Hey, it's Post 6

Once Again it is Post 6. Did you miss it? I can't tell nobody leaves comments. I can't tell weather you like it or not.
Anyway I am posting this updates because there is only one day left on my poll, its right there on the right, and I really would like it if you cast your vote. This would help me a lot. In fact I will be putting up many, many polls so that I can a) get to know you the readers, and b) decide on a direction for the blog, actually picking the models to paint.
Thank you.

Starting out part XI

Wow, it's part eleven already. It seems to me I just started this blog not too long ago.
Well as promised it's time to work on the highlights on the models. This isn't the end, as the very final highlights and shadows will be applied after the models have been attached to their bases and the bases have been decorated with turf and the like. Collectively this process is referred to as basing. I will handle basing in the next post. For now let's do some highlighting.
Watchout this is going to be quick and possibly dirty as I am one post behind schedule. For this reason i am showing both models together. A this point they are receiving the same treatment, albeit at a different time.
So here we have both of them.

I intend to make the highlights a bit on the bright side, simulating a midday sun. So I have to be a bit careful about how to handle the less pronounced highlights. Some knowledge of how light reflects and refracts can be useful in this endeavor and thankfully there are tutorials out there for those of you that are willing to spend an extra ten seconds looking for them. ( Actually the amount of time it takes is entirely dependent on your internet connection speed.) Now, those orange areas are actually three layers. Layer one is a 2 part Khador Highlight, 1 part Khador Base, and one part water. You may want to thin the mixture to suit your tastes. Layer two is just one part Khador highlight and one part water applied after layer on has dried. I didn't go all the way to the edges of layer one. I painted a smaller area over layer one. Layer three is a two part Khador Highlight and one part Cygnus Yellow. I was tempted by Sulfuric Yellow (sometimes labeled Sulfuric Acid) But decided against it. This was a tricky layer to apply as I used a new technique for the very first time. This is a two brush technique and requires a lot of practice and patience. It is more evident on the shoulders which is where I used it. What I did was to paint a line with the paint using my main brush, and then to drag it out with a dry clean brush. I used my dry brush for this second part. you have to be careful to touch and drag just the edge of the line.

Did it work? not too well? Ok, well neither did mine.
See? Don't worry with practice we will get better. And there are ways of fixing that anyway. This is also a base highlight if you can believe that. So we will be shading this a little later and after these models get their bases and final shading we can apply the last and finishing touches of highlighting. So to mitigate this extra bright orange we are looking at, I clean my main brush, load it with Khador Red Base, smear the paint on my palette and with a different and clean brush I dilute the paint to a wash like consistency. this is usually three to four parts water to one part paint ratio.
So why did I use a clean brush to add water? Well it's because I don't have an eye dropper. Yet. They are rather cheap and I really don't know why I haven't bough one or a dozen thus far. I suppose it just slipped my mind. More useless facts at no extra charge.

At this point i am starting to think that I am missing the picture that illustrates what the wash did.

There, nothing a 5Mpx Phone camera can't fix. Well that and Photoshop... Is the contrast good enough? I hope so. So the wash evens out the tones without removing the effect of the highlight. This is a low level highlight. Think ambient light. The direct light highlights will come later as I have mentioned before. A long with them we will also play with a little bit of reflected light as well. So what do we do Next? Well the axes got a nice treatment of quick silver on the "cutting" edge of the blade. i had watered that down to a one part paint and two parts water. It ended with a nice pattern on the Juggernauts axe that gave it a frosted look. Rather appropriate for an Ice Axe if you ask me. I will have to do something to add to that and enhance the frost look on it. the edge on the Destroyers axe was a little more muted. There are a few parts that also will need to be highlighted but they will wait untill the models have been attached to their bases.

Now, i hope that you remember when i painted the eyes white? I will give you a  quick recap. What I did was to water down one part Morrow White (any white will do) with two parts water. Then using the fine detail brush I gingerly, as gingerly as I could considering how much coffee and Mount@in D3w that I had consumed, painted the eyes white. Wait the coffee comment applies to this next bit, so please copy and paste here. Next I thin down Cygnus Yellow 1:2 ratio of paint to water and after the white has dried I gently wash it over wit the yellow. To the thinned yellow I add a little bit of Khador Red Highlight, this is an arbitrary amount so add as much as you think suitable, but not enough as to constitute one part. Now this part is a little tricky as well. And a little messy. I wash the yellow a little with the new darker mix, this gives it a nice fiery appearance. As for the edges of the face plates that I hit with the brush? Well I give them a gentle highlight with a little extra yellow and get the effect of the inner glow reflected on the outsides of the face.

