Some feedback for a poor painter?

[Unc]

Anyway, I was hoping to get some feedback on ways to improve on this mini here.

http://www.coolminiornot.com/72182

I know the pic isn\'t the greatest, but I\'m still figuring out this blasted digital camera. In particular, the greens highlights kinda faded in the pic.

Any help is greatly appreciated!!!

 

[Jas]

Re:

I wouldn\'t have said you were a poor painter, based on what you have shown. I agree that the picture could be a little better but I\'ve seen far worse. I would suggest that you could make your highlights a little more \'extreme\' or lighter, in places. Also I think cropping more of the \'white space\' would help focus more on the mini, which is helpful to judge the paintjob. The sword looks really nice to me, I haven\'t tried NMM yet, will do soon though!

 

[airhead]

Jas covered most of what I was going to say. But I\'ll continue:

Welcome to the forums. It looks like your painting skills are better than mine. I like the mini and the color choices. Now for the nit-picking.

Photo:
You need another light source. The shadows from the left light are killing the mini. Otherwise, bring the light lower to light more than the top of the mini. Ideally, you have 3 lights. Go to the portrait studio in the mall. Look at their lights and recreate that in miniature with swing arm or clip on lights. Use either Reveal color corrected bulbs or Halogen bulbs. Regular bulbs will give a yellow cast.

Get a blue/white color fade to use behind the mini.

Software:
Photoshop rules, but there is MS Picture-It (much cheaper) and GIMP (free). Crop the pic to show us the mini - not the desk.
Adjust the brightness and color balance. This is not cheating.

Painting (finally?)
it looks like you need to take your highlights one more step. Think stage make-up. Just as actors on the stage have to overdo their make-up to be seen under the lights, so do we have to do minis.


Finally,
Let me again say that this is probably a very good mini. Don\'t get discouraged. None of us got it all right the first time (or the second or third....).

 

[tidoco2222]

Hi there I have voted and left a comment which I hope will help you.
It would appear to me that the model is realy not as bad as you think and I also think as has been mentioned before you are not a bad painter at all.
IMO the main thing you lack is highlights. Rackhams minis are in no way easy either.
Remember that when painting a mini to photograph the highlights need to be lighter to make them show as well as giving your mini a more lifelike appearance.
All the sufaces on the mini need more highlights. The base is nice but again the highlights need taking up, a light drybush carefully applied on the rocks and grass will really lift it.
A final point re edge the base in black things like that get slaughtered here. Now I hope that you don\'t get disheartened as I said the mini is not bad at all, but could be better. HTH.

 

[Corvus]

The current score of 6.6 isn\'t that bad at all. Also the miniature looks quite good from what I can see.

I\'m not going to repeat everything that has been said by the others so far, but I think your NMM could use some more work. It appears to me that you have just painted on some highlights on the edge of the blade, without really sticking to the edge. If you have a straight blade, then your highlights will be straight, aligned with the edge of the blade (I hope you understand what I\'m trying to explain). So, if the blade is curved, your highlights also need to be curved.

From what I can see I consider this a \"very good gaming miniature\", and I\'m awaiting close-ups for more comments

My rating: 6. Finish up that base and you\'ll get a 7 from me.

 

[Legacy Account]

Hi Unc (That sounds kind of wierd!)

I\'d start by getting used to your camera and checking out some of the tutorials on photography in the articles section. Good pics not only help your scores, but they\'ll help people to give you some really useful advice. At the moment it\'s very difficult to see much detail in the pic.

 

[Unc]

Thanks for all the feedback!

It seems most of my problems are coming from needing another layer of highlights, and taking better photos. I actually have just about finished painting the other eclipsant, so I\'ll keep the feedback in mind, and put a couple of extra layers of highlighting on everything .

Oh and Airhead mentioned getting a \"blue/white color fade to use behind the mini\". Anyone know where I can get one? y

Anyway, thanks again, and next time I\'ll try to provide a better picture!

 

[airhead]

try here

if that doesn\'t work, look in my sig for the brilliant part. Click on it about half way down the page is a link for a background.