Trenloe the...shiny?

I'll get the hobbying in just a mo, but I wanted to take a second on something else first, so please bear with me...

The reason I had some hobby time tonight is because my wife went out with her sister. They don't go out much together outside of pretty regular coffee catch ups, so that's pretty rare itself, but tonight they had the special honour of being asked to attend the opening night of My Fair Lady at the Opera House in Sydney. They were invited because their mother, Paddy Roberts, was a dancer in the original Australian production of My Fair Lady back in the 60's and toured the world with the show. Pretty amazing stuff. Unfortunately Paddy passed away a few years back after a pretty inspiring battle with cancer, but the revival production company (directed by none other than Julie Andrews herself) weren't aware so they sent Paddy tickets for herself + 1 in respect for her original performance, and then allowed my wife and her sister to attend on her behalf. My wife's on her way home so I'm sure she's full of stories and a blend of emotions, but just wanted to share this story with whoevers reading this as its a pretty amazing story; to us anyway. 

So, as they say, on with the show! Back to Trenloe and my Frankensteinian experiments :)

Tonight I started by masking off the miniature so I could safely airbrush the shield. Now, I would advise way more patience than I displayed (I reckon I was lucky nothing went horribly wrong), but in short succession the shield received an airbrushing of Satin Varnish, then Chipping Medium, then Scarlett Red. After each coat I'd simply use the airbrush to spray pure air on the model for 10 minutes until it was dry to the touch. Like I said, I'm surprised I got away with it. 

Here's the shield masked off and ready for chipping:

I then used a damp brush (a standard Kolinsky, which is surprising given I'd read I should use a stiff brush) to wet sections of the shield and slowly brush away the Scarlett paint, revealing the woodgrain underneath. I worked slowly and cautiously until I realised how hard it was to judge whether I'd removed enough red with all the masking, so I set to removing both the tape and the masking fluid. This brings me to the only minor issue I experienced all night - the masking fluid was an absolute fucking nightmare to remove! Now, granted I used a bottle that has been sitting on a shelf for a little over a year, so maybe it was way thicker than it should have been. I also wasn't masking a nice flat surface, it was detailed and curvey and quite complex. But I easily sat there with my toothpick and at a few stages a scalpel too, pulling away what had both the consistency and visual appeal of dirty snot! Sorry for the visual, but it's a direct correlation to my experience with this stuff. Painful. Slow. It probably took me longer than the 3 airbrush coats and chipping...oh well, lesson learned. 

In the end I decided to leave the chipping where it was - it looks great and did exactly what I'd hoped, it really does look like the front of his shield was originally painted red, but years of battle has worn away the paint until only a hint remains on an otherwise bare wooden shield. I'm very pleased, and impressed with Vallejo's chipping medium (the newer, smaller bottle. No idea if it's the same as the old rebadged AK formula Vallejo still sell in the larger bottle). I'll go back in and hit the larger areas of Scarlett with a highlight in Blood Red, but other than that, the jobs' a goodun. 

To finish off the night, I painted the shield and shoulder pad detail and his belt buckle in Vallejo's amazing Liquid Gold, this time in Old Gold. I also touched up some red overspray with Silver while I was at it. I really can't speak too highly of this paint - beyond feeling a little high from the fumes, it really does give an authentic "metal" look that I've never seen in a miniature-targeted paint. I had also planned to create some small highlights in Liquid Gold's "gold" colour, but alas I've been sent a bad bottle and it had coagulated in the bottom of the pot. I ran it in my Paint Shaker (brilliant little machine, that) for a full 10 minutes, and while I've found 30 seconds to be sufficient to properly mix a bottle of acrylic paint no matter how badly separated, this stuff was just way past saving. Oh well, I don't think it'll matter in the long run.

So, next up I'll seal the whole miniature in Satin Varnish, then I get to play with oil washes for the first time :) I've got to say, while I think I did a horrible job on his face, this miniature really does feel like it's coming together nicely - the colours all work well together and it certainly provides a strong contrast to Shiver who I painted before him. The experiments are also teaching me a great deal about new techniques too, so that's invaluable. 

Anyway, I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of where he's at for now. Hopefully I can get back to him this weekend because the oil washes really will make a huge difference in terms of detailing. Until then, Happy Hobbying!

~Darchangel

Descent: I'm back baby!!! (again)

Wow, just over a year has passed since my last blogpost, and it feels horrible!

I've always been a sporadic painter, I'll hit it hard for 5 or 6 weeks and then can't seem to find the time. It's frustrating because it's absolutely the worst way to learn a skill - every time I take a break I come back rusty and have to relearn everything again. It's actually why I started this blog - it at least lets me document things like colour schemes and techniques I've tried and their success or failure. Unfortunately, I also live in a house where the study I paint in is closer to the sun than Mercury during summer, so I actually only have about 12 weeks of painting time left before it's not going to be possible due to the heat. 

Anyway, enough waffle. Trenloe...I started him alongside Shiver and then shelved him to focus on more necromantic pursuits. So, time to get back to the shiny knight (and boy is he shiny!)

1) I started with the skirt:

     a) 2 DY : 2 BB : 3T to shade and tone down the yellow tones 

     b) 2 DY : 2 ES : 1T for a first highlight

     c) 2 DY : 6 ES : 2T for the final highlight

     d) I edged the skirt with some thinned down VGC Brown Ink

2) The face was a bit of a nightmare. I'm still not all that pleased with it, but after two repaints I'm worried I'll start getting chalky build-up. Here's what I ended up with:

     a) Pure ES base

     b) Custom purple wash (see below) to shade

     c) Re-base coat in pure ES

     d) Highlight in 1:1 ES and PF

     e) For the stubble, I used the ES/PF mix and added just a touch of CG. I thinned this heavily and slowly built up the hairline. I didn't think it was dark enough but I was scared if I went any darker it'd be way too dark so I've left it. 

3) Belt, bags, red sash on skirt, weapon - all the little bits that needed to be done were pretty basic. BB on the bags and belt, CB on the weapon haft, SR on the skirt hem, and BW with a wash of VGC Brown Ink. 

4) Silver, silver, everywhere! So, this was one of the two experiments I wanted to run on Trenloe - Vallejo's Liquid Gold paint range. This paint really is something else, and went way beyond my expectations - as you can see from the pics it's basically chrome in a can! The only downside to this amazing stuff is that it's thinned in alcohol instead of water, so I grabbed some 100% isopropyl alcohol from the local HW store and set to work. It has amazing coverage, it's easy to work with, and the results were fantastic. The only thing left to do on the armour is to wash it with black/brown, but that's for the next update. 

5) The shield...so I wanted to do something a little different for Trenloe's shield. In the box art it looks like he has a wooden shield either covered in blood smears or red paint that has flaked off in battle. I've assumed the latter because a blood soaked shield just didn't make sense to me for this model. To that end I've decided to try using Vallejo's Chipping Medium to recreate the effect. This medium is supposed to be airbrushed onto a sealed colour coat, after which you paint on a different colour and then use a damp brush to "activate" the medium and remove sections of the second colour, exposing the original underneath. My idea is to paint a wooden shield, then airbrush it Scarlett and use the medium to remove most of the Scarlett coat in as natural a worn and chipped look as I can. 

I've started with the wood (on both faces of the shield). I wanted something akin to ash wood, so I used a mix of 2 CG : 6 LB : 1T, and then carefully painted hair-thin squiggly lines in VGC Brown Ink to represent wood grain.

Not knowing if airbrushing the Chipping Medium onto the decorations on the shield would layer cause me issues with Liquid Gold (isopropyl is a pretty strong solvent after all), I thought it would be wise to also paint on some Vallejo masking fluid. Big mistake! This shit is horrible! It's very likely it's because I've had it sitting on the shelf for over a year but it was like adding a cup of water to playdough and trying to brush it onto the model! No idea if it will protect the model, or even come off later when I want it to, but there's not much I can do about it now /shrug

That's it for now. Here's some pics of where I've left it:

From here the plan is to finish the shield (varnish, Chipping Medium, Scarlett, then weather it back to the wood grain), remove the masking fluid on the shield and paint his belt buckle, shoulder pad, shield decoration and the two circles on his breastplate in Vallejo Liquid Gold, varnish the model and finally wash with oil-based washes. 

Hopefully I'll get all that done without another 14 month break! Anyway, until them, Happy Hobbying!

Descent: Shiver Complete

As I suspected, I ended up focusing on one miniature more than the other. The outcome will be the same, but here's the process I followed for Shiver:

1) For the cloak I blended from the Ultramarine Blue (UB) basecoat down through 50:50 UB & Sombre Grey (SG), then pure SG, and finally 50:50 SG & Black. All the mixes are mixed in a ratio of 4 drops of paint to 2 Thinner and 1 Slow Dry.

I then applied a very slight highlight with 2 UB:3 Electric Blue (EB):3 T:1 SD. Shading for the blue sections was 50:50 Imperial Blue (IB) and EB, followed by pure IB. Shading for the grey sections was simply more and more Black added to a drop of SG, along with increasing amounts of thinner to avoid a pure black tone.

Finally I applied a highlight to the OSL via 2 EB and 4 T, followed by a very thin glaze of 2 EB and 4 White.

2) The central part of the cloak was basecoated in a mix of 2 Hexed Purple (HP) and 2 Warlord Purple (WP). Once dried I applied a mix of 2 WP and 2 Alien Purple (AP) to all surfaces but the recessed pattern. I finished up with a very light highlight of 4 AP + 1 WP on the edges.

3) The skin was a bit of a mess. I basecoated it in Dead Flesh but found that it was horribly yellow. I recoated in Bonewhite (BW), then shaded with VGC Sepia Ink which I note should never be diluted with Vallejo airbrush thinner. While the wash worked, it was extremely strong and stained the flat surfaces a lot more darkly than I had hoped. I recoated in BW, then highlighted in BW + White followed by BW + 2 White. I then glazed in a very thin mix of 1 VMA Pale Green, 1 BW and 10 drops of Glaze Medium before coating all of his skin. This gives just the slightest tint and makes him look sickly pallid rather than a skeleton.

I then painted his eyes in two shades of EB and White, and glazed a lighter tone onto his cheeks to represent eye-glow.

4) Finally I worked the metal parts.

The silver was undercoated in black, then gunmetal, silver and finally a wash of VMC Sepia Ink.

The gold was undercoated in Leather Brown, then Polished Gold and then also washed with Sepia Ink.

Anyway, that's Shiver down, Trenloe to go! Hopefully work doesn't stay as crazy as it has been and I'll have more time to paint over the next few weeks. Until then...happy hobbying.

~ Darchangel

Descent: Two-for-One

I couldn't decide between these two so I've started them simultaneously. I'm sure I'll end up focusing on one over the other as I progress, but I'm saving time for now.

Trenloe the Strong
Pretty simple start, just an airbrushed coat of Bronze Fleshtone over the grey primer for his skirt. I'll go back over it with a glaze of Leather Brown next as I really want to reproduce the rich mustard colour of the box art. Trenloe will also be treated to both silver and gold paints from the Vallejo Liquid Gold range, along with oil paint-based washes, so looking forward to that experiment. Here's the very humble beginnings:

Shiver
Up next is Shiver. I've done more on him only because there was more airbrush work required. I've airbrushed three colours here:
1) 50:50 Imperial Blue (IB) + Ultramarine Blue (UB) all over his cloak
2) Pure UB on roughly the top half of the cloak - I added thinner to keep this fairly subtle (about 20% thinner to 80% paint)
3) A very thin (3:1 thinner to paint) coat of Electric Blue (EB) on the side where his lantern is close to him

As you can see from the pics, the foundations for decent OSL are there, though it will look much better once his lantern isn't darker than the OSL.

Unfortunately throughout this process I discovered my Iwata HP-CS was jammed up from a poor cleaning last time I used it. It was actually so bad it refused to spray varnish on Belthir at all, so I had to strip it completely down and threw it in the Ultrasonic bath with about 30% Windex and the rest distillers water. Bit of a pain...

I was pleasantly surprised with the OSL section of the airbrushing though. By thinning the paint down so much I found I could set the PSI as low as 5-7, shoot extremely close to the miniature and just pull back on the trigger ever-so-slightly to get a very controlled flow without rivulets of paint jetting across the surface. Ok, that did happen at the start, but I cleaned it up with a wet brush and redid it ;)

Anyway, until next step Happy Hobbying!

~ Darchangel

Descent: Belthir Beaten!

Finally finished!! I've learnt a heap while painting him, but I'm keen to move on now.

So firstly I added a buttload of white to the final highlight colour and intended to paint a very fine line on the edges of the armour. Unfortunately they weren't nearly as fine as planned and now I'm a little angry with myself as its detracted from the overall effect. Not happy, but it'll have to do. C'est la vie.

