Sunday, March 21, 2010

From the Desk: The Last Paintbender

Quick post before getting some sleep. I managed to carve out some additional painting time today and continued to work on the Death Marshalls. Terribly reflective photo, but it gives you the general idea. I worked the pants, boots, and coats (in that order). Getting the pants and coats done gives me a real sense of accomplishment and progress on the models, even though there's a ton of detail work left to do.

I also started watch Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series. It's pretty entertaining so far, although I've only watched a couple episodes so far. I also watched the Miniature Mentor series with Jennifer Haley on Monochrome techniques. It was pretty interesting to see that she doesn't thin her paint very much in comparison to other people that they've featured before.

At the request of a previous comment, here's my notes on how I painted the coffins. It's sort of a quick summary of the paints and techniques and not a super detailed set of steps.
0) Prime in white - This is important since I started with washes
1) 2 washes of RPP Desert Tan (about 8:1 dilution)
2) wash of P3 Beast Hide
3) wash of P3 Gun Corps Brown
4) controlled wash of P3 battlefield brown
5) WP highlighting of RPP Desert Tan (following zenithal highlighting)
6) thin staining of VGC Sepia Ink
7) controlled wash shading of VGC Black
8) additional WP highlighting of P3 Beast Hide and RPP Desert Tan
9) 2BB P3 Battlefield Brown around the chains to make them stand out a bit more
That's my best recollection of what I did. The multiple layers help create more variation of color, and I didn't worry about blending too smooth since the color shifts help reinforce the wood grain look.
The NMM chains were a bit simpler:
1) Base with VGC Cold Grey
2) 2 washes of VGC Black (3:1 dilution using part water and part flow medium)
3) Highlight mix of VGC Cold Grey and Ghost Grey (1:1)
4) Further highlight VGC Ghost Grey
5) Further highlight VGC White

Anyway, sleep is calling to me since I have another hectic week ahead of me.

2 comments:

J.A.M. said...

Thanks for posting a step-by-step painting guide on the coffins! I would love to see these minis up close at GK some time :)

Scott said...

Absolutely! If nothing else, I'll be at GK for the Painting Contest awards on 4/24. I'll make sure to bring these along with me.