Hello an welcome to the latest installment of A Brush, a Paint and a Mini. In our previous episode we had begun the base coat process on Sorcha. A very beautiful and yet chillingly cold character. As I have mentioned earlier, the challenge that we face on painting her is not only to paint her to match her war machines, but to also convey her icy personality.
However, before I begin please allow me to introduce to you the newest members of the Slow Burn League. Everyone give a warm welcome to Bryce and Rod. These two joined our league some three weeks ago. Bryce fights for the Motherland and Rod? Well he is an Elf Supremacist or a Retribution player.
Incidentally, I have noticed that this blog has gotten an international following. Yes I do check the stats despite my infrequent updates these days. I would like to extend to you a warm welcome, from a region that is more damp and chilly this time a year. He he he.
So moving on to Sorcha eh? Well in the previous posts I handled most of the base coat and spent some time planning on how to tie her with both the infantry in the army that I have collected and her 'Jacks (tm)? I would also like to remind you that Sorcha was drawn from the ranks of the Winter Guard and as such her color scheme will reflect that background.
So I will continue this update with the above picture. What I did, before the shot was taken, was to touch up the red plating on the armor. It took about two more coats of Khador Red Base before I was satisfied. One thing that few if any painting tutorials ever cover is how much depends on personal taste. Much like cooking, now that I think about it. The odd look that her legs have is because I washed the red part with Thamar Black. This was done after i looked at the studio version of her color scheme for reference on how the painters at PP decided to paint her up. For the broader areas I used mt basic brush. It has a rather tattered look, but the bristles are still good for a few more models. For some of the areas that require more precise control, like the black hoses on her armor I used my fine detail brush. It reaches places that a larger tip can't.
I also touched up the black on her pants, hair and gloves. As for the fur trim and her hat that was a one part Bootstrap leather and two parts 'Jack bone. With lighter layer of 'Jack bone. While i was toying with partial highlights I thinned down some Ryn Flesh and gently applied it to her face. I am going for a cold and pale look.
At this stage I retouched her cloak with Greatcoat Gray, to remove and cover up the stray brush strokes from when I was painting up the fur trim. I opted to shade the fur with Coal Black, for two reasons.
1) I like Coal Black as you may have gathered from earlier entries.
2) I opened it by mistake and had it ready. So letting my favorite paint go to waste was something I wanted to avoid. I have three pots of it....
I wasn't too happy with the initial wash so I added some Thamar Black to the mixture and washed the furs again. Although it came out too dark, it will be fixed with the highlight.
The highlight was a two stage process. I mixed 'Jack Bone and Morrow white at a 1 to 1 ratio ad then dry brushed lightly. After that I used my fine detail brush to pick out the raised areas with straight Morrow White. Although time consuming it isn't as difficult as I make it sound. At times I just tapped the brush against the miniature.
With the highlights on the fur done, it is time to move on to the cloak... coat? Coat. Ahem. Since her coat is made of what I assume to be cloth we have to keep it from becoming shiny. To do this we will have to make washes from paint and avoid using glazes and inks. This is also less expensive as you won't have to buy inks, but I digress. The first thing that I will do is add the first stage highlight. This will be a 1 to 1 ratio of Morrow White, already wet on my palette, and Greatcoat Gray. I found this part to be a bit tricky as it is difficult, sometimes, to load a brush with just the right amount of paint. Too much and the paint will form a thicker coat on one section that farther down the stroke. Too little on the other hand and you are looking at either a wash, if the brush is wet, or a dry brushed look. This takes time and practice or about 15 minutes if you don't have to take pictures.
Pictured above is an example of what I was striving for. as you can see its a somewhat even and yet flat looking coat. Going for a 100% coverage is inadvisable as cloth doesn't have a consistent light reflection. Take a look at your own clothes if you want to see what I am talking about. I also wanted to take a short brek from her clothing and so I added the metallic paints to her weapon. Like the Destroyer and Juggernaut I used Pig Iron and Brass Balls.
Below you will notice that the holster is painted brown. This is the first stage to painting a well worn leather gun holster. The gun handle and holster were both painted with Gun Corps Brown. I will go into detail on finishing these at a later time. Definitely before the final highlights though.
Well that is it for now. Until next time.
