Step by Step: Dumah, Lord of Bones

Hi Jungle,

it's been a while since the last tutorial from the monkeys in here.
As I told you before, I still have plenty in stock from 2016 and as we do not have a year of the painter in 2017 only once in while - when the time is available - something like this kind will drop in.


KONG FU
Due my recent Kong Fu articles here on the blog I slowly see the end of the tunnel of my creative block. Still I did not paint at all yet, but frankly I do not find the time right now as many things are to be done at the office desk. It helps to work off the things that are in line. It clears the brain and the fog. As I am a person who loves to create it is the hardest part for me right now that nothing new is created right now. That I am not flowing in my creative waters and be able to finish something at the painting desk. This fact was really hard in the beginning, but slowly I understand more of it. Well, here is Lord Dumah, that I finished in the end of 2016. I hope you enjoy the article ...

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You want to support Massive Voodoo? 
If you like to support or say thanks the monkeys of Massive Voodoo in what they do, please feel invited to drop a jungle donation in their direction via paypal or check their miniatures they got on sale here.
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Let's get it on with a step by step on how I painted
Kimera's "Dumah, Lord of Bones".

INTRODUCTION
Again this is not a step by step teaching you color recipes, as mostly all I did was mixed from primary colors by Schmincke Primeacryl. The primaries I use can be found here. I often got asked on a particular color of a particular brand to make this repeatable for everyone, but frankly it is hard to tell you when you mix everything out of five colors. Nonetheless I know from my seminar teachings that a true way of free painting can only be found if you consider this an option. Observation is the key, analysing colors and tones instead of repeating mixes that you only understand if written in front of you.

Some of might think this is bad teaching or a bad step by step. Well, I can only recommend to open your eyes to it. The joy of painting is hidden in this way of mixing colors and of course you can use all your model paints for it too, it is just a deeper understanding of color that will appear if you limit yourselve.

While I was preparing the photos for this article I saw that some are not perfect. Done during the painting process it takes a lot of discipline to grab your camera or your mobile and do photos in between your steps. Everybody who tries to write a step by step knows what I am speaking of. So, please excuse the photo quality of some in this article. In the end I hope you will enjoy the article.

I actually took the base that came with the model, added it to a round plinth in a good size and added some small stones and groundwork to it. Nothing special.

PAINTING PROCESS AND THOUGHTS
Lord Dumah was primed black with GW black primer and well, looked pretty dark in this first stage. In the back you can see some color mixes on my wet palette going on. Coming from primaries.

Lord Dumah here for me is a dark character in my vision. I mean just look at his concept. Some kind of demon with superior weaponry to slay the good fellas. So I started rather dark. First I gave the base a first sketch of color and contrast. Some cold green was mixed here and used, following a zenithal light situation. I decided to start the skintone a bit brighter as I knew that the true metallic parts would frame it in dark/bright contrast. So the skin and face would stand out. Fabrics were kept pretty dark too as I did not want to draw too much focus on them. Still many areas are black primer in this stage.



True Metallics were used also, but also kept them very dark so far. Of course these are not mixed from primaries as my primary colors have no metallic pigment. I used Scale75 metallic paints here.

Everything I did so far has a drop of dark blue in it to keep the harmony of my atmospheric vision.
This is mainly slappadislapp of paint to bring my vision forward.

Still unsure about the models further color choices I pushed contrast on the base and painted the surface brighter, with stronger edge highlights. More definition. And a tiny touch of yellow in it for highlighting. Yo, check my thumb to see the colors I used.

Very important if you are unsure about further colors is to block out all areas with applying paint. So I did. Some more work on the metallics and colors everywhere.

I really enjoy to work with textures of paint. In the metallics, in the fabrics. So while pushing contrast I use my brushstroke-power with pride and joy. Still slappy di slapp :D

Edges break light, so if the edge is sharp it will recive a strong edge highlight. Round edges not as they are no edges.

My vision slowly becomes clearer as everything comes togehter in the same stage of pushing contrast, color harmony and closing in to detail work.

On the way I decided to have another color playing a strong game on this model. As I see him as a demon lord I decided to have some glowing runes here and there and started with the large surface of the shield. I painted my sketch there in pure strong white to have the strongest underpainting for a glow or so called OSL effect.

I always test these things on another surface first and you can see on my cutting matte how I did it with a simple slaanesh symbol. When decided this is ok I used a flourescent red/orange and placed it on top of the white as glazes and repeated this step several times to make it more intense.

Not finished yet with the shield I decided to have this also on other areas going on to keep the overall balance of color harmony. His eyes should glow too:

With no other orange going on so far, I decided to take all areas that lack behind with me. Working on the metals and skin was the main thing now. Also the fabrics recieved a stronger but still desaturated textured highlight.

I used my airbrush now to spray a green touch as a glaze into the model from below to connect base and model even further.

Lower parts get greener ...

If you do it right no green areas - except the base - will be visible from the top.

During the process of this model I got asked on facebook which colors I used for the fabrics. Well, as I can not name a specific brand or such I explained my contrast range on these parts by remixing my steps. A dark purplish black, slowly highlighted with a yellowish/pinkish white to make it turn to grey, but really slowly.

As the explanation on the wetpallete was not so visible I decided to place it also to my skin:

On the fabrics it self it looked much darker as I was pushing back the deepest shadows already and also the green glaze with the airbrush plays its game.

After everything was closing in more I decided for some more magic orange going on.

And also added reflections on the metals from the glow of the sword as metals are the strongest reflecting material I got going on in this project I decided to only gently work this on them. Not on the skin or fabrics. It's not a super-nuclear glowing orange thing.

My true metallic metal highlights turned brighter and a little blueish. You mainly can see this from the top as they were placed from a zenithal light source.

Reflections of the orange.

For final steps I cleaned up here and there. Checked for mistakes in painting, did some darklinging here and there where it was needed to seperate areas clearly from eachother. Final highlights here and there. This is the final paintjob that I did on comission and my client was really happy:

The cloak recieved some wathering on the lower parts.

Due my free color play by mixing everything from primaries I am able to create really interesting color games. I love them so much. It feels so much like painting I am used to from canvas painting back in those days.

Lord Dumah was a real interesting model to paint. Not an easy one as some forms do not attract for happy painting. It is a very complex sculpt and sometimes I would have wished for sharper sculpted edges and the chain on the sword made no sense to me and was a pain to understand and paint. Overall I was quite happy on how he turned out.

I hope you enjoyed this walkthrough, my thoughts and ideas behind this paintjob. May you find inspiration in it, that is why I wrote it. If so, consider ...

_______________________________________________________________________________
You want to support Massive Voodoo? 
If you like to support or say thanks the monkeys of Massive Voodoo in what they do, please feel invited to drop a jungle donation in their direction via paypal or check their miniatures they got on sale here.
_______________________________________________________________________________

Keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes
Roman