Midnight Lurker's Crap

[Midnight Lurker]

Hello Everyone!

This will be my first time posting any of my work here. I'm hoping I can get some help with this mini. It's a work in progress, obviously, and some things are still just primer like the feathers in her hair, the spear shaft and the base. (My plan is to use sage greens and plums in the final base work and mount it on a dark wood grain plinth) I guess I'm basicly done with the skin and the leathers...

While my biggest concern is the NMM, I would welcome any other thoughts you can give me. I've already gotten some feed back that I haven't corrected yet. I know I need to shift the placement of the highlights in the hair higher (towards the top side of the curls) and broaden them a little too. I might give it a little glaze of yellow on the highlights. She looks a little bit cross eyed in these pics. Hmm. That worries me. Not sure if I can fix that at this stage or not....

Those of you who know me are aware that my metals have been a stumbling block for me for the last couple years, and this mini is no exception. I think I understand the general principles of NMM fairly well, the need for high contrast, the need for smooth blends... but I can never seem to figure out where to place the highlights. I fight with them every time, going back and forth, repainting over and over again and still not being happy. It's very frustrating for me.

I think another thing that is compounding the problem is that the figure is best viewed from straight on front and back, but due to some assembly issues the spear blade is at an angle. The staff is very thin and frail. I don't think I am brave enough to snip it in half and re-pin it to straighten out what direction the blade is facing. I might have to just very carefully twist the staff until things line up better. Thoughts or suggestions???

This isn't for competition. It's intended as an apology present to someone I've wronged, so it's important to me to make it as nice as I can.

Anyhow, let me know what you think, eh? And be honest!

Jen
Click to see full-sized image

[mahon]

First I saw the title and thought "crap? doesn't sound all that promising..."
Then I saw the first photo and thought "well, I will have nothing to criticize"
And then I saw the hair

The highlights are too harsh IMHO. Even if you paint the hair so reflective, the highlights should be larger, and THERE SHOULD BE SHADOWS about as strong as your highlights. And I also don't quite get it why you placed highlights on these parts of her hair, and not the ones which would be most obvious: perpendicular to the direction of light.

This being said - it's still a great paintjob. I just love the skin and its smoothness. Great job on these strong highlights. The miniature has really much depth thanks to them!

As for your NMM question, I think that on the spear it looks just right. On the knife though, it looks like some intermediate tones are missing and the transitions are too abrupt. But I think somebody more experienced in NMM should step in with their comments...

BTW the spear's shaft is not finished yet, is it?

[Midnight Lurker]

Thanks for the suggestions. Yeah, the spear staff is nothing more than quickie base coat. I haven't even begun to work on that yet.

Yeah, the feedback you gave me about the hair is almost exactly what pae said when he looked at it a couple months ago. I still haven't implemented that yet, but it's definately going to happen.

Jen

[arctica]

Not much to add to Mahon's comment, except wow on the skin, that is really smooth and the facial details are really good. Nice job

[LittleDave]

What they said. It looks good really, except the hair bothers me. I think it's because the transitions aren't very smooth and it would be brighter at the top and slowly get darker towards the bottom assuming you're using a light source from above.

[Marek]

Great job on the flesh. Not so good on the dagger and the spear's tip, but it's still a WIP isn't it?

[Midnight Lurker]

Yeah, the NMM sucks. I'm hoping for suggestions on how to fix it.

[arctica]

I think once you have the NMM at that stage, i would get a dark grey mix almost black and water it down and then glaze gently over the transition area to make it a bit smoother and keep repeating this, dragging your brush towards the darkest points so that the contrast really pushes through. What i've been experimenting with lately is to do what i just recommended but adding blue to the mix to give my NMM a bit more colour and it actually works quite well. Just a suggestion i paint in a weird way.

[Nameless]

nothing more to add from me, especcialy on NMM.
just wanted to say I have one of your crappy minis. would love to paint as crappy as you, Jen

[Midnight Lurker]

What about the highlight placement on the NMM? It looks "off" but I can't figure out where it should be.