Hey,

I was very pleased to see that ‘Zorg’ of Platoon Britannica has made a tutorial about how to photoshop images of miniatures, and has seen fit to use my Ninja Goblin project as an example.  Wonderful!

You can see it here and while you’re there, have a look around PB itself, it’s a wonderful resource, and I don’t just say that because I’m an admin!

James

Hey,

I have another update, and I’m very excited about this one!  Toenails are complete, sandal straps complete (and highlighted more than is showing in the pics frankly), and now he’s assembled. Yay! He doesn’t need to be not assembled now, if that isn’t too awkward a way of putting it.  Nothing’s covered up that I’m going to struggle to reach, and it stops me rubbing my fingers over his sandals and wearing off all the highlights. Plus, it makes me feel like I’m making progress!

James

I hope you still like what I’m doing here – it’s very much pulling together now, not far to go!

James

Hey,

More progress…belt, toe/finger nails and some overdue pics of the sword blades.

Hey,

My painting is weak tonight. Just not feeling it. aah well, I’ve made a little progress, I’ve finished the blades (although they look rather similar to the last pic tbh), and I’ve gotten some of the red spot colour down. the patch on the forehead is done, and the belt is based and washed green:

any thoughts?  As ever, thanks for watching and feeding back!

James

So I thought I’d paint the strap.  It took about 15 minutes, but its one of my favourite bits of the mini.

As you can see, I did the strap. I really love the texture of the strap, it practically paints itself. Who says drybrush is dead? I based it in scorched brown, and drybrushed it with vermin brown, desert yellow and white oil (to tie it in with the rest of the model, which it does well I think ). What an awesome model!  I’m still loving him.

James

Hey,

Right then, a bizarrely small but fun update to take away from all the monotony right now, I thought I’d paint the patch on the back of his leg. The ‘official’ paintjob featured a check pattern, and its something I;ve tried and failed with before now, so after I saw Monkeyman7x‘s wonderful Ork Warboss yesterday I decided to give him some:

I started by blocking out the colours, then it was a matter of highlighting and shading appropriately, with no fade at all. Then it got masked off (I put some pics of maskol ‘in action’ mainly so you guys who haven’t seen it before could get an idea of how it works, painted on, masked off and sprayed, and being peeled off). Then 5 mins with some w&n black ink, and I had my fade. All it took was a 2 min line highlight with fortress grey and bob is quite literally… anyway, there ya go…

sorry about the glare in the photos – these were just quick pics – it’s smoother black coverage than it looks, but the ink is glossy, so until I get a layer of matt on it, there will be a reflection.

James

I’m a little unsure of the work on the cloth because i don’t think it’s bold enough to stand out and score decently on CMON (which is an aim of this piece if I can get good enough pictures and a computer that is powerful enough to run photoshop). However, when it’s highlighted we’ll see again!

The maskol did actually pull the paint off in a few places, so I’ll need to work on that first to get it back up to scratch. Meh. Not sure why that happened, it doesn’t normally. Maybe I didn’t prep the resin well enough. aah well, it’s going pretty well considered. at the minute I’m thinking of doing the buckle and katana hand guard (tsuba) in a nmm brass colour, very yellowy, a little freehand on the sheaths, a brown strap across the shoulder and a red/black belt (coz that’s what I was in Taekwondo before I moved to another part of the country and couldn’t find a good club)

how does that sound as a colour scheme? ok?

Anyway, onwards with the cloth:

I’m stiff, tired, my eyes hurt and my hands are cramping, but I’m getting there with the main body’s cloth. I’m worried that it won’t photograph, but I’ll do my best when I’ve gotten the top of the head covering finished. I’ve been painting since about 2pm, but it’s been worth it – i really am pleased with the progress. Sadly the swords have been left alone (I had no idea it would take me this long to do the black cloth portion), but I’ll get to them soon. maybe tonight if my hands and eyes hold out.

One thing is for sure. I’m going to be binning my chaos black/skull white for highlighting and shading in favour of w&n oils. awesome. so fast! I know it’s taken me six hours to do his gi, but then he is absolutely enormous – his swords are about the height of a wraithlord, and a terminator comes up to his bent knee without the base, so he’s quite large! pics when I’ve finished for the day.

Done for the night then, I’ve finished the black cloth around the head (aside from a little more black shading at certain points tomorrow, and some touch up where I’ve accidently worn the paint away with my fingers), which completes the black portion of the model, aside from the arms which I haven’t gotten on to yet. soon. To be honest, I’m a little bored with highlighting black and shading white right now – it doesnt feel like I’m actually getting much done. aah well! onwards!

I’ve since toned down the highlight on the small of his back – its not so bright now. hmmm…. i love oils – all i needed to do was to sort of ‘drybrush’ over the area with a water dampened brush to lift a layer of paint off.

James

Hey,

I decided to wash the face with pink. waddya think?

Ok, so that’s not entirely true – the maskol is simply that wierd colour.  For those who don’t know, maskol is a rubber substance that gets painted onto a model to mask off areas that are already painted so that the paint doesn’t get onto the other parts of the mini.  I masked his face off to paint the black cloth around the head with the airbrush,

I’m done with the airbrush on the katana blades now too as you can see above, except a layer of varnish to lock the colour down before I begin the oil stage.

As for the black cloth, It’s really hard to photograph at this stage because it’s necessarily subtle, the line highlighting will make this pop. I tried to get a little brown around the bottom of the skirt portion of the Gi like it was dirty, and I hit the top grey and white portions from 90 degrees out with black to give it some texture. I’ve really been learning with the scale of this piece, it’s fun! The actual sequence was tamiya blue, tamiya purple from above, purple and skull white from above, pure skull white, black low lights and fill ins.

OK, so there were more layers than that, but you get the idea.

James.

actuallym now i look, the eye is pretty terrible… that’ll teach me to paint without good light set up! I’ll tidy it up too.  Aah well, you don’t win ‘em all!

James

Hey,

I truly love oil paints! fabulous! Last night simply involved mixing up some oils, shading in various colours, and then mixing in white and highlighting with them. I’m painting it on, and wiping 99% off again with a dry brush, and it just tints it a tiny bit. Do that enough, and then there’s a really smooth finish. Then you come home the next day, dampen the brush, and feather any rough bits away like using an eraser. Oh yeah!

my paints, the difference between a shaded foot and a non-shaded one, and the face after some shading.

Once it’s been shaded and highlighted, but before it’s been finally tidied up with a dry brush the next day: