Bill Horan's December Project

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Ciao Bill,

At the moment only my wife and I are living in Australia. Hopefully my brother will follow in the new year. My parents may well move to Italy.

Thanks once again for all the info and for your advice on the Planet Figure web site - most useful.

Cheers for now
Franco :lol:
 
Bill just sent me photos of the finished project:

"Batalion de San Blas", Chapultapec

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Absolutely beautiful work Bill.........thanks for sharing this project.

Guy

Bill's Planet Portfolio
 
Very Fast!

really like the fort stonework.........did you have good references of the fort?
any special techniques for painting the stone?

excellent

Rob
 
I use mostly Humbrols of course...

The basic flesh tone for this figure was a little darker and browner due to the complection of the figure. I mixed Humbrol Flesh (61), Leather (62), a dash or Earth (110 - just to reduce the orange-ishness of the Leather color), and a dash of Testors Flat Red.

Shadows involved varying levels of Leather, Red and Black (red and black together to get the darkest, and most sparingly used shadow).

Highlights were basically the flesh tone base with Model Master white added in varying amounts. The brightest highlight almost looks white - but is likewise used very sparingly.

I am now using Testor's Flat Black, Red and Dark Blue, and Model Master Matt White in lieu of the less reliable (and ridiculously thin) Humbrol equivalents.

Bill
 
Thanks for the flesh mix formula Bill. I also use Humbrols mixed with floquil enamels and may try your formula. I presently use oils for all my flesh but would like to have an alternate method to use as well.
 
Originally posted by RobH@Dec 14 2004, 06:49 AM
Very Fast!

really like the fort stonework.........did you have good references of the fort?
any special techniques for painting the stone?

excellent

Rob
Click to expand...
Rob, the stone work was first painted virtually straight 110 (Natural Wood), the given a wash of 101 Linen. After this had dried I lightly drybrushed with a color close to Natural Wood (110 mixed with Burnt Umber and Leather 62). This was meant to give the impression that the lighter earth colors had settled into the crevices.

The final touch was an overall stippling with varying earth tones. "Stippling" is a theatrical make-up technique - a stabbing motion used with a dry brush (thespians use a sponge) to create added texture.

Bill
 
Hey Bill!

Thanks for sharing your flesh mix.

How do you build up for the almost white highlight? When I have tried this at various times, it looks out of place and just like a white spot, not like a natural hi highlight, if you know what I mean.
 
The best analogy I can think of is a bullseye. The outer highlight sphere is a subtle highlight - just a little white added to the base color -the edges carefully blended into the surrounding color. Inside this is a smaller shere with more white added - again the edges carefully blended. The near white highlight goes in the center of the bullseye, again carefully blended. This is of course a bullseye inside a very tiny area (a cheekbone, a nose or a chin).

The same theory applies to shadows, when going to the darkest - a near black red-brown.

Note that I say ""blend the edges". Many painters rub out all distinction between highlights and the surrounding colors, creating what I call a "two-tone" effect. It's very important to the confine your blending to the edges of colors - not just submerge them into the surrounding colors. If you maintain the integrity of each shadow and highlight color on the face, you will find you can go to pretty extreme ends of the spectrum in your shading, without it looking excessively contrasty.

Hope this makes sense. Describing painting techniques always tests my grasp of the English language!

Bill
 
Hey Bill!

Thanks man, I like the bullseye analogy, makes perfect sense.

About how many highlight layers do you use on a 54mm face?

Maybe someday we can be treated to a 54mm face SBS from you! Would most definately be awesome!
 
I probably used 3-4 shadow tones and 3 highlight shades.

I really hate doing painting SBS. I did a bunch for Military Modelling years ago and never felt they really told the story. The problem is the lighting in which the SBS processes are photographed creates its own shadows, obscuring the subtleties of what you are trying to illustrate.

The difference between the best painters and the rest is not memorized paint mixture formulas, but rather paint consistancy control, blending technique, and brush work, and these things are virtually impossible to show in a SBS.

All SBS's ever really seem to show is where the paint should be placed, and there is plenty of info on that - including what we can see when we look in the mirror!

Bill
 
Thanks Bill for sharing and thanks very much for all the explanations. (y)
Bye
Best regards
Jean-Philippe
 
Originally posted by Billhoran@Dec 15 2004, 01:23 AM


All SBS's ever really seem to show is where the paint should be placed, and there is plenty of info on that - including what
Click to expand...
Reminds me of the old adage when I was in art school that painting is very simple: just pick the right color and put it in the right place!
 
Bill,

Absolutely true and aptly put. That's why we can read articles over and over (like me with acrylics) and never get it right. That and photographs never really do come out right. Only time I've ever been able to truly pick up something (other than tips I didn't know) was during a live s-b-s because then you can see exactly How the person is paiting. I was never able to put words to describe the difficulty I've had with reading "how to's", you just did.

That's not to say you can't pick up anything- you always learn something, but that's why we can never really pick up the style-that has to be developed.

Lou

PS-I still don't have your stinking book. I may have to schedule a business trip to Irvine to see it!
 
Amen Lou! Whatever meager talent I have is a direct result of watching accomplished painters paint. We need more of that in this hobby, informally via friends and at the major shows and competitions we attend.

(Now if I can just find a sculptor to spend some time with me and a blob of putty!)
 

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