Zab's Damn it to hell! WIP

Zab

New member
progress. Needs some highlights and i may push the shadows at the bottom a bit with some tamiya smoke. Then it's pigments maybe some small flowers and a few patches of static grass. The red lichen doesn't look like that in person. ~sigh~
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Also some progress on my little goblin...2 tone prime:
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distressed display block and basic base colors on the um, base.
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They want Gobos from around the world and the cast on the little dude is meh. Looks like he's either wearing gloves or bracelets, but the cast is soft so I had an idea to make him distinctly Canadian. He's gonna be a lumber jack with blue jeans a red plaid shirt and a white long sleeved undershirt like the grunge look from the 90's.
 

Chrispy

Active member
Ya kinda had to know this was coming with the reddish lichen near the skull's mouth:

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Great stuff! :D

I was thinking of Kurt Cobain when you mentioned the grunge look... then realized the gobbo has a shotgun-like weapon.. What is wrong with me?!
 

Demihuman

Active member
Well Demi, then you might like of these dirty pictures...
Dirty -pigments. Oh man, this WIP thread is gonna be shut down for crimes against comedy.

Well, if they promoted kingdom death I think we have a ways to go before we get too dirty... :)

The dirt in the eye sockets looks great! especially the one on my right with the leaves. I like how it looks like it has been deposited there. Very natural. What is the next step? If it were me I would go for some dramatic shadows from the belt line down. And maybe go in with a really thinned out dark color and try and outline those lichen a little. On the other hand, when do you start on the girl?
 

Zab

New member
I think you are right about the lichen. specifically the red needs some definition. The shadows are actually pretty dark, I just used a piece of white paper under it to bounce the light so you could make out the details in the pictures. I'm testing out a few ideas for flowers and then I might add some static grass in a few places and it's done! Hopefully by Monday I will get a start on the fair maiden. 2 weeks to paint her I think and then that will leave me a week or two to take pics process and send them off for the ebay auction.
 

Canny

Active member
Yeah ha, looking good, haha lichen the lichen. .

Top job Zab, nice work on the pigments and the Herp may just need more variation of colour. Always good to see the progress steps its very helpful.
 

Zab

New member
Thanks Canny! So here i played with some flowers for the base. I'm not sold and they might just stay off. I was going to put a patch of static grass in one eye socket and have 1 or 2 flowers in it, but now i am meh on the idea. The scale isn't to my liking and i don't want to clutter the base. I think a few patches of grass on the base and maybe a little one in an eye socket would be enough. I'll add that tomorrow and then it's onto painting the fianna - yay and eek!
Mary Mary quite contrary see how my garden grows:
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I'll keep 'em though - could work for something else down the road...
 

Demihuman

Active member
The flowers look great! What about having them growing up around the shield? They do look like flowers growing in a moist environment and the skull looks like it is dry to me. Or, the flowers remind me of spring but the skull looks like autumn. What are the leaves made out of?
 

Zab

New member
Thanks guys. Maybe a couple by the shield, but i still think i should place the Fianna first to see if the flowers still work after that. She's gonna be leaning her cheeks against the one of the skull's. The leaves are just paper cut into a leaf shape and then soaked in watered down carpenters glue. Then i place it on the wire wait for it to dry and bend the wire to a more natural shape.
 

Dragonsreach

Super Moderator
Staff member
Well its doing the wet thing again in Bolton, just for a change and seeing all the rain soaked stone walls made me think of this Skull.(Long queue of traffic).

The wall I was looking at had a fair amount of green algae on the stones, mostly on the upper surfaces, and getting darker green nearer the bottom of the wall. So I thought I'd pass on that observation. I'd have taken a photo if it hadn't been for the "Thin Blue Line" dealing with the accident holding us up.
 

KruleBear

Active member
My amateur impression is that the flowers are awesome, but would be out of place unless you add a lot more foilage around the skull. My brain tells me that you would want smaller fowers or just dots of color in the moss unless you have a lot more foilage around the base than you were thinking. Maybe a moss covered tree remnant up the side of the skull...it is much easier to tell someone else what to do than do anything myself ;).

