Painting Jam 06 - Mixed FAQ

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

Let's get it on... :)


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Edwin asks if i could give him some hints and tips on his latest miniature, which you can find here!

My answer:

These are simply my personal thoughts, no offending nor is is something you got to do, hope you can catch something out of it which helps you further.

When i look at miniatures i don't look on technique or details first - i have a look on the overview of the complete model including base and if everything is harmonic. I got to say i like your Space Wolf a lot, even the photos are a bit small to give an detail feedback to the paintjob. I think base and model are harmonic and i do like what i see. My suggestion or thoughts: The base is distracting from the miniature in my eyes, because there is too popping colour going on, for example the grass and the yellow thing under the stones. This makes the base dance in front of my eyes and doesn't catch the focus on the miniature itself. I don't get what the yellow thing is, sorry. The stones look fine and do fit the scene well - mostly it is the grass, which is too bright for my taste. After glueing it, you could go with a final glaze over it, some dirt colour or even old painting water with some pigments in it to make it less strong in its colour power. When you look at your base you find out that the bright grass pops out the most in the base areas which are very dark, because of the big dark/bright contrast. And the base whatever its seize is shouldn't be the most focal point, you can always work this with colour...

Getting to the next point when i look at the model: The point of focus at the miniature itself. I don't really find one. The Teracotta Bolter disappears a bit, got swallowed by the teracotta stones... hell yeah, i think this guy would look great if he would stand on a base that is painted in really sagging colours... ok, uhm... My eye finds the focal point on your model at the banner due the strong red in there. If you want it to be on the face you got to work with more gaudy/colourful colours in contrast to faint colours. You can easily make a colour more pale if you mix in a drop of black, grey, brown, blue, depends on the colour you want to weaken... For example, if the banner would have been in a less stronger red, or even would have been worked with a dark blue grey instead of the reds your main attention/ focus point would be at the face.

These are my main thoughts on your model. The miniature is well done. You definatly know how to paint nice models. Here and there you could maximize the contrast from bright to dark in your colours. For me it helps to paint the miniature in a stronger light situation then usual, so i know what happens there and why i do highlight or shadow the areas. I really like the armour and the fur and the back of the banner itself... hope this helps you somehow!

Edwin also asks:

I've been thinking is there a way to join Massive Voodoo?

My answer:
For this answer i have to dig deep in my soul to explain what Massive Voodoo means to me. It is not about making money, not about doing something great or becoming great because of the jungle. My thoughts behind Massive Voodoo are that i want a place i share with my friends, close friends i know from the telephone and from real life. Like a living room for me and those i really like and have something deep beyond only miniature painting. A place where we share our thoughts, our work and ideas because the distances we live away from eachother won't allow an everydays meeting. As i am big Kong here, i always choose the new Apes myself and at the moment i think there is completly the right number of apes here in the jungle. As you can see we are many already, but it is still me who is sitting around in the jungle living room the most. The reasons for this is that everyone of my Ape friends is invited to do whatever he likes, post whenever he likes - at the moment everyone is really busy beside miniatures or is stuck in bigger projects... but that is not a problem at all. There will never be pressure behind something, if one of the Apes blogs into the jungle it is always a welcome sight, whatever he does. I can say that because i know my Apes well and fully thrust them in every case. I don't want to be a bugger when i say "No, there is no need for new Apes at the moment!" - it is just that i really found my way how Big Kong wants to handle the jungle and at the moment i really got some close friends in, without thinking that there is need for new ones... can't really explain what i mean, but i hope you'll get me right...


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Joe asks via mail:

"First off let me say I love the site, it has helped me and my friends do so much more with our painting and our hobby its not even funny. Your doing an outstanding job and your minis are unbelievable led to so much inspiration for my friends and I. There are alot more bloody ugly strings and more colorfull minis all around rather than the plain old single color minis we had before.

I was hoping you could help me with a little experiment and tryout, I need assistance picking out what colors to use and to achieve the effect I want. I play a Dark Angels army from 40k and recently I was reading one of the old stories "Deathwing" and from the materiel the Terminators"annointed thier armor white with ash symbolizing they were dead men already. GW uses the bleached bone on the armor because I think they coulden't replicate the ash color or wanted to sell more of bleached bone (lol) but I did some looking around and the only one that came close I saw on coolminiornot - i'll post a link to it. The effect I would like to achieve is an white/ashen-white color for the terminators. Looking from the range I was thinking possibly a dheneb stone/codex grey mix with continuing highlights and shadows as necessary to build it up. With the link I emailed the gentleman who painted them but didn't get a respone on how it was done.

