Pete's Minis

[Neatpete]

Heya folks. Hope all is well in CoC land.

Figured I'd share some recent minis and see if you all had any pointers of thoughts on them. Appreicate any feedback on them, thanks.

"Practice painting whites"
First up a pinup nurse from Wyrd. Started painting some minis for ebay to help me raise money for my wedding next summer in Mexico. Hawked it on ebay for $66 so that was pretty sweet.

Click to see full-sized image

Next up is this Vagrant knight by Maelstrom games. Painted it for a contest over on WAMP, but the evil Canadian Radom stole my spot on the 3rd place podium. Grats you fugger. The kit was a bit of disaster but I made it work for the most part.

Click to see full-sized image

Thanks for looking and feel free to tear em up! Thanks.

[Neatpete]

Nothing huh? Lets try again...

Feel free to tear em up folks. I wont cry and I'm trying to get better with help from other painters.
thanks

Click to see full-sized image

[Maru]

huh ... you get no comments .. WTF ??
sorry that whas propably actident ..

ok
Whites
"whan painting white - dont use white actualy"
the trick is that white is not a color without eny hue - so it reflect 100% light back - wich is imposible to paint so to make whites more real we usualy try topaint them using off Whites end mixing them with colors in area - in a way as they would collor themselves from surrondings
so actualy nurse would have a creme whites on her - skin end hairs , end a litle greenish (just tint of green ) nead belt
beside that whait material cast shadows like eny othr - so we paint that
- similary - color reflected

on knight best part is shild
end rest of whites are flat , not intresting -ther is no life in it - so whats missing - light end reflections of colors from surrondings

Avbout newest mini - When choosing colors - use this :
http://www.colorjack.com/sphere/
realy help with color selection
Green end pink/purple - thats complementary = black vs White - totaly oposite
thats good way on contrast but quite overpowering
end mey lead to flatning image -
80% contrast on this mini end diorama is on color
a real contrast made by ligght end shadow is on heat end a litle on skirt - rest is flat from light side of contrast

- the moust inpresive works acts moustly on light / shadow contrast - not on color 1
- so your goal should be "LIGHT & SHADOW"


beside that your works are xlean wich is good start point to paint better

[mahon]

Pete,

You were unlucky to post these two in an unfortunate period of absence/inactivity of this forum biggest 'talkers'.
I'm back here now so I will be happy to add something to what Maru said.

BTW Maru's comment is very good and helpful IMHO!

Aren't the photos a bit overexposed? Whites seem to be almost glowing on them.
If you actually painted white with white you did a common beginner's error.

White and black are colors where you have to cheat a bit - paint them with different (very pale or very dark) colors and keep whites and blacks for final highlights/shadows only.
Now it might not seem very natural and intuitive but when you see a complete model painted you will see that your sight adjusts to the range of colors and contrasts on the model. So the darkest colors becomes te darkest shadow, and the palest - the highest highlight. So you don't have to paint white with white and black with black. If you use similar but less extreme colors, your sight will still accept it and believe it.

I think that your problem now is that your paintjobs seem to be a bit flat. Probably some more chiaroscuro would help. There are parts where it looks just fine ( the knights face on the last photo, under the cheeks of the lady in green, etc.) But I think you got shading quite right while still need to work on highlighting.

See this:

Click to see full-sized image

Of course it's just a quick sketch, but it shows what mor could be done.
Then on the next step you could think about playing with color nuances a bit more...

It seems like you got the contrast quite fine on the horse's caparison and knight's cloak - the greys there look quite natural and really make the impression they're real shadows, not painted but cast by light.

By the way - what kind of problems did you have with the knight? Bad casting?

[Neatpete]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'll push my highlights further and work on adding more contrast.

Next time I paint whites I'll try what you guys suggested. I'm sure the photos are overexposed as you said, I'm not so good with the camera. The whites on the knight are airbrushed so if they look good, I only get partial credit.
As far as the Knight kit is concerned... There were some parts that simply didn't line up and had me wondering what they were thinking when they cast it. The detail was really nice, but some basic stuff was rather off. Almost like they got the difficult stuff right but the easy stuff wrong if that makes any sense. Luckily its resin so shaving it and getting things to work out is easier IMO.

Later I heard the sculptor was upset with the casting and I can understand his concerns. I can't read French but I saw this link and got a decent translation. My copy wasn't this bad, but you may see what I'm talking about from his pics.
http://minicreateurs.com/e107_plugins/f ... hp?49817.0


Again I really appreciate the feedback and suggestions guys, Thanks.