Snakes on a Base. Ophidians! Yay!

[shoe]

With all the great suggestions in mind that you guys gave me on my MidNor dwarves, I tackled one of my Ophidians this weekend. (I keep/breed snakes as a hobby, and so my husband thought that I\'d get a kick out of the Ophidians.)

First off, the model was a LOT more fun to paint than I thought it would be. And secondly, thinning paints helped a LOT. He\'s not fancy, because I am just trying to get techniques down like applying paint and glazing, but I was pretty happy with him.



There are a few things about him I don\'t like. His armor type thing. I don\'t know how I feel about the purple, but I learned to HATE the silver. I really should have chosen some type of non-metallic color. It would look okay, I guess, if I had the steadiest hand in the world at this point, but I messed up, had to touch up, paint got thicker and looked a bit fuglier than. Still, not too horrible I guess.

I am most happy with his skin and face. I mean, the scales came out awesome. I thinned the paint (as recommended) almost thinner than I thought it should be, and then I painted it on lightly. Then, per my husband\'s suggestion, I highlighted so high up I thought he looked a little too lemon yellow. Then I applied a glaze/wash, and pop! The skin worked out well.

I wish I had glued the arms on last, as it was really hard to get in the nooks and crannies of the inner arm and underbelly with the arms glued on. But I guess that\'s how I learn.

So what do you think? I wanted to do a WIP log and post as I went along to get suggestions, but I was having too much fun painting to grab the camera at different intervals.

I have S\'ygma as well, and I think with him I\'m going to go with some patterning on the scales and little to no metallics, except where really really necessary.

Might do a more decked out base next time too.

shoe

 

[matty1001]

The scales are fantastic!
The base is pretty cool, just be careful about the tidyness around the edges with all the grass and such.
The blues are well highlighted aswell, you\'ve got this painting malarkey sorted!

 

[OrkyDave]

the skin on this looks spot on, (helps having a lot of real life reference to hand!)

I also like the blues, this is a big improvement from the dwarf.

I feel the purples could benefit from more shading and highlighting, but still. great stuff!

 

[funnymouth]

looks solid, i really enjoy the neutral tone you picked for the snake. i would have liked to see a different color, and more work put in to the sword.

 

[Highbulp Billy]

A little tip for this whole painting thing... you\'re supposed to start out rubbish and take years slowly getting better NOT start out good and get brilliant overnight. You\'ve got it all wrong by being too good too soon!!!

Seriously though, the snakey parts on this mini do look fantastic (obviously you know your stuff there). The blue robes are pretty good too and the little extras like the scroll and bottle are well worked.

I quite like the style you have for the metal - worn a realistic rather than bright and shiny. The purple armour pice is probably the least strong area (not that bad but not as good as the rest) and IMHO the base would look better with less static grass, although the tall grass effect works well.

All in all a very nice mini showing great improvement and even more potewntial - you should be proud of this one.

 

[shoe]

Thanks all!

Thanks all... Yeah, the purple... I don\'t know. It just didn\'t work with the silver. It does actually lighten up as you get closer to the top of the cone, but I didn\'t lighten it too radically and the pictures didn\'t show it at all, really. I should have been more aggressive with the transitions, I think.

I wasn\'t real happy with the sword, myself. The blade was decent (my husband said I have to get over my metallic phobia) enough, I guess, but I wasn\'t fond of the hilt. I know the sword is supposed to be a special weapon, so I stuck it on him, but I thought it was kind of funny looking where it was. So I\'m not sure my discontent with the sword is totally with the paint job.

All I can say is this guy did a job on my good brushes! I bought some nicer brushes than the ones I did the dwarves with (helped A LOT, as I was using crappy brushes from a 25 for the price of 1 pack for those guys). But because he had so many angles that were hard to get at, I really did a job on them (my old brushes were used for dry brushing.) I am hard on brushes anyway.

I was quite happy that I chose a natural color for his skin. I wasn\'t sure how it would look. I thought it might be drab (but then, I own sand and ground boas, so I am partial to a bit drab) but I did some searches on how others painted them... I knew if I tried the iridescence that Rackham has on their guys I\'d fug it up and it would look craptacular. My other inclination was a muted sort of blue, but I did see some online painted this way and they looked, well.... a lot like dayglo blue snakes.

I am going to get a few more models under my belt and try S\'ygma with a pattern.

I make terrain mostly, and my husband always asks if the castles and ruins were taken off a golf course... Guess it does look as if S\'Erum was spending a day at the green.

shoe