 

If you could provide any input or any assistance at all to this I would be very very appreciative. Once again thank you for all you do and all the work you put into your painting and the site its an inspiration to less than good (me) painters who are trying to improve thier skills. 

 

He has more pics like this squad if you search through his lists."

"I was just now looking at your recent coolminiornot posts and saw the Brother Dieno paint job and that is fantastic! It's just what I was looking for!"

My answer:
Ok, now let's get it on with Brother Deino then. My colours i have used for the armour have been: The main tone i build up everything was a Bleached Bone mixed with Codex Grey, for the shadows i have added a tiny drop of chaos black and additional for the deeper shadows a drop of Vallejo's Dark Sea Blue 70898. For the lights i did the highlighting from the main tone with more bleached bone and went to mixing in Ivory by Vallejo's Model Colour 70918. I guess the most intresting part about it is that i didn't paint everything in the same colours as i found my way through the miniature by painting a zenithal lightning on it. You got to think this way: What basecolour i have for this area? Where comes the light from? How do my areas get affected by the light and how does the basecolour change under the influance of this imagined light? Hope it helps!

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Jan wrote via email:

"At first I would like to thank you and your pack of apes for the great work you are doing out there in the jungle.
I am silently reading your blog for quite a while and am always glad to get inspirations and be jealous of you and your work.
But I know only trial and error forms the real master. (1)

Now I want to use the possibility to ask you two questions if I am allowed to. =)

Right now I am working on a new Army of Warrior of Chaos.
I found this miniature at CMON (Khorne Chaos Lord by Avelorn) and would like to adopt the colourscheme onto one of my heros (only the armour of the hero).

And here you get in action. Could you please help me with the choice of colours? I guess its's kind of beige, white and brown but out of that knowledge I could not make such a nice mail. (2)

Perhaps you get more out of it and can make some suggestions? That would be wonderful.

The second question is about painting TM, especially gold. Normally I really like NMM but mostly won't achieve good results. So I decided to give the good old metallic paints a second chance.
Normally I do not like the metallic and "pigmentious" look you get out of it, especially when painting gold or bronze.
I've read in your tutorial that you are mainly using Mithril Silver, even when painting gold? Did I get this right?
And do you have any other hints to get some nice, smooth and shiny results where you may mistake the TM for NMM? I hope you get what I mean out of this huddle of my writing. (3)

It would be great if you could help me with my little problems, even if I realize now that I wrote them down that they aren't that small and maybe answered shortly.

At least I can thank you for reading all through my text.

Happy painting and at latest we will meet in Aachen."

My answer:

First i need a new cup of coffee :) - then i'll do the "1, 2, 3 - thing" again, haha...

(1) That's the right attidue and true like the fact that the oceans exist mostly from water, thumbs up! Keep it up that way and trial and error will form your path. I am looking forward to see you at the Painting Class in Aachen - this will for sure help you a lot on your path, i'll promise that...

(2) I don't want to offend you at all, just a thought of mine here: Why didn't you ask Avelorn over on CMON via a private message about his colours? As i know him (which is not much) i would say he will not be a person that won't answer back. Sure i can try to figure out what colours are used on the model, but it might be much easier to ask himself about it. I would suggest this to you even if i try my best now: "beige, white and brown..." - jepp, this is for sure in it - but i guess there is also a bit of a strong powerful colour in it. I would suggest a drop of Bronzed Flesh mixed with beige, white and brown. Something like that makes it pop out that greatly. Hope it helps somehow... go grab a moment and ask Avelorn himself, that would bring a more precise answer to you i guess.