Next I re-undercoated the weapon with Vallejo Grey Primer, using a rubber glove and some rubber bands as a mask for the rest of the miniature, and airbrushed the basecoat mix while I was at it.

His pants were painted black, belt and weapon haft with a 50:50 mix of Dark Fleshtone and Beasty Brown followed by straight Beasty Brown, and his loincloth was undercoated in 50:50 Black and Red Gore, based in Red Gore, then highlighted with Bloody Red, Hot Orange and Orange Fire.

I then proceeded to paint his weapon using the same process as his armour, but with the correct NNM highlights this time. The transitions weren't quite as smooth as the armour, but they're ok - clearly I need more practice in blending over a very small surface area.

Next up was a VGC Brown Ink wash for the weapon haft and belt, the weapon faces were finished in black and the pants were highlighted in a very dark mix of grey and black.

Finally, I mounted the wings, then painted and mounted his base before sealing everything in several coats of satin varnish. The base was painted with 50:50 Black and Cold Grey, before a heavy drybrush Cold Grey and a heavy wash of VGC Sepia Ink that was brushed away in patches before it completely dried to give it a dark dirty look.

Phew, I'm tired from just writing all that!

I've got a choice to make now - I have two heroes to paint, but each will require very different techniques. Shiver will require some airbrushing and a lot of traditional brushwork, but I'm planning on trying OSL for the first time on him as he's carrying a lantern. Trenloe the Strong should be much faster to finish, but I want to try my range of Vallejo Liquid metal paints for the first time necessitating the use of isopropyl alcohol as a thinner, and then wash using Oil Paints and Mineral Turpentine (which I've also never tried), so either way will expand my techniques. Guess you'll just have to stay tuned to find out who's up next! Until then, happy painting :)

Note: All paint is Vallejo Game Air unless otherwise noted.

~ Darchangel

Final NNM

Well, the final coat is on and I'm declaring this little foray into NNM closed! (Though while writing this I've realised I forgot to add some highlights in the darkest areas. Bugger!)

Final stages:
7) 2nd Shade: 2DG:2IB:2T

8) Final Highlight: 2EG:2EB:4W:6T:2SD

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the result given this is my first attempt at NNM and 2-brush blending. I've learnt a crap load and I'm confident my next attempt will be even better. The one key learning I took away was that the base coat is so very important to get smooth. I really wish I'd spent the time to mask the red hide and then airbrush the base coat on the armour as it would have prevented the quite ugly build up I had to work around having put 3 base coats on. Amateur move, but you live, learn and move forward.

You might notice from the last photo that I've started reapplying undercoat to the weapon. I realised that I completely messed up the highlight locations and figured it'd be easier to start again that try to save it.

The next update should see Belthir finished: I just need to do the weapon, black leggings and his loin cloth in a nice warm red. Might be a few days before the next update as a result, we'll have to see :)

All paint is VGA. Colour codes are:
Dark Green = DG
Sick Green = SG
Escorpena Green = EG
Imperial Blue = IB
Magic Blue = MB
Electric Blue = EB
White = W
T = Vallejo Airbrush Thinner
SD = Liquitex Slow Dry

~ Darchangel

NNM Part 3

The saga continues! Rather than go back in with the base colour, I decided to use the 1st highlight colour instead. I found this smoothed out the transitions a great deal and cleaned things up a fair bit. You might also notice that not only am I thinning more (due to what I learned from my last 2 highlights), but I've also introduced some Liquitex Slow Dry, just to ensure I get a bit more time to smooth transitions with a damp brush if I need to.

5) Re-highlight: 2SG:2MB:2T:1SD




6) 1st Shade: 2DG:1MB:1IB:2T:1SD




I'm starting to try to keep the photos consistent as it's easier to see the progress. All in all I'm very happy so far, the shading is really starting to pull everything together. I may actually go back in before I continue though, as I think the large chest piece on the right could do with darkening at the bottom.

All paint is VGA. Colour codes are:
Dark Green = DG
Sick Green = SG
Escorpena Green = EG
Imperial Blue = IB
Magic Blue = MB
Electric Blue = EB
T = Vallejo Airbrush Thinner
SD = Liquitex Slow Dry

~ Darchangel