Chest of Colors forum

Time for another small update from the work bench of your's truly...

I gave my wizard another coat of white (his 2nd since the last pictures) and a lot of the pitting has dissipated and while there are still some bits I'm not happy with the bulk of the figure is ready for some colour.

Now my Sea Elf...

I decided to try and do some blue and white stripes on his leggings and after the first stroke realised my hand is no where near steady enough for 'pin stripes' so I went ahead and did 'parti coloured' a bit like a cross between a Court Jester and 'Errol Flynn' in the old movies.

Click to see full-sized image

Click to see full-sized image

Click to see full-sized image

Click to see full-sized image

I actually like the deep blue colour but it's just the base coat and this figure will need a lot of highlights and shadows done to it before I'm ready to call it finished.

Does anyone have any suggestions what I should do about the colours of the sash and gloves?

I've always imagined wood elves like this to be greens and browns, depends what you imagine it to look really.

One thing which occured to me while looking at some of your works, are the surfaces you're working on. For example your wizard has a very rough finish on his cloak etc, i read somewhere that you can water down milliput and essentially cover the mini in thin layers of this watered down sandy stuff to help fill any tiny inconsistencies on the surface and you can gently sand the stuff once it's dried. Not tried it myself but might be something worth thinking about and im sure others around here can offer more insight on this. I think if you had nicer surfaces to paint on you'll find it alot easier too.

These guys are Marauder elves so I figured I'd make them into a Sea Elf Band of Pirates and thought the blue would look great on them they are old GW models I believe and I've had lying about for the better part of 15 years

Yes, I've thought about using either milliput or a proper primer but I don't have any of either lying about to use so I have to make do with my artist acrylics (don't have any money for hobby stuff!) for now.

do you have any idea for shading the blue? it's not a toy from kinder surprise so it needs depth
and do you want to keep current white tone? it's nice and clean but let's be frank: I bet in ye old world there was no washing powders

Does anyone have any suggestions what I should do about the colours of the sash and gloves?

natural browns? black?
as for blue&white - they need a lot of work. So, start shading and highlighting, the final result might help you to choose other colours

The white will get 'grubbier' as I do the shading and highlighting, it was never meant to be a Persil advert I'm just going to put a few stains and shadows in where appropriate

I really love the blue but am worries the shading and highlights will leave me with more of a worn denim colour so we shall see with that one.

Natural Browns or Black... Hmm The boots ate definitely going to be brown so the gloves can match that but the sash need something else... Maybe a nice Yellow to offset the blue of the legs.

Your improvement is rather fast. You'll be up a good standard in a very short while. Especially with some new paints and brushes (I saw the birthday thread...) The blue of the pants is really nice, and the dividing line between white and blue is very sharp and good. The skintone isn't bad either but the shading could be smoother perhaps. All in all a pretty good attempt so far considering your limited experience. A few small points I thought about

* I always find it easier to drybrush stuff before I start on the rest of the model. That way you don't risk brushing stuff onto other areas since drybrushing can be a bit messy. I have a feeling getting a good drybrush on the torque might be hard without getting some gold on the chest.
* Are you sure the model is actually wearing gloves? It looks like thers a line just at arm/hand "crossing" on the sword hand, so I would guess that it's some sort of bracers instead, and not gloves.
*Your models are old. Perhaps investing in a plastic GW box or something might get you better pratice material at a limited cost. There's nothing wrong with old models, but it might be easier to paint something that's in better condition when you start out (thinking about the pockmarked wizard among other things)
*Washed out denim is cureable with some glazes, and preferable of the ink kind if I remeber correctly

As for the higlighting and shading, it's basically just practise, practise and practise that counts

flintfish wrote:Your improvement is rather fast. You'll be up a good standard in a very short while. Especially with some new paints and brushes (I saw the birthday thread...) The blue of the pants is really nice, and the dividing line between white and blue is very sharp and good. The skintone isn't bad either but the shading could be smoother perhaps. All in all a pretty good attempt so far considering your limited experience. A few small points I thought about

Thank you, I'm pleased with my progress so far

flintfish wrote:* I always find it easier to drybrush stuff before I start on the rest of the model. That way you don't risk brushing stuff onto other areas since drybrushing can be a bit messy. I have a feeling getting a good drybrush on the torque might be hard without getting some gold on the chest.

Good point, in fact I was getting a little scared about doing that bit actually

flintfish wrote:* Are you sure the model is actually wearing gloves? It looks like thers a line just at arm/hand "crossing" on the sword hand, so I would guess that it's some sort of bracers instead, and not gloves.

I hadn't even given it a thought but you have a point, on further inspection I believe it could go either way and skin coloured hands may look better on that model anyway

flintfish wrote:*Your models are old. Perhaps investing in a plastic GW box or something might get you better pratice material at a limited cost. There's nothing wrong with old models, but it might be easier to paint something that's in better condition when you start out (thinking about the pockmarked wizard among other things)

I do have a couple of new resin models that I might have a play with now I have the good paints.

flintfish wrote:*Washed out denim is cureable with some glazes, and preferable of the ink kind if I remeber correctly

I'll have a go with some glazes but only when I have worked more on my paint consistency, the paint straight from the bottle is just too thick for my liking and I tried a little watering the other night without much success, so much lack of success that I have decided to strip the sea elf and start again (more to do with the primer coat flaking off the model to be honest though) As for the Washed out Demin look I'll address that in the next attempt.

flintfish wrote:As for the higlighting and shading, it's basically just practise, practise and practise that counts

Good job I intend to start again then I'll put some pictures up when I have something worth showing you all