(3) When painting gold i go at it with the same ideas i have on normal silver metals - described here. I simply switch the colours. The trick behind it comes from the light and colour situation you got to paint when painting Non Metallic Metal. You have to paint strong contrast between dark and bright areas to make NMM look like metal. When painting True Metallic Metal you got to think the same way to make it look realistic. Even when painting gold. Sure i got some hints about my way of painting gold: First, i am often not really satisfied with my gold. Sometimes i build all my metal tones up from Mithril Silver, mixing in another colour to form it into the direction i want the metal tone to be. For gold for example you can mix in Snakebite Leather or Desert Yellow - you'll get 2 completly different golds in the feeling of the colour, now set them to light and shadow by mixing in a brighter metal tone for the lights and for example a drop of chaos black/schorched brown/bestial brown to make it darker . I am also using the Citadel gold tones sometimes, but not pure out of the bottle as i am never satisfied with the way the gold looks. I am often mixing in a drop of Schorched Brown or Bestial Brown to it to it to get a more warm and intense gold basic colour (light and shadow follow up). Lately i found Rich Gold by Vallejo Model Colour 214, which brings a strong colour tone. Sure you can still mix it into the direction you like. Check the Vallejo Model Colour gold tones - there are different ones which already could satisfy your needs. To brighten up a metal tone i found for myself Vallejo Model Air 064, which is a bit thinner than the usual colours but mixing it in to brighten up a metal tone is truely amazing, even with gold. You will see that even the colour choices will depend on trial and error brings you further. Test what you like an what you dislike, i can't do that for you. Hope my help can do it for you in the gold case! Here is a good example on how edges reflect the light that is breaking at them - gold example - what i miss in this example is the depth of the shadows... i will talk a lot about that in Octobre :)

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Iwok asks over on CMON:

"Well fan of your world haha i hope you can help me:
Could you give me the list for make the metallic on the helmet of this mini
Ancient Hero Maulg
Cause i'm lovin it ^^"

My answer:


The basecolour has been Oily Steel by Vallejo mixed with Schorched brown by Citadel. Lights have been painted with mixing in Mithril Silver, shadows have been painted with mixing in a tiny drop of Chaos Black by Citadel. I've added the patina effect by using a glaze of Hawk Tourquise and Goblin Green, very thin, applied in 2~3 Steps to intense the areas.


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Serotoninless asks over on CMON:

"man,honestly, u are my most admired mini painter,
and most of your works are my primary source of inspiration!
so, i really want to hear your instruction which may lead my way~
here is my latest work,
http://coolminiornot.com/256709
(btw,its my favourite work of my own,
but i guess it will get lower rating than all the previous exercises,
thats really annoying...)

can u give me some advices ,c&c or something.
thx a million~"

My answer:
Sure i can do that - thanks for your nice words :)

I really like the dark athmosphere you've created here. The OSL is subtle but works well with the reds and the greens...Looking at the miniature with your drawn background i got to say it looks really cool. Looking at the miniature standing alone on a dark background i feel i miss something. I am not sure what it is. I do like it in the overall look, but somehow it lacks a bit in contrast. This isn't an easy mini to talk about, but i guess you could have done some more great eyecatchers on your greyish old armoury by using the OSL and let it hit some more edges, for example on the shield, chainmal... you got to think yourself into the light source and follow its path, that is what i always do, haha.  When a light hits an edge it always breaks there and make this edge appear more intense. Just have an eye on things sorrounding you in your every day life - how does light break on the edges of my cup of coffee, how does light break on the edges of my bycicle, how does light break on sharp edges or on unsharp edges, how does light break on metallics... it is out there, my best suggestion is: Train to see it and applicate it to your Miniature Painting. Hope my thoughts help you further!

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Vonkrolok asks via CMON:

"Hello Jarhead
I wanted to ask you some directions regarding the skin tones used in your Vlad. I like it very much and despite my numerous attempts at painting a vampire skin, I never succeeded in doing something remotely pleasing to my -maybe overly- demanding eyes.

Thank you very much in advance and keep up the wonderful work ^_^"

My answer:
As far as i can remember - and that is not much on that guy - i did start with a very bright bleached bone/Codex Grey mix (basic colour), which i brought into the first shadows by glazing a mix of more Codex Grey in it, working my way to deeper areas of the skin by mixing in a tiny drop of Dark Flesh, reworking the lights again, guess i have used also a drop of Ivory in the basic mix. glazing again... damn, now my brain says "No to me!" - i guess somewhere i did also mix in a tiny, tiny, tiny drop of Warlock Purple in my basic colour - hope even this brain fart of mine could help you.

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Anonymous asked via comment:

"What brush you are using mostly, company and size?"

My answer:
Windsor & Newton Series 7, long version (not the short), size 2 and 1 :)

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So far of this weeks painting jam... are you really reading all this? Really would be intrested in you answering this question to me - thanks in advance!

Keep on happy painting!
Regards
Roman

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