The circus troupe you’ve seen on my WIP photos is ready.
We took the photos in early March but didn’t manage to post them until now. Well, now they are here for you to enjoy 🙂
And if you want to see the WIP posts, you can find them here .
I’ve been a great fan of HR Giger‘s art for years. Nothing unusual among us, fantasy and sci-fi fans. But being a miniature painter I always wanted to paint a miniature in a style inspired by HR Giger’s art. When I wondered how to paint Rasputina from Wyrd Games, the concept came to my head…
Everything became clear immediately when I grabbed the base that I chose for the model. The image I had in my head was so strong that I can’t even think about how disappointed I would have been if the customer would have said “no” to my concept.
[inset side=left]I wanted the paintings to immediately remind of Giger’s work.[/inset]
But how can you be surprised? If the whole world is so full of Giger references, how can my little head be an exception? I started with what I had a complete idea ready for – the face on the base (from Scibor Monstrous Miniatures).
My intention was not to copy any particular artwork, but more along the lines of using it as inspiration and fitting it into my own compositions. Still I wanted the paintings to immediately remind of Giger‘s work.
Is there anything that I regret now? Oh, yes. The fact that I didn’t decide to put screws in her cheeks. The idea is still on my mind, maybe to be used one day?
For the base my inspiration were these two paintings:
Here’s my initial color palette, the colors that I started with.
And the brush that I chose for this part of work. It was going to be fine-detailed painting, so a 3/0 brush from Raphael 8404 series was a good starting point.
And off to painting we go…
While painting such parts remember to take advantage of being able to rotate your model. Adjust its position so your brushstrokes aren’t too much of a challenge to pull off.
[inset side=right]I turned my model upside down, so the rounded shape didn’t require any corrections.[/inset]
Here I wanted to achieve a nice, rounded finish for the stripes, so I turned my model upside down so I could pull the brush from the top downward, so the rounded shape didn’t require any corrections.
I know that everybody is holding their brush in their own way, so I recommend that you pay attention and observe the way you’re working with your brushes, so that you can take advantage of your own work style. Such little details make painting much more enjoyable and faster.
I added little touches like the shadow under the diadem. They may seem to be only minor things in the overall picture, but I found they add a lot to the feel and completeness of the whole paintjob:
Sometimes I thought it would be better to break the surface into smaller ones somehow. And in fact sometimes I treated this idea quite literally. 😉
And this is what my palette looked like by the time I finished painting the head. Much richer than at the beginning, isn’t it? 😉
Now here is a photo of the finished head. This photo shows its colors, tints and hues much better than my humble WIP pictures:
Here’s what I started the cloak with:
For the cloak I chose motifs that would look good in the composition, but also the ones that I liked more.
Sometimes shapes or edges of the sculpt suggest me where to place those motifs. A photo is always flat, so you may have difficult time noticing the reasons why I placed those details the way I did…
When I planned how to place the first three graphic elements, the surrounding space inspired me with its shape and shadows to arrange it this way, with the skull and female body:
And here’s another motif from Giger, arranged to follow the edge:
And the lower right part, below Rasputina’s feet, just begged to be painted with those… let’s call them “fishes” for political correctness’ sake:
When I covered all the surfaces with freehands, I considered the front of Rasputina’s cloak done:
I got a bit distracted and forgot to catch the earlier stages of painting this element on my photos, so here’s the first shot of this part I managed to get:
There were two paintings from Giger that were my inspiration for this part of my paintjob:
This time I had to start with some larger shapes, so I started with a larger brush. A 1 from Raphael 8404 series:
I planned to place the skulls on raised parts of the surface and started painting the weaved pattern. The way I painted it will be easy to follow on the next few photos. Painting such plaiting could be explained in a few points:
[inset side=right]Painting plaiting could be explained in a few repeating points.[/inset]
… and so on, until I ended up with what you saw on the photo above. See the whole process on the following photos. After this the surface was ready to paint a few skulls on it.
To add some color variation between the elements – the skulls and the background, I shaded the skulls with a slight addition of this color:
Although it is not a huge difference, it brings them a bit forward and sets them off from the background, as you can see on this photo:
Now that the main model was painted I decided to tweak the base a bit, so I can also show you how I played with the fern:
Despite all my admiration of this pattern of bases, I must admit that the way those floral motifs are sculpted is not making painting any easier. I decided to cover them a bit, but to tie the real fern a bit more with the sculpted ones, I had to exaggerate a bit on the real thing, making it a bit grotesque:
[inset side=left]I used strong hair modelling gel to shape the fern[/inset]
As you can see I applied some glazing and then drybrushed highlights on it before applying the fern on the base. Later I only needed to tweak shading a bit, and adjust the shape of my fern.
I used strong hair modelling gel to shape the fern:
See how it added some detail and depth to the base?
Done! My model was ready.
Now you can see which bits from Giger’s paintings were my inspiration for which parts of my paintjob.
Here’s the finished paintjob. I think the question “how to paint Rasputina” has at least one answer now. Not the only one for sure…
But if you happen to have any more questions, feel free to ask them. I will try to answer and offer my help where I can.
