lederhosen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lederhosen) wrote2006-01-22 12:30 pm
lederhosen) wrote2006-01-22 12:30 pm
Entry tags:
Painting serendipity
I tend not to do too much planning ahead when I'm painting models. I'll have a vague idea of what I'm trying to do, but a lot of the time I'll muck around with stuff, see if it works, and paint over it if it doesn't. And sometimes the best ones don't turn out at all like I'd expected.
Most recent project was a Rackham figure. I don't buy Rackham very often - the local shops don't carry them, and I have to be slightly more careful working with them because they do contain lead. But they produce some beautiful miniatures. This particular one is a fire elemental; as usual, the catalogue model is gorgeously painted (it's worth poking around the site a bit, some real visual treats there).
But I have several fire elementals already, and this one wanted to be something else - I thought I'd do it as an undead angle, ghostly force animating old metal. My plan was to do the metal bits as rusted steel, with the rest as greenish-blue fire. I wanted to pick out the patterning on those plates, though, so after painting them with a dark metal I brushed over them with a thinned-out blueish satin.
The satin turned out to be a lot thicker than I'd expected, so rather than giving me blackish metal with bright blue in the grooves, I got a much lighter, blueish metal with a stronger blue in the grooves. I showed it to Rey, who agreed that it looked like a patina... and why waste an effect like that? Instead of drybrushing over with a grey steel and adding rust as I'd Intended, I drybrushed it with copper instead. The result looks something like very old but well-preserved metal, with a thick patina that's worn away at the edges to reveal the bright metal underneath. There are some other aspects of the model I'm not happy with (didn't entirely manage to get rid of the mold lines, and the ghost-fire needs a bit more contrast), but the metal effect is splendid.
Note to self, in case I want to do this again some time: base with Reaper's Steel Plate, paint over with thinned out Frost, then drybrush with Copper. I really need to get a camera with good macro mode so I can capture some of these; my painting's definitely improving.
Most recent project was a Rackham figure. I don't buy Rackham very often - the local shops don't carry them, and I have to be slightly more careful working with them because they do contain lead. But they produce some beautiful miniatures. This particular one is a fire elemental; as usual, the catalogue model is gorgeously painted (it's worth poking around the site a bit, some real visual treats there).
But I have several fire elementals already, and this one wanted to be something else - I thought I'd do it as an undead angle, ghostly force animating old metal. My plan was to do the metal bits as rusted steel, with the rest as greenish-blue fire. I wanted to pick out the patterning on those plates, though, so after painting them with a dark metal I brushed over them with a thinned-out blueish satin.
The satin turned out to be a lot thicker than I'd expected, so rather than giving me blackish metal with bright blue in the grooves, I got a much lighter, blueish metal with a stronger blue in the grooves. I showed it to Rey, who agreed that it looked like a patina... and why waste an effect like that? Instead of drybrushing over with a grey steel and adding rust as I'd Intended, I drybrushed it with copper instead. The result looks something like very old but well-preserved metal, with a thick patina that's worn away at the edges to reveal the bright metal underneath. There are some other aspects of the model I'm not happy with (didn't entirely manage to get rid of the mold lines, and the ghost-fire needs a bit more contrast), but the metal effect is splendid.
Note to self, in case I want to do this again some time: base with Reaper's Steel Plate, paint over with thinned out Frost, then drybrush with Copper. I really need to get a camera with good macro mode so I can capture some of these; my painting's definitely improving.