Back from the 'dead'. Hopefully for good this time.

[marta]

After months without the brush I finally felt like I'm ready to go back and paint with pleasure and some consistency. Well almost without the brush, I tried to paint from time to time, but it wasn't very successful. So right now after a few days with painting I really hope the 'dry spell' is over and I'll be creative again.

Because I'm not really a fan of preping miniatures, you know cleaning them, assembling, priming... Especially priming. I use Mr. Surfacer 1200, which smells really nice, but still is not the healthiest thing to inhale, so I need to use a mask and all that stuff, and it takes time... you know.
Well anyway, I decided to prepare bunch of miniatures, prime them at one go and be over with it for a while. Below you can see the minis I chose to be painted next. As you can see, mostly busts and bigger scale. I'm not quite sure if I knew what to do with 28mm mini right now

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At this point, the minis are all primed and 'preshaded'. Because I use light gray primer, I couldn't just use white paint from the top to mimic zenithal lighting, it wouldn't be wisible enough. So first I applied a fairly diluted, dark gray paint from the bottom (+/- 45 degree), and then again diluted white from the top (+/- 45 degree). Thanks to that I can see much better lights and shadows on my miniatures, which should help me to build the volumes. The darker and brighter areas will also look a bit different when covered with paint, wihich is an additional help to the contrast.

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And here the last step of my work with airbrush. Of course if I had all colour schemes planned out already I could do much more, but I'm still hesitating, so I did only flesh parts. Here again I applied first lights and shadows, but rest of the job will be done with the brush.

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cheers

'eM

Continue reading...

 

[swralph]

these will keep you busy, have fun

 

[garyhiggins]

Oh, to have the confidence to paint in bulk. By the time I get around to painting anything, I've forgotten everything I learned the last time I got around to painting anything! Enjoy.
Best wishes, Gary.

 

[marta]

Well I might end up painting this batch for a year or longer;p I'm soooo slow with my brushes.
But there is no chance in hell I'll sell anything from my gray army (I know I tried), so there is no harm in starting few of them

'eM

 

[garyhiggins]

You think you're slow? it's not the doing that gets me, it's the re-do of the doing that I wouldn't have to do if I'd done it right in the first place!
Best wishes, Gary.

 

[marta]

Don't fix it then. Paint to the best of your abilities (but don't obsess over perfection) and then paint another piece. Paint it better with the knowledge you gathered with the previous one.
I was redoing and fixing things in the past. And I was never happy with the results. Right now at least I can see, that even if I screwed something up on one mini, I can learn from my mistakes on the next one and do it better. Doing the same piece over and over again is too much stress and kills the joy of the hobby. With few pieces painted, one after another, you can see the progress and it gives you joy and strength for developing your skills further.

And of course if you're approaching something you never did before, be it a new technique, effect or texture, you can google for tutorials and step-by-step articles that will help you get the idea how to do it best way. There is soo many awesome painters willing to share their knowledge and tricks

cheers

'eM

 

[garyhiggins]

Oh, it's O.K. Marta, I know my problems, the repainting needed is due to a need to re-sculpt which became apparent when I put some stuff up on an album (e.g. mountain man's rifle looks like it weighs about 30 lbs, and the musketeer's hat.....). You know what they say, the camera never lies.
I need to paint under higher magnification, and take a crash course in photography!
Sorry to winge, best wishes, Gary.