Well that is it for now. In my next post I will attach these bad boys to their bases, turf them and finish the highlights and shadows. After that I will move on to painting Sorcha. She has a different feel as she is both a character model and thus deserving a little extra love. And she is a living model and as such has a different approach, human skin isn't shiny like robot skin/ armor. Exciting isn't it? I can't wait.
By the way, on the to right of this page you may have noticed a poll. Well I post these to get a better idea as to who you are and why you are reading this. I hope that you find it helpful, but i need your help. Please take a few extra seconds and click on an answer to the poll. Thank you.

Starting out part X

  And just recently I was talking with Cat about writing the update for this week. I am also trying to figure out what to do with Post 6, as that is going to be a regular feature within this blog and not just random filler to keep me in the habit of posting on a regular basis. Well I look forward to how this blog will grow and evolve over time. Did you know that there were ninety of you reading this last month? I check the stats, but enough of my rambling. Its time for part X. which was originally intended to be part VIIId. So lets finish up with them metal coats eh? And then of course move on to the highlights.

So with out much ado this is going to be quick and dirty.

In the above image you see that the leg pistons are still in the Coal Black base color. I have also painted the heels the same as well as parts of the feet. The "toes" were painted black as that was the originally planned color scheme. With the exception of the trim on the shoulders, that's where the shoulder spikes are, every part that is based in Coal Black will be painted in Pig Iron. Also I painted the ammunition in brass as well. I did that because all modern munition casings are made of brass. this has been standard practice in munition manufacturing since the middle of the 19th century. And to tie it in better as well as to break up the monotony of the color scheme I painted the knob, I prefer to think of it as the firing pin, in brass.

There, fast wasn't that? even the photographer was surprised. A few more little details. The furnace looked rather dull, so I accented it with Pig Iron handles, and in the end I decided to mix Pig Iron and Thamar Black in equal parts 1:1 ratio to give it a cast iron look. And while I was mixing paint I mixed a 1 to 3 parts ratio of Brass Balls and Coal Black which I then thinned a little bit and used it to shade the boiler.

While I am at it I will add some to the smoke stacks as well. The total shading isn't done yet, nor have I started it in earnest either.

As i have a tendency to jump around from one part to another I move on to the "belly" of the beasts. Mind you I am doing the same to both the Destroyer and Juggernaut so don't worry about which model I am working on. The main pistons got pig Iron and the round parts that join to the hips are brass. Once again to break up the color scheme and make the model a little more interesting to look at.

Did I mention the part where I painted the Eyes white? I had to use the detail brush for that. it came in handy and so far it has kept its tip. A good way to preserve your brushes is to keep the straw like cap that they come with and replacing it on the brush when you are done with it. After the eyes I switched to my regular brush and painted the edge of the axe with Cold Steel. After a little time I saw that the difference in contrast was insufficient and I shook up and then opened the Quick Silver pot, thinned some of it with water and painted the Axe edges on both models. As I am looking at them I see parts that will need to be cleaned up, but that will come later.
However while I am on the subject of cleaning. That stray stroke of Pig Iron will get a coat of Thamar Black.

At this stage i have painted the feet as well. I wasn't sure if I would like the effect initially, but it seems to work. Besides it may get covered when I finish the base with mud and stuff. I also notice that the collar rivets have been painted with either Cold Steel or Pig Iron as opposed to Brass Balls on the Juggernaut. It doesn't really matter which honestly. Well I am not going to change it now, as both bodies looks so alike. They are the same chassis design and when I am making fast decisions during a game it helps to differentiate between the two.

I also painted the holes in the axe white. In the original artwork that part glow blue. Also see where I shaded the boiler with my mixture of Coal Black and Brass Balls. As Noted elsewhere in the blog Coal black makes for a nice shade for brass components. And while you can;t see it I did paint the eyes on the Juggernaut white as well.

Here is another angle of the Juggernaut's back. and below is the Destroyer for comparison.

And with that we are are ready for the highlight and shading part. which will be a post on its own.

Hey, it's Post 6

So a quick little update before I post more painting stuff. Every once in a while I hop on the websites of the miniatures companies that produce products that I fancy. Today I found this:

Another interesting link was shared by a friend of mine. I think I might pick up a few of their figures. http://www.mercsminis.com/

Well, that is it for post 6. I will be back with our regularly scheduled post.

