Malebolgia
12-09-2005, 12:44 PM
Hi all,
Here’s my entry for the painting competition at Gwhobby.net. As the theme was “Heaven and Hell” I was inspired by this Reaper model. It is a female paladin sculpted by Werner Klocke and I fell in love as soon as I had bought it (two years ago :P). And as I thought she would fit as a paladin of the light, angelic heroine, etc. she would be excellent for the competition.
As soon as I had chosen the model I knew I would paint her in NMM…and as she has lots of metal, that would be a BIG job! But a challenge is a good thing for a painting contest. It usually improves your painting as you try new things and you also learn a lot of new things.
One of the main problems of the model was the tiny integral base it had. It had to be placed on something bigger. Otherwise it would tip over all the time…and it would look a bit rediculous too. I glued her on top of a couple of corkplates and glued this to a WARMACHINE sized base (the best ones out there…I love these). I added a GW skeleton head, an GW Ogre Ironguts shield and added the sand and gravel.
After priming her white I had to blackline her. First I tried thinned black paint. Initially this looked excellent and only left black lines in the deeper parts. Unfortunately after this dried up…everything was gone…time for a different formula. Then I tried to do the same with Vallejo Smoke…but this made it a bit messy and I still had some white spots. SO finally I took my Black Wash and gave her a good strong wash, getting rid of all the white spots. Now you also know why she looked so weird in the WIP shots…just a messed up experiment…;). You try, sometimes you fall, but you’ll always learn and go on stronger!
After the base was done I wasn’t really inspired by the metallics. By then I didn’t see that the fact that only the base was done didn’t help at all. I did was quite happy with the colors themselves. For the silver I took Vallejo Stonewall Grey (GW Codex Grey) and mixed black and white through this for the colors. The gold was a basecolor of Bubonic Brown with shades of black and highlights with white.
The skull actually is the first skull I have EVER painted with which I am truly happy! So far all the skulls I did were too yellow, too brown or too white. This one is perfect IMO and fitted the theme also very well.
As I went up the model I also posted the pictures on several other fora in the hope I would get some useful tips and hints. On the Wyrd Miniatures board EricJ and Ritual gave me some very good advice that meant I had to change the entire model. At first I was a bit reluctant to do this, but once I got started…I couldn’t stop! The metallics became blacker and the highlights stronger, giving more convincing reflections and also a much cooler look than before (first she was way too white).
The freehands were actually quite simple to do and most time went into the research. I really wish some company (cool idea for Darkson Designs?) to come up with a “Freehand book” with cool images and inspiration….
One of the last changes I made was to add some color to the gold. Some people at Gwhobby.net suggested the gold looked to cold and not very gold-like. Therefore I added some warm brown Vallejo paint to all of the gold sections and this REALLY helps! It gives more warmth, color and depth to it and I am really happy! Thanks again Woytek for the “nagging” as it really helped my model :).
When I was done today I added some grass and some white stones to gave some more life and color to the base and also to give it some more body. Finally I glued her to a wooden showbase, made by some Spanish company…this REALLY helps for a painting competition IMO as it shows the extra attention you put into it and attracts the eye to it (but that only goes for a “live” competition).
So what have I learned after painting:
NMM is hard! It is way more difficult than regular metallics as you cannot afford ANY mistakes. All blends need to be soft and smooth and it really takes way more time to accomplish.
“Pimping” the base also helps a lot. Nowadays I do it a lot more, but it was really needed for this model. I am really happy with the effects.
I got to know my Vallejo paints even better and I love them more and more. Citadel really lacks the good abilities in glazing IMO and just cannot stand up to Vallejo.
Have balls and try something you haven’t done before and don’t know whether it will work. The strong reflections were a but scary at first, but once I got past stage 1, I learned a lot and it became a lot better.
So I will stop my blattering now and show you the pics. Cheers and thanks for reading
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v194/malebolgia/paladin_af1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v194/malebolgia/paladin_af2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v194/malebolgia/paladin_af3.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v194/malebolgia/paladin_af4.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v194/malebolgia/paladin_af5.jpg
Here’s my entry for the painting competition at Gwhobby.net. As the theme was “Heaven and Hell” I was inspired by this Reaper model. It is a female paladin sculpted by Werner Klocke and I fell in love as soon as I had bought it (two years ago :P). And as I thought she would fit as a paladin of the light, angelic heroine, etc. she would be excellent for the competition.
As soon as I had chosen the model I knew I would paint her in NMM…and as she has lots of metal, that would be a BIG job! But a challenge is a good thing for a painting contest. It usually improves your painting as you try new things and you also learn a lot of new things.
One of the main problems of the model was the tiny integral base it had. It had to be placed on something bigger. Otherwise it would tip over all the time…and it would look a bit rediculous too. I glued her on top of a couple of corkplates and glued this to a WARMACHINE sized base (the best ones out there…I love these). I added a GW skeleton head, an GW Ogre Ironguts shield and added the sand and gravel.
After priming her white I had to blackline her. First I tried thinned black paint. Initially this looked excellent and only left black lines in the deeper parts. Unfortunately after this dried up…everything was gone…time for a different formula. Then I tried to do the same with Vallejo Smoke…but this made it a bit messy and I still had some white spots. SO finally I took my Black Wash and gave her a good strong wash, getting rid of all the white spots. Now you also know why she looked so weird in the WIP shots…just a messed up experiment…;). You try, sometimes you fall, but you’ll always learn and go on stronger!
After the base was done I wasn’t really inspired by the metallics. By then I didn’t see that the fact that only the base was done didn’t help at all. I did was quite happy with the colors themselves. For the silver I took Vallejo Stonewall Grey (GW Codex Grey) and mixed black and white through this for the colors. The gold was a basecolor of Bubonic Brown with shades of black and highlights with white.
The skull actually is the first skull I have EVER painted with which I am truly happy! So far all the skulls I did were too yellow, too brown or too white. This one is perfect IMO and fitted the theme also very well.
As I went up the model I also posted the pictures on several other fora in the hope I would get some useful tips and hints. On the Wyrd Miniatures board EricJ and Ritual gave me some very good advice that meant I had to change the entire model. At first I was a bit reluctant to do this, but once I got started…I couldn’t stop! The metallics became blacker and the highlights stronger, giving more convincing reflections and also a much cooler look than before (first she was way too white).
The freehands were actually quite simple to do and most time went into the research. I really wish some company (cool idea for Darkson Designs?) to come up with a “Freehand book” with cool images and inspiration….
One of the last changes I made was to add some color to the gold. Some people at Gwhobby.net suggested the gold looked to cold and not very gold-like. Therefore I added some warm brown Vallejo paint to all of the gold sections and this REALLY helps! It gives more warmth, color and depth to it and I am really happy! Thanks again Woytek for the “nagging” as it really helped my model :).
When I was done today I added some grass and some white stones to gave some more life and color to the base and also to give it some more body. Finally I glued her to a wooden showbase, made by some Spanish company…this REALLY helps for a painting competition IMO as it shows the extra attention you put into it and attracts the eye to it (but that only goes for a “live” competition).
So what have I learned after painting:
NMM is hard! It is way more difficult than regular metallics as you cannot afford ANY mistakes. All blends need to be soft and smooth and it really takes way more time to accomplish.
“Pimping” the base also helps a lot. Nowadays I do it a lot more, but it was really needed for this model. I am really happy with the effects.
I got to know my Vallejo paints even better and I love them more and more. Citadel really lacks the good abilities in glazing IMO and just cannot stand up to Vallejo.
Have balls and try something you haven’t done before and don’t know whether it will work. The strong reflections were a but scary at first, but once I got past stage 1, I learned a lot and it became a lot better.
So I will stop my blattering now and show you the pics. Cheers and thanks for reading
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v194/malebolgia/paladin_af1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v194/malebolgia/paladin_af2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v194/malebolgia/paladin_af3.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v194/malebolgia/paladin_af4.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v194/malebolgia/paladin_af5.jpg