Starting out part XIV

  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.

Starting out part XII

So a couple of posts ago I wrote that I would be basing the warjacks(tm) and then move on to Sorcha. This was not meant to be, as I mentioned earlier in Post 6. I have decided that it would be best to finish the base painting and base highlights on Sorcha before moving on to the finishing touches. So without much ado lets begin.
For tonight's post I would like to introduce you to a new color.

Great Coat Grey. It has a bluish tint to it and it gives a heavy felt appearance to any clothing that you paint it on. Then again that could be just my imagination. All the same I picked it because it is part of the color scheme that Privateer Press uses for their Winter Guard models. That and I haven't had the chance to play with it yet. I might even paint it on the Juggernaut and Destroyer to give them a better tie in with Sorcha. Sorcha's in game fluff should answer any questions as to why I would want to match her to her infantry units. (was that a spoiler? maybe.)
Now for the rest of this post I will be using my trusty base brush. It's a size 00 that I had lying around and it is still in decent enough condition.
I will also use Khador Red Base:

In the middle

So now we move on. Here is Sorcha. She is primed and ready for painting. I believe that I covered the cleaning and primer process in earlier posts.

You will notice that her weapon is already base coated with Coal Black. I did this at the same time as her robot friends and for the same reason.
So to get started I load up my brush with Great Coat gray, spread it on my palette and then thin it down to a two parts water and one part paint ratio. Then I begin to apply it to the model.

Like all colors, paints etc. I prefer to apply about two to three thin coats instead of one thick coat of paint.

It takes longer, but at the same time gives you more control where the paint goes and how much coverage you get. Plus its also easier on your brushes as well.

You don't have to start with the Great coat gray. Though the same applies for whichever color you choose to start with. For the Starter box I opted to paint her cloak, coat and sleeves gray.

Although the sleeves are a little hard to see.

As I add the red you will be better able to differentiate between the Great coat Gray and the rest of the model. I would like to mention that it is better to apply 3 to 4 coats of thinned paint to a model than to do a massive cover all coat. This way you can keep all of the detail and not wear out your brushes too soon.
Now let's move on to the red.

I will apply the Khador Red Base to her armor plates to tie her in with her robots. Err 'Jaks(tm). Since red paint isn't very opaque it will take several coats to accomplish this task.

This is just the first coat. The color becomes brighter with each successive coat of paint.

She looks much better doesn't she?

This one was taken after the third and fourth coat.

Well, I will leave you now as I need some sleep. I will post and cover the rest of the base colors for the leather straps, hat and fir trim as well as the weapon.

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.