Charlemagne and Hildegarde

[EdC]

Attached is a picture of a flat set that I have painted. The two flats are a set from Quadri Concept. They are 90mm portrait figures of Charlemagne and Hildegarde (768-814 AD). The flat of Charlemagne is painted in oils over an underpainting of acrylics. The flat of Hildegarde was painted with an underpainting of thinned burnt umber. Layers of oil paint were then built up to the desired color. Comments and critiques welcome.

Ed Cepauskas
Hereford, Arizona

 

[megroot]

Awesome painting.
Really nice stuff.

marc

 

[PJ Deluhery]

Nice work, Ed. I think I like the shading on Hildegard a bit better.

 

[EdC]

Marc: Thanks for the nice remarks.

Pat: I like her better also. When they are together she is noticeably brighter than he is. However, she was harder to paint. I had trouble bringing up the flesh color and controling the dark blue. I also did not use an acrylic gold on her like I did for him. I used the brown/yellow-ochre/yellow-white method. I have to agree that that’s a better technique for gold. Both were a learning lesson though as they are only the third and fourth flats that I have done. I have a couple of Native American flats that I am going to work on next of a Mandan and one of a Crow. I am going to use a combination of painting techniques for those.

Ed

 

[PJ Deluhery]

Keep up the good work, Ed. I've been painting flats for 20 years and I still learn form evey piece. There's no substitute for getting your brushes wet.

 

[vergilius]

looks really good. Maybe you could shade the red a bit more to get more contrast

 

[EdC]

Vergilius,

Thanks. The more that I am looking at it, the more I agree with you. My only problem now is trying to figure out at this stage what color to use as the highlights for the red that will make the red pop out more.

Ed

 

[PJ Deluhery]

Ed, another alternative is to deepen the shadows vs. making the highs higher to achieve contrast. Not sure what your color mixes are here, but consider this too. Flesh might mix with your red without turning it pink, but be careful.