Barefists' Newbie Thread

[Barefists]

Great advice guys, thanks a lot! I have only Dwarf Flesh and Elf Flesh handy, lemme try mixing those into a red highlight - will keep you guys posted on how it turns out.

[Maru]

When highlighting red you can also try adding some GW Vomit Brown or GW Dwarf Flesh

i would not advice to add Vomit .. to enything ..... especialy to sombody flesh end clothing

WTF who is designinh thous paint names ,.... i whas yerstoday in game shop end checked new GW range - whats wrong with thous ppl .. ?? all new names end at least half of them have no sence end are some caind unspekable ... after checking 1/3 of whole paint range i whas suprized that ther whas no Bonner White, nipple pink, Unterboten Blue, Horse Ass brown, bullshit orange But ther whas Tusk ing furr - end i dont realy whana know what cainid of Furr got Tusk (Poland first minister) .. ther whas some other names that i realy dont whana know ...

Vermilion - thats classy paint name you mey buy oils , acryls , pigments - end it is brightest red that is red not orange - realy cachy color

[mahon]

Haha! Ok, so basically the parts I want in focus are typically the most saturated.
Awesome, I didn't know that before - I thought being realistic meant every had to be greyed down Silly me.

it really depends, but if you want to create a focal point you need to make it stand out somehow - either by saturating it more, catch attention with additional color, or with increased highlight or contrast:

Click to see full-sized image

And you don't need to desaturate your colors by adding gray. The best method (although requiring some knowledge of color theory or at least referring to a color wheel) would be to add complementary color (eg. green to reds). It's used by many experienced painters to great effect.

[Barefists]

Wow, that's really informative. Thanks a lot!
I really like how the centre one looks, it's very subtle, yet effective - I'll try that on my next mini.

[Hellspawn]

Wow, that's really informative. Thanks a lot!
I really like how the centre one looks, it's very subtle, yet effective - I'll try that on my next mini.

Think that the central one is your mini with just the outer parts removed But since you don't have anything else than the mini, you do have focal points cause your visoin isn't altered by the background, then Mahon added more focal points, so your goal is basically to get to the right one

[Barefists]

Hahahaha! I think Mahon greyed out the bottom of the mini and made the boob/face portion more saturated to draw focus to the top. That's something I'm gonna try on my next one.

[Hellspawn]

Well, he'll have to confirm if he has done something other than wiping out the background, but guess that's all he did

[mahon]

first one is untouched
the second one has focus defined with saturation changes
the last one has focus coming from strongest lighting.

these were quick sketches only but I believe you can do much better than that. only wanted to show you how it can be done on a miniature.

it's good to give every work a focal point, one that will catch attention first, and then direct the viewer's sight to the next point, and the next...

the obvious focal point is the face, but you can change this point using some tricks - like the ones I showed. it can also be a contrasting color, a shiny metallic part, etc.