I agree with your assesment to place Fianna and that should help make the decision.
 

Zab

New member
Some progress... Grass added to skull.
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Then, last night I got to work on the Fianna. HOLY CRAP she's petite, not small, just finely detailed. It's going to be a struggle to do this girl justice. Some guy on some site did a nice article about ethnic skin tones that I used for my pirate avatars for the office folks and many other projects. It has certainly taken the fear out of all kinds of skin tones for me. Thank you nameless stranger...:worship:
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I started with her eyes:
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After that I needed a break. I shit you not, that was tough - took like 30 - 45 minutes of really intense brush work. So I switched over to my fun mini to regain my sanity, but stay in the painting vibe. Kurt for the global goblin project over at 5th dimension. Skin and jeans based and preshaded - took all of 10 min.
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I spent a good chunk of today hammering out the skin on the Fianna. Again, tough work only about 15 min at a time, but being careful around the face was tough.
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Anyway, that's it for now. Next up is the hair :sweat: everything on this damn mini is a stretch of my limited abilities under a fairly tight (for me) deadline. And yet it's still really fun, I kind of can't wait to get back to my Sleeping Chibi because I've learned a lot on this one that will make that one a bit easier. I may even make that December contest deadline!
 

Dragonsreach

Super Moderator
Staff member
Zab, I'm glad you're doing the "Cross legged, I need a Wee-Wee" Fianna, she's a nice piece.


30-40 minutes for skin, ain't that unusual and for me a bit on the quick side. I reckon it took me about an hour to get the face done on my girl, she's got her damn eyes half closed. (Eye-shadow..what a swine).
I managed to get about 4 hours painting yesterday and had to quit cos I was so damn cold.

Damn side effects of treatment- I've got bloody Reynards Syndrome now!

FFS!

Mind you this morning the first heavy frost is on our cars so probably was cold yesterday.

I'll try to get a pic or two of my girl today.
 

Zab

New member
Ugh frost, we got our first heavy one this morning here too. My arthritis is acting up something fierce. It was 45 min just for the eyes. The skin took just under 3 hours. My dad has that, makes the fingers go numb and hard on us hobbits. He had to move up to 1:48 scale planes from 1:72 or he couldn't hold the pieces anymore. Drinking seems to thin the blood and improve circulation, but puts a little bit of a dent in the hobby aspect if you have too much ;) Thanks Krule! I have the rest of the week off so i hope to get in some good progress on her this week (in between house chores and leaf raking).
 

Chrispy

Active member
Some guy on some site did a nice article about ethnic skin tones that I used for my pirate avatars for the office folks and many other projects. It has certainly taken the fear out of all kinds of skin tones for me. Thank you nameless stranger...:worship:
Why, thank you...
So I'm going to be known as the nameless stranger now?... Actually, that could work- dress up like Clint Eastwood and call myself "The Mini Painter with No Name". :brushwave: Nice to see project is full steam ahead and you're doing well on the Fianna.. I still have my original batch from way back when and I stripped and repainted them 3-4 times! Somehow, even though they are "simplistic" by Rackham's later standards the open areas like the large blade beg for freehand and whatnot.
 

Zab

New member
Freehand?! Oh god. I am barely holding my own on this little lady. I'm even thinking of dropping the warpaint if I get too close to the deadline. Well, I got her hair done today. As per usual the redish orangey brown didn't photo well but you get the idea...
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And then it took me half the time to get the rest of Kurt's bases and preshades blocked in.
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I think I may use Kurt as the first mini where I actually go all the way up to white with my highlights and down to black with my shadows. Ya know, to help me get over my fear of super high contrast...
 

Khonner

New member
Your stuff is looking sharp Zab... I tried Chrispy's skin tone suggestions as well, but I think I was too heavy on the darker colors. I might give them another go in the future. I might have to borrow your flower idea as well for some basing.
 
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