Zombicide Abominations - Critique my first submission, please!

[puzzlemonkey]

I've been a drooling fan of the minis on this site for years, but I hadn't painted for a decade of more until Zombicide came out. Now I'm trying to develop my skills to do a few Blood Bowl teams to what I would call an "excellent tabletop" level. Help me get there by checking out my first CMON upload:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/359498

Any thoughts are welcome! My self-critique would go something like this: I'm comfortable with the skin and the jeans, but I have doubts about the shading on the shirt—have I made it dark enough? Have I then over-highlighted the shirt and not left enough gradation? I don't like the black camera and strap much. I need to be bolder with my faces, but I'm not sure how, exactly.

Thanks for looking!

 

[Kretcher]

Hi there,

What I can see from the pictures are that you can work more on your blending if you want to go farther then a very good tabletop standard. As it now your figure is very good with clean areas and transition between areas. Your freehand of flowers on the shirt is nicely done and shows that you have a good brush control.

For the spikes from the skin I would do darker in the shadows and up to pure white at the top. Search for NMM techniques and look for some good videos (that is if you want them too look like metalic)

The skin is good, the next step for improvement is to start to use glazes on the skin to create more interest, you could use different cold and warm colours to create more interest into how the skin looks.

For the face I do believe that your darker areas are dark enough, perhaps you could push it a little bit more in some areas. If I did that I would use a colder blue or something that contrast a little to the rest of the skin. I would also push the highlights in some areas. Below is a link that I have use for then it comes to highlighting faces and where to put them.
http://becoming-a-drag-queen.tumblr...ow-to-contour-and-highlight-your-face-here-is

These articles helped me a lot to improve and can hopefully improve your painting skills also.
http://www.coolminiornot.com/articles/1757
http://www.coolminiornot.com/articles/1649-metallics

Hope this will help you, and remember the best way to improve is to paint

/Kretcher

 

[puzzlemonkey]

Thanks, Kretcher!

That's just the kind of feedback I was looking for. I think my next step will be to try some glazes! I wasn't going for NMM on the spikes (what was I going for? Good question...).

Thanks a lot for the links. I'm a studier, so I like to have lots of sources for information.

 

[gohkm]

The freehand on the shirt is actually very nice, but I reckon you'll need to contrast the shadows and highlights (especially on the shirt) quite a bit more.

Also, zombie or undead skin shouldn't quite be that healthy a colour; right now, it looks like your Abomination is in the pink of health. But if you think about it, morbid skin will have blood pooling underneath it, stagnating in veins and arteries, since the heart is no longer bleeding. As a result, there'll be bruising beneath your basic skin tone.

Additionally, putrefaction will begin to occur, since the immune system has shut down and cellular death occurs.

** Can't take credit for having this pointed out - someone else explained it to me, albeit not in so many words.

I'd therefore suggest that you work purples and blues into your shadows, via glazes, and also glaze yellows, reds, and greens on to random places of skin. This will create a varied, multihued patchwork on your skin, which will create much more interest.

If you're adventurous, get some dilute turqoise-y shades, and draw lines in random places - these may be used to create the illusion of veinous blood (as it is deoxygenated) under the skin. Glaze back with your basic skin tone once you're done, so these veins don't show up as hard lines.

 

[puzzlemonkey]

Thanks, gohkm! I can see my future, and it's all about glazes!