (Ferrari Red / BloodRed). With maybe a glaze or two of RedTransparent / old GW RedInk (makes reds vibrant, should be similar to the fluo-red you used in effect)
- you could go to a light red or red mixed with a red-beige for some extra highlight, but don't really know if it will look good enough (but the light red from VAC covers really bad, so either paint that first or paint some white under it or it won't show)

looked through my gallery for a different red, but didn't really find any among the better rated pics, so sorry no alternative build here.

edit:
from my wip, the reds for the alahan army:
- red: fusion red(HL1), rackham red(B), vmc hullred(S1), vmc tankbrown(S2)
- was not vibrant enough, so added 2 steps: VMC-TransparentRed(Glaze) then fusion red (HL1 again)

 

[gohkm]

I found that if I start from something like Skorne Red, it looks brown, not red. I used to do reds the way you described, from an average red-brown, but it always turned out far too dark. This time, I went straight to Scarlet Red - defo not a good thing .

Thank you for the commentary. I'll do another version of Asaliah for my mate, but because of time constraints, I won't use red. I'll go back to blues and teals.