A Month of Sundays - my 96hrs of painting challenge

[voyager]

Session #1
Saturday 21st April
Time Spent: 6 hours (90 hours remaining)
Worked on: Gnarlhorn Satyr (not pictured), Gatorman Posse Grunt

With a group of like-minded people sitting around a table, total time spent vs time actively working was always going to be a poor ratio - but a fun one. Tried to work on the Gnarlhorn but things just were not working. Not a productive couple of hours and I'll probably need to either strip back or carefully paint over the top of what I did. In the end I have a working base skintone, but it just wasn't happening.

Moved over to a Gatorman Posse grunt, and that proceeded better. I wanted a dark look for these guys, to contrast with the intended brighter greens on the warbeasts to come. Followed the book painting guide to a degree. The Gatorman itself is done, and the base - as it stands - is painted, however there is foliage, reeds and water effects to go into the base to finish it off. I'm not counting time spend on bases for this challenge, so as far as this is concerned, its "finished". Once I do the base, I'll put it into the Showcase section. I'm still not sure about the orange/yellow eye or if I should put "human eyes" on it. I kinda like it this way. I'll probably do "human eyes" on other models though. I am happy with the metal on the blades though - it looks worn but still sharp.

Gatorman Posse Grunt




Learnings: Can't force what isn't there to come out. Be ready to work on something else where the paint flows better rather than get frustrated with lack of progress and/or mistakes.

[voyager]

Session #2 & #3
Tuesday 24th & Wednesday 25th April
Time Spent: 6 hours (84 hours remaining)
Worked on: Retribution of Scyrah Heavy Rifle Team

I don't have a Scyrah army, these are for a mate. Base rim colour is not quite right (supposed to be 50/50 Space Wolf Gray and Shadow Gray, but I have neither of those colours on hand). Additionally, the white/gray base texture is done like that to match the rest of the army. I would normally have done something more with this, but I did not have full freedom in that regard.

I've painted white in the past with fairly poor results - this time I think it's better. I got some shading into it using thinned blue/black washes, and just painted back the white where it escaped. Colour scheme followed the box art for the most part, switching up the aqua colour for straight blue (again matching the army it's joining). First go at painting lenses was better than I expected it to be, but still room for improvement there (they are not smooth transitions). All in all I'm reasonably happy with the way they came up, even if I have not painted the eyes on them (should have done that before assembly but didn't figure it out until it was too late).

Retribution of Scyrah Heavy Rifle Team
Click to see full-sized image

Learnings: Shading clean white down using thin washes. Useful technique to know. Lenses not as scary as I had feared. Next time paint the faces before assembly.

[Maru]

black need more of classy EM edge highlights , bases - to improve
white shaded with ble + black - hard call - black alvays gets "oily" - try blu / grey mix end then add bit of black to it in deepest shadows

ther is theory that painting face at start of the mini ave you a lot of frustration atthe end - if you have to redone efrything cos you messed yp with face at end

[voyager]

white shaded with ble + black - hard call - black alvays gets "oily" - try blu / grey mix end then add bit of black to it in deepest shadows

I've never quite figured out how to get those crispy clean whites with any form of real shading - this was as good as it's ever been. I'll give this a go - do you suggest building up to the white or just shading down?

As for the bases - yes, I know they currently are not good (or indeed worse than just "not good"). I consider myself pretty reasonable with basing in general - but right now a) they aren't my focus area for improvement, and b) the Scyrah models had to fit into someone else's army - and that's a close approximation of how they look. I love going all-out on bases - one of my favourite parts of the miniature. I faithfully promise to finish the Gator base (swamp theme) and post the picture up soon

[Maru]

och well white is nasty thing that cose acryl paints got bad white pigment - it is granulated strongly or fine but extremly glossy
so if i would whant to get a "perfect" white i would come up from one of "off White" colors as a base color then mix it with piure white (tytanium white ) end create 1 highlight
then i would work on shadows - end as "off whites" are actualy much better then white paint in matter of quality shadows would applay soft end even end mix well with off white base color last step would be just bliks with piure white

so it would look like that :
base color - off white (one of ) - actualy thats 1 highlight color
base + white (thats 2nt highlight)
base + shadow color (thats actual "base color" but as making things darker is easer then brighten them up - thats 1 shadow )
shadow color - just that
deep shadow - shadow color + somthing darker
final highlight with piure white - just bliks


if somthing go wrong mixes of off white + enything or just "off white" will nicly blend end softly cover flaws - controary to white wich will coagulate / get sand paper texture or mess shading

end at end - add wethering / color light

[voyager]

Session #4 & #5
Sunday 6th & Tuesday 8th May
Time Spent: 6 hours (78 hours remaining)
Worked on: Cygnar Warcaster Major Victoria Haley

This one is also going to a home other than mine, although I'm hoping to put it into a competition before it does - mainly to see how it would get on. Feedback of any kind is valuable.

At this stage I've done the bulk of it. I need to finish up some small details - the base of course, rivets, a couple of armour straps, the weapon haft, some glow on the weapon's head - that sort of thing. I'm not "happy" with it per se - it's lacking a lot of contrast (it has more than the picture shows, but still not enough)- but it's been useful all the same.

eHaley, WIP (90% complete)
Click to see full-sized image

Learnings: work inside out to save a lot of cleanup later (even if that means the critical process of the robes/cloak is left until last). TMM Silver getting better, the brass/bronze still needs some work.

[sea.man]

more highlights on th green cloak and brown elements, more shades on creme cloak

[Maru]

separate pole from the cloak (dark linking ) separate fingers from white cloak - same tip of blade from pole
and after Sea Man - stronger shadows on creme cloak end stronger highlights on green 1

put minature under strong zenital light (um lamp of sort) end c how shadows forms - rhen fix curent 1 (or iven make photo of mini in such light so you will get reference

[voyager]

Yeah, that was what I meant by lack of contrast (although the real mini isn't as flat as the photo suggests). I'll try to push them further.

[voyager]

Sorry there has been no update for a while, between work, being crook and trying desperately to get something finished off for the OzPainters Open, there has been no posts of late. Once the official photo of the entry (15pt Protectorate battlegroup) is up on their website I'll cross-post it. I didn't place anywhere, so don't hold your collective breath for something mind blowing

What I HAVE been doing in my minimal free time is kitting out a room in my house specifically for mini painting (and other craft-related activivies, as my wife would hasten to add). So I've been swearing at flat-packed furniture for a weekend. Still, it's built now - I have loads of storage, decent lighting and a display case for all the hard work. Job well done I think. Just waiting on a table to arrive and I can get back to work - and I will be resuming this challenge!!! I have some new ideas I want to explore.