Chest of Colors forum

Rather than me clutter up the place with a dozen different posts, I'll follow a trend and make a single thread for it all.

A while ago I applied to a miniature company for a painting position but was turned down for reasons undisclosed. I got some free stuff, but it wasn't very good so I gave it away. Anyway, when I was hunting for miniatures to paint for the application I found this Undead Cowled Necrarch who didn't make the cut and so remained unpainted... until now!

I wanted to give him a good old fashioned Undead look which meant learning how to paint undead skin and undead eyes convincingly.

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I used a base coat of 4:1 black and Games Workshop Bronzed Flesh. Several layers of Anita's Antique White (pale version of GW Bleached Bone) followed and the whole is finished off with a careful highlight of Daler-Rowney System 3 Titanium White.

To add a little more undead-ness to his face I decided to paint his eyelids Lefranc & Bourgeois Bilberry (similar to GW Warlock Purple) before doing the eyes with black, then a very pale grey and finally Titanium White for the pupil and iris.

The bottom lip still looked too alive at this point so I got the Bilberry purple again and gave it a basecoat of that. Followed up with Lefranc & Bourgeois Mother-of-pearl Blue (it's a pale sky blue, very pretty) and a final thin highlight of Titanium White.

The teeth I decided not to paint pure white. The Necrarch looks like a Nosferatu to me so I wanted to give him old yellowy teeth. I started with a basecoat of pure black, detail in Anita's Antique White and a glaze of Games Workshop Leprous Brown to finish.

I think I'm going with some old school goth for his colour scheme and may even attempt dusty black brocade for his robes...

Interesting piece, not sure how I'd even try to paint it but I look forward to seeing your progress.

I think you definitely need to work on face's smoothness - at least on presented pic the paint looks very grainy

What Demi said and maybe more layers to make the transition smoother.

Demi_morgana wrote:I think you definitely need to work on face's smoothness - at least on presented pic the paint looks very grainy

It's something I'm annoyed about with the photograph. In person, the paint looks nice and smooth with a good sharp transition between pale and dark but in photographs it looks sort of grainy and rough. I don't know why this is and do get rather annoyed with it.

maybe any GIMP / photoshop manipulations?
I know GIMP has option to make pics sharper but if you overdo it - pics gets grainy

I'm working on some Harlequins, just as a head's up. I might have a couple to show later tonight, if I can get the camera working...

Long time no see mate, welcome back!

Life's been a little hectic, but a bad back means all I can do is sit and paint miniatures. How terrible for me XD

As promised, some Harlequins. I've recently done my back in so I have to take time off work, but this means I do at least get to do some painting, since my painting chair is the most comfortable in the house for me... silver lining I suppose.

Anyways, I went a different route with the colour scheme, choosing black, white and scarlet with purple-blue crystal for interest.

First of all, a Fire Prism I'm partway through repainting (which is why the turret isn't shown). This grille shows the finished crystal work, something a bit different to metal.
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This grille isn't finished, but those two dark red bits of detail are. The white cartouch I think needs a bit of detail work adding to it, but I don't know what, ideas?
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A top view and a side view of the crazy chequerboard and spirals pattern.
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Female trouper, not quite finished. The powersword will be blue-purple crystal to match the Fire Prism.
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Male trouper, started this one today, not quite finished him off yet.
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I'm not after in depth critique since I'm still working on these two, but if you've any suggestions, feel free to throw them at me.