Starting out part IX

 So we added metal in the last post. And now that you are looking at your models it should come as no surprise why we based the metal parts with Coal Black. It has a nice effect doesn't it?
So what will we do now? Well we finish up with the metallic paint first and then we can move on to the highlights. Now is also a good time to think about what light angles you want to simulate or exaggerate.  In all game and display situations you will have good ambient light so it becomes all the more important to think about at which angle you will be exaggerating the highlights. This gives an illusion that there is a dedicated light source pointed at your model. I, however, am digressing and will return to the main subject at hand. finishing the metal bits with more pictures.
As an aside because the highlights haven't been added we will be using the midtones ie Pig Iron, Khador Red etc.
So lets see, what do we do next.

Here you can see that I have already added brass to the shoulder spikes and the boiler itself. 

In addition I have already taken the liberty of adding a thin coat of Pig Iron to the piston on the fore arm that holds the axe. The elbow end got a few more coats as it is exposed to more light and thus it can look a little more shiny. I also made sure to touch up the fittings of the pipes on the carapace with Coal Black. This is because I decided to break up the monotony of the carapace's color with, you guessed it, brass. I also gave the covers of the smoke stacks a thin coat of Brass Balls to match it with the artwork as well. Although you can't see that in the preceding image.

This is a better view of a partial coat. It helps to show off the effect of Coal Black base coat on Brass Balls.
While that is all well and good I still need to finish both models so as to move on to Sorcha.

This picture was taken after quite some time. The photographer was focused on her Lancer. What I did here was in no particular order: paint brass on the bottom spike on the axe after making sure that it was coated with Pig Iron. I gave the edge of the axe another light coat of Pig Iron at a ratio of 2 parts water to one part paint. the brass was a little more watery at a 3 to 1 ratio. I also applied a 1:1 water to brass  coat to the rivets on the feet. And finished the smoke stacks as well as touching up the spikes on both shoulders and the fist. The same was done on the Juggernaut as well. Further more the boiler got another coat of brass. I wanted to make sure that it was shiny enough before I shaded it with a mixture of Coal Black and Brass Balls. That image is posted further down. As you can also see I painted the feet and the upper arm. What you don't see is that I painted most of the other pistons on the body as well. For that I used a 3:1 ratio of water to Pig Iron in successive coats to control how light those parts looked. The more shade the piston got the less metal it received. I wanted to keep those parts looking dark.

Here is the Juggernaut. It's time to give him a little attention, don't you think?
I can do this jumping around between the models because they have a near identical structure. What i did on the Juggernaut was to touch up the blacks and reds. Then, like the Destroyer I finished off the smokestacks, brassed up the fist and shoulder spikes. Added brass to the boiler, foot rivets, and face plate. Though the face actually got a second and third coat of brass. You will aslo notice that the big screws on the shoulders look metallic. I gave them light coats of Pig Iron at about 3:1 blend of water to paint. Giving the tops more coats. The handle was painted with Cold Steel.

 Here, I can give you a better view of the rear. I did the same thing on the screws on the back as I did with the front ones. And like the Destroyer I painted the boiler in Brass. As for the pipes on the carapace I opted to use Pig Iron to offset the Brass from the smokestack. Another thing that I did was to paint the raised bit at the top of the smokestack with Pig Iron. For that i used the fine detail brush.

 Moving back to the Destroyer. I painted the ammunition and that back bit at the end of the bombard in brass. One to one ratio of water to brass paint. I also took the time to give the chimney/ smokestack a couple of more coats of brass as well. On occasion I switch colors, and do a little touch up here and there as well.

Here is a shot of the belly of the beast. I opted to give the piston joints a brassy finish to balance out the Pig Iron pistons.  I also painted the face plate as well. This was done in Brass at the top grill like part and the bottom part was painted with the darker Pig Iron. I also painted the Collar above the head in Coal Black. I did the same on the Juggernaut as well.

And while I was at it. I also painted the rivets in cold steel. Wait it was brass. I put Cold steel on the Destroyer. I get the two mixed up at times. Another thing that you cannot see is the coupling where the upper arm pistons attach to the shoulder. I painted it with a thin coat of brass, and I will have to take some better pictures an post them later. The toes will be left black and I also cleaned up the black edges on the leg armor plates with the fie detail brush that I had recently obtained. One reason to remove mold lines and flash is so that you can keep more control over your painting. While I am looking that the model i am also thinking about where the final highlights will go. Which also helps with placing the shadows as well.

So now that I am fairly happy with the placement of metal paint. i give the models one more look to see how they look before mixing some Morrow white and water. on a two to one ratio. Then I gingerly add it to the eyes of the Destroyer.

At this point I am also wondering how the light from the eyes will reflect on the face plates as well. And how to handle the shadows for a more dramatic look.
Well that is it for this post. I will post the next one soon. I have to spend a few hours editing and organizing the next batch of pictures. But we are close, and the next post is all about the highlights. I might even cover the shadows as well.