I am really curious what you are going to do with your interpretations of this little miniature. Looking forward to seeing your versions!
[inset side=right]This special pack includes the tutorial enhanced with even larger photos.[/inset]
Although this is already the whole tutorial that I prepared for you, and I think the size of photos is completely sufficient for understanding the process and concepts behind my paintjob, we prepared some kind of a gift for some of you! Or actually a way of saying THANK YOU to those who offered donations that help us run the website.
This special pack includes the tutorial enhanced with even larger photos. They allow to see details that you might have difficult time spotting even in real life, including flaws, imperfections and often even individual brush strokes.
So if any of you decided to share a donation with us and let us know you are interested in the bonus, and we’ll make it available to you. This is our way of showing our gratitude for supporting us.
Thanks for your interest and enjoy the tutorial!
This will be a little walkthrough / tutorial on how I painted my Malifaux Seamus the Mad Hatter from Wyrd Miniatures. This Mad Hatter tutorial is also the first one I ever wrote. 😉
For priming I used a combination of black and white primer.
Generally I use a basecoat color, 3-4 shadows and 3-4 highlights for one part/detail. So I end up with a total of 7-9 colors which I use to create the transition from the deepest shadow to the brightest highlight.
All my paint ratios in this Mad Hatter tutorial represent my drop count (I have all my GW paints refilled in empty Vallejo-like dropper bottles which makes it easier for me when mixing colors) – for example:
GW Tallarn Flesh : VMC Dark Flesh #019 (3:1)3 drops GW Tallarn Flesh : 1 drop VMC Dark Flesh #019GW = Games Workshop / Citadel
VMC = Vallejo Model Colour
Dilution of my paints is about 50% paint to 50% water for glazing (highlights and shadows) and my basecoat is a little bit thicker so about 70% paint to 30% water.
Ok, let’s get started with painting the Malifaux Seamus the Mad Hatter miniature. 🙂
It’s good for all the readers of my Seamus the Mad Hatter tutorial to know that I always start with the head/face of a mini and then move to the next part. I only paint one part at a time and pretty much finish it before I move to the next one. For the skin I used GW Tallarn Flesh as a basecoat color and applied 2-3 thin layers until I had nice even coverage.
[inset side=right]I always start with the head/face of a mini and then move to the next part. I only paint one part at a time and pretty much finish it before I move to the next one.[/inset]
After the skin was basecoated I painted the eyes:
Once the eyes were done I switched back to his skin and started with the shadows.
I applied the first shadow always moving the brush towards the deepest parts which will later receive the darkest color and using many layers always leaving a bit of the previous brush stroke untouched to build up the first shadow. Then I applied the second and third shadow also leaving a bit of the previous shadow untouched to build a transition towards the darkest shadow. Colors I used for the shadows:
The last shadow color (Shadow IV) was used for the deepest recesses like his mouth and facial wrinkles.
Then I started painting highlights. It’s pretty much the same as with shadows – moving the brush towards the highest parts which will receive most of the light, always leaving a bit of the previous highlight untouched to build a transition from the basecoat to my last highlight. The method presented here, in this Mad Hatter tutorial, is the one I usually use. Colors used for the highlights:
I used the last highlight (Highlight IV) only for a few bright-spots.
I basecoated his hair with the following mix:
Then highlighted it getting brighter towards the outside with the following colors:
I did some preshading and highlighting here that’s not something I usually do it sometimes just happens. 😉
After this was done I messed around with mix-ratios until I was satisfied with the colors and came out with the following mixes:
I painted highlights and shadows like described in the face part always moving the brush towards the deepest shadows and brightest highlights, using many thin layers and slowly building up the color.
The last highlight (Highlight IV) was only used on the upper parts as a last “popping” highlight like on the folds on his arm or his collar.
I paint every part as described above (first I apply the basecoat with 2-3 layers and then paint the shadows and highlights) so for the next few parts of my Mad Hatter tutorial I will only post the colors I used. 🙂
Some of you may be checking this Mad Hatter tutorial in search for my NMM recipe. When I painted the NMM parts like his blade I tried to to push the highlights up to pure white and the shadows to a dark almost black tone. The colors I used for the silver NMM parts were:
To increase the last shadow a bit on the silver NMM parts I used some very diluted black (like a wash it was mostly “black water”) and carefully glazed this mix at the very end (bottom) of the last shadow.
All Gold NMM parts were painted with the following colors:
When painting small details like the gold NMM stuff on his bag or the belt buckle on his hat I usually don’t use the complete range of mixes. I basecoat the area as usual, use the first shadow/highlight but then I leave the second mix out and jump to the third shadow/highlight.
For large surfaces it’s the same procedure as with the other parts.
The NMM parts were painted with the colors described above in an earlier part of this Mad Hatter tutorial and for the bag I used the following mixes:
Ok that’s pretty much it. I hope you enjoyed reading this little walkthrough and found something interesting.
And here are some final pictures of the miniature. If you recreated the steps presented in my Seamus the Mad Hatter tutorial, you should achieve similar results:
— P1per
