Good Morning Jungle Painters,
we like to share ideas, thoughts and painting processes and it is not to wonder that we are able to present you another step by step article. I am catching up with some figures I painted back in 2016 and prepared articles for. Always remember Massive Voodoo is offering these for free and they do take time and effort to land in
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"Now listen up worm,
you think you can get in this club?
Told ya a strict no, so do not mess with me. I've seen snails with a stronger spine than yours. Shut the front door and move off." - Vizar, the bouncer
This article is about "Vizar",
a future bouncer - at least in my vision - when I did the box art comission for Spawning Pool Studios last year. Read more about it
here.
Vizar is currently out of stock on
Spawning Pool Studios webshop, but let's pray that he comes back.
Vizar here is a great model and I enjoyed every second working on him. If you read on you will find me talking about the following aspects in this step by step:
- project plan/vision/basework/priming/basic colors
- workflow/painting process/paintint red
- including two object source lights while painting zenital light
I hope you enjoy!
project plan/vision/basework
Allrighty - I'll be back in a second to continue writing - need a fresh coffee first.
Allrighty again. This model took me about 30 hours to paint, including basework, prep and priming. The article that you can read here took me about 8 hours overall, including photo edit, sorting photos, writing my thoughts on the project.
vision
This was rather simple, but constructed to be effectfull for my OSL from below. My vision for Vizar here was a as a bouncer on a spacy scifi space port, filled with all the scum the universe has to offer and he is toughest. I wanted to create an old school Shadowrun feel to it.
basework/priming/basic colors
I wanted to create this one a very small squared plinth to limit my space for telling the story. I could have gone with a wall and a door to the club and so much more, but I wanted to still have the model in focus for a box art and it is always good to challenge oneself.
Material I used were mainly plasticcard elements that I cut into the shape I need them too and and some small six-cornered-bricks for building small six-cornered-brick-towers that are meant to be energy suspenders for the lights on the ground. Yeah. Whatever.
Primed him black, combined with white from the top.
As I work my way from rough and sketchy to clean and sharp I started dirty and fast to understand my vision. Placed basecolors slippy sloppy to understand what I am aiming for. I can not give you precise color recipes - again - on this one as everything I needed was mixed by using primaries plus black and white. All basic colors that were placed recieved a touch of blue to tie them together in my ambience plan.
workflow/painting process
I decided for some more colors and went totally
cameo style here.
Painting red can be a pain in the stomach, but here is a little tip: Start dark and strongly desaturated. You can desaturate your red with the use of black or a dark blue or a dark green. In this case I went for black and a tiny drop of blue to match my basic colors.
Regaining control over dirty areas by repainting them with more color. Repainting the blacks (still a tiny drop of blue inside) and while doing so also grabbing his hair and super future glasses with the black color. More definition of different thhings on the model.
Already looking forward to paint the reds. You can already see a difference between saturation while I placed the basic colors. One side is meant to be darker than the other but it is not shadows what is happening here, it is saturation.
Took a photo of this stage with the big camera, where the colds were more visibile.
Time for stage two after my initial sketch. Painting on. Painting highlights on the blacks, very bright as you can see, they might not look like blacks anymore, but I know I can tint them down later on again if need be. More highlights on the skin to define volumes and shape. Still very pinkish, but the magenta and purple in my basic color creates this when adding white. Painting my highlights under the guide of zenital light.
Another light source comes in. First OSL.
Painting a quick sketch on my colors for the base and definining things in sketchy way. Painted the light panels pure and opaque white first to recieve the most effective glow powers in the end.
Already slapping color here and there where I see the OSL take hold of the model and while giving the magentas on the base a small highlight I also did this to the areas of his boots that were lid from below, mainly on the lower edges to understand what I am aiming for on this.
Did a photo in the photobox again on this stage to see properly what I have done here. Not as rough as my basic sketch, my vision gets clearer. Everything I can not handle at the moment due it is not important right now - for example, his patches, glasses, gun - does not recieve any attention and is just painted black.
Next stage made me increase highlights in all areas. Pushing brighter and brighter and smaller and smaller, but always checking back how zenithal light will hit a certain shape. The overall shape of the large one first, then the smaller ones included in that shape. The thoughts behind placing these highlights bigger or smaller come from my studies of different materials. On how they reflect light. Check back with photos of clothes, skin, metal, whatever or the real thing. Mainly worked on the black clothes and skintone.
Did touch the reds with a stronger saturated red first and then small reflexion dots. For these I have added a cold off white to my last used red mix. The gun recived a basic sketch of green and blue and metal parts were painted in a dark metal color. Metall pigment color + black is the key here.
Vizar recieved more attention to detail in the next stage. I cleaned up rough color transitions that I wanted to see smoother. I increased tiny little details all of the place. Edge highlights, bringing in the second OSL from the gun but not as strong as there should only be a small reflection on areas sorrounding the gun. Painted white on top of the magenta LED bars on the bottom.
A photo from the work in progress cabinet to check back if the magento glow is slowly working. It is important to see your project not only under daylight while working at it also try to check back with it in different light situations, for example daylight, big roomlight, etc.
Checking back on it under my daylight table. The white I have added is important to give a stronger OSL effect coming from this light source, later on when glazed again with magenta flouroscent color by Vallejo.
Sometimes during projects I have to set up my wet palette for fresh new start on things and mind. Ready for a start in happy painting.
I was about closing into details on Vizar now. A fresh wet palette can help on this as it sharpens the brain and brush to what you really need now.
I mainly went for retouching the lower OSL now, how it will influance the lower part of the figure and base. Added some minor tweaks here and there on ... well everything. I am listening to inner voice that tells me if I miss something like a highlight here and there or if I should calm something down. As soon as this voice wents silent I am close to abandon the project.
Mainly going back with magenta glazes to bring back the glow and its intensity from below.
Again some white on it, smaller now.
Glazed with flourescent magenta again. Retouched lower figure area with strong edge highlight reflections.
It was about time that the voice went silent.
And I abandoned the project after doing still some minor tweaks here and there. I was really happy about the outcome and the vision that I was able to catch with my version of "Vizar", the bouncer. Hope you like him too:
Summary
You can include several light sources like zenital light and several OSL influances in one model, but it is a thin line you walk there as these things can also be confusing to the viewers eye. I decided to go for a normal zenital light on the model first to make it understandable and readable easily. Then I decided for a strong OSL from below as this is something the viewers eyes can read easily again if the light source is located on the base. The small green shine of the weapons energy is not as strong as the one from below and therefor only a small area was used. It is also easy to read as the osl source is located on the model. I decided to not add another light source from not on the base itself. With all the saturated colors in the middle I might destroy the color harmony and readability for the viewers eye.
Keep on happy painting!
Roman
I hope you enjoyed the article!
If you did consider this:
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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.
_______________________________________________________________________________
