Autumn for the Night Satyr

Here's the finished Gnarlhorn project. I'm pretty exhausted from seeing it so much for the last several weeks so pardon me if I don't do a big post about it. The Gnarlhorn itself was a pretty huge experiment in using color which I feel sort of worked out. The base on the otherhand was a huge success to me given that I'd never done such a base before. I'll just note that even though it didn't place at either the KublaCon or Lock and Load competitions, I'm very happy with it as a project since I forced myself to try things outside of my normal methodologies.

Megalith

This model was a pretty significant departure from my normal line up of models to paint. Megalith has two predominant features, stone and wood, both of which are features I don't paint that much on such a larger scale. So, getting a chance to paint this one for my buddy Sean was an interesting challenge. I opted to use a combination of washes and 2BB for doing the stone, throwing in some additional reds and greens into the color to give it a little more lifelike feel. For the wood, I used a lot of controlled washes.

The runes turned out ok, but some of them could have definitely been better. I opted to paint the eyes like gems rather than glowing just because I thought it gave the runes a more specific theme to their purpose on the model. Overall I think the biggest struggle I had with this model was really more of a sense of mood since it's predominantly bright and doesn't have enough dark regions to create more contrast. Definitely one of those more holistic painting skills that I'm still working on.

War Wolf

Very quick post. I finished up this War Wolf today. Relatively speed painted, but it did give me some additional (much needed) practice at painting fur. I'm still not completely happy with how it turned out, but it's fine for the time I put into it. The armor pieces worked out pretty well though. With the blue being a part of the overall palette of the model, it helped tie the whole piece together a bit.

Gnarlhorn Satyr

He's done! And what a joy he was to paint. Seriously, this was a very fun model. A good level of detail for a large model, with surfaces allowing for some experimentation.

I've noticed that more dramatic highlights and shadows can really help a model pop. There's definately a fine line on what's good and what's overdone though. I'm still too conservative in my contrast level I think, but maybe that's just me. I experimented a bit more with higher levels of contrast between the shadows and the highlights and I think it paid off well, especially on the leathers.

Two-brush blending is really useful in small areas. Now that I've gotten more used to the mechanics of it, I'm starting to use this technique more automatically. Even on fairly small areas (like Gnarly's righteous six-pack stomach muscles) it works quite well.

Tattoos are fun. They were intimidating when I was first learning how to do them, but later on now they are becoming a blast. Fixing mistakes on tattoos is a little painful, but the process is pretty easy. I found that sketching on a piece of paper ahead of time is vital, along with using just a touch of flow aid, but thinning paints with water is not very helpful.

Painting the fur was an odd thing. Normally I work based on the texture, but the sculpting of the fur doesn't provide a good clean cutoff for where the fur ends. I had to "improvise" a little in how I did it. This time, it worked out much much better than the warpwolf I did before.

Overall, I'm quite happy with how this turned out. Some of the blending/shading on the skin could have been better. On the flipside, the horns worked out great. Using multiple washes and careful drybrushing really brought them to life. It helped that they are sculpted so beautifully.

Well, enough rambling. Once again, it was a pleasure to paint another circle warbeast as a break from my usual stuff. I might post this one on CMON just to see how it rates since I haven't posted one there in quite some time.

Warpwolf Extreme

Here's the final pics for the Warpwolf Extreme. Basically the only stuff done since the last post was flocking the base and sealing it. I added a couple size comparison pics that I took from earlier on in the project.

Pureblood Warpwolf

Well, it's finally done. Overall I think it's pretty decent. The skin could have used some reworking in additional spots, but there's a point at which I have to just decide it's done. Perhaps one day I'll just stick out a model until I'm completely happy with it, but that will be sometime well in the future. I've got other little guys calling out for some paint. Some final notes about this paint job:

The little rune stones were actually quite easy. I just gave them a coat of Ironhull Grey, then a wash of black ink, then some highlights of white with just a touch of Ironhull Grey in it. I specifically didn't use Frostbite to make sure they didn't blend in perfectly with the skin.

The eyes were sort of a pain, and in general I hate painting eyes. For these I just used Cygnar Blue Highlight as a base, then added white to it in successive highlights (about 3) until I did a final dot of just pure white.

The base was easy. Just added a bunch of static grass, and then some of the tall grass in a bunch. I'm still not really good with the tall grass, but this batch seems ok. I also added some of the tiny leaves to help give a little more variation to the base.

In summary, this was a great model to paint. Some particular challenges and learning experiences was working the large skin surfaces, particularly in a shading of white I don't normally use.