Razormage's Glaun - WiP

[razormage]

I've delayed putting anything up on here, because I hadn't managed to get paint on any of my Mierce Miniatures until last night. Now that I've done it, I'm excited enough that I want to put up some WiPs, even though I usually avoid doing that as much as possible, because I'm never satisfied until it's all done!
This is pretty much just a picture dump; if you want the full commentary, or want to see some my other non-Mierce stuff, feel free to check out my blog at http://thebeerwaaagh.blogspot.com.


First off, some shots of it assembled but unprimed...

His left wing came slightly bent from the Texas heat. Rather than fix it, I've left it, as I feel it adds a bit more motion to that otherwise static arm.


Primed black, and first base coat on the skin in place:


Second layer of skintone:


Third layer:


Fourth layer:


I have probably three or four layers to go on the skintone, then I'll move on to the scales/horns, and finally the mouth.

[AndyS]

Looking great so far. Did you fill any of those gaps?

[razormage]

I did, but I subsequently dropped him and popped out the one in the back of the left arm (mostly by snapping the whole arm off and not realizing the putty was gone until a few layers later). I'll shoot a couple of in-close shots tonight and show how they turned out.

[razormage]

First off, AndyS: Here's the back him before and after, so you can see how filling the gaps worked out.


Got two more layers done last night, and thought I'd share them:

The first one adds some yellow and a brighter green (Scorpion green) to start bringing it to my over-highlighted style. The turquoise and brown shades I've been using to tint the green are starting to fall off here, as they're starting to interfere with the brightness of the paint.


Now I'm putting almost as much yellow as green into the mix, and the vibrancy of the color is really starting to pop through.
The next step will add more yellow, and then I'll start mixing in white. Hopefully I'll have time to finish the skintone tonight, but we shall see!

[AndyS]

Nice work. Probably more contrast than mine will have. Mine will be more of a fleshy red colour, like the wings on Ryan's Krull. But it could be a long time before I get round to it!

[razormage]

Nice work. Probably more contrast than mine will have.

Yea, my paint style is very reliant on high-contrast, because I mostly paint for Warhammer Grand Tournaments where the venue lighting is typically dubious, and the paint job has to "pop" enough to make the army stand out among the other 60+ armies there. Unfortunately it does not photograph so well, because the camera does a better job of distinguishing the dark-to-light contrast than the standard eye does.
I'm going to be doing my Aradae Mawr(yn?) in reds, and the rest of the Brythoniaid in blues. The scales and chest of each will be a light bone-ish color, and hopefully that will be able to tie the different color schemes together. I'm also debating doing some pseudo-bio-luminescence on them, as another unifying factor, but will hold off until I have a few more models painted before committing to that route (and making sure it's not just Pacific Rim talking to me).

[Quuids]

Very excellent work, I am still learning all of the steps to preparing/painting minis. These WIP posts are extremely helpful especially your pics after each layer. Thank you! I am very excited to see this one through to completion

[AndyS]

I thought Pacific RIM would have an influence on the larger models here. I was thinking similar. Mostly for the inside of mouths.

[razormage]

AndyS,
As mentioned earlier, I intend to sculpt some projectile napalm/flames/something coming out of his mouth (he will dual function as a HeckCannon in my Soldiers of Not-Goodness army), and I'm thinking of going with a glowy greenish/blueish flavor, just like one of the Pacific Rim Kaiju. After a night to sleep on it, I think I'm going to avoid the bio-luminescence thing unless I really want to play with source lighting with this army.

Finished up the last two shades on the skintone last night, and thought I'd share them with you guys.

Penultimate layer was 1 Scorpion Green : 3 Lemon Yellow : 1 white, with touches of the SS Camo Black Brown and Turquoise to try to keep my green tint consistent.



One of the last tests I always do is to turn off my painting lights and see how models look under sub-ideal lighting, just using ambient room lighting. It gives me a good idea of what the model will look like at a tournament. I thought I'd share the results of that one as well:


Finally, since I'm pic-heavy already, here's a progression of every layer, from roughly the same angle:

I love how those last two layers, which really only cover a tiny, tiny part of the model, make the whole paint job pop into detail. It's gratutious overhighlighting, but it's been the style I've been using for a few years now, and I love the way it makes the whole thing come together.

[razormage]

Well, I put some more time into Glaun. First off, I did the inside of the mouth, gums, and exposed musculature in purples highlighted up to pink.

Posed with some light in his mouth, so you can see the detailing of the floor.

It looks very odd now, but that's because of the contrast to the black teeth. As those get painted, it'll look more natural.

I then base coated the rest of the model - scales, teeth, claws, and the underbelly. I'm painting all of them the same color, and I will then glaze the underbelly to give it a more green tint to bring it back into the skin tone.

The first layer is 4 parts Leather Brown to 4 parts SS Camo Black Brown to one part Goblin Green, which if you remember, was the midtone for his skin.

Though not obvious, using a touch of that goblin green will blend the two shades together and make them seem more natural next to each other.

SS Camo Black Brown is one of the utility colors I use very frequently. Any time I want to make something darker without using pure black, Camo Black Brown is what I use. It adds an earthy realism to darker colors, and allows me to shade several vastly different color schemes will still pointing them to similar points of the spectrum.

From underneath, you can see some of the brown in place on the underbelly.

I let it sit overnight (unboxing the trolls took longer than i had expected), and came back to it the next day.

The second layer was 4 parts Cobra Leather to 2 parts SS Camo Black Brown, with 1 part goblin green for consistency.

The scales took longer than expected - there's a lot of detail there! You can see the brown already becoming brighter. We'll continue that trend...

The horns are being done the same way, but figuring out how to use the ridges effectively on the top set has been a challenge so far. Also, my IPA went empty and had to be replaced.

Layer 3:

Refilled with a Flemish Sour Ale and went back to work. This time the color mix was simple: 4 Cobra Leather to one Goblin Green.

You can start to see the highlights coming in. With the green additive I've been using, the scales look like they belong, instead of being completely apart from the skin tone.

I decided to shade the bottom horns as I normally would, but to allow the rings on the top set to break up the transition from light to dark. At this point, it's still too early to tell if it will work.

Layer 4:

The fourth layer showed 2 parts Cobra Leather to two parts Medium Grey and 1 part Goblin Green. I also switched from a Games & Gears 1, back to my Winsor Newtons.

The scales are giving me more trouble than I want. There's an intricate balance I have to strike between correctly shading each scale as its own entity, and shading the back of the model as a whole. Some scales are just being highlighted at the tips, while some are being highlighted at 50% of their surface. I felt good about where they were last night, but looking again this morning reminds me I'm going to have to pay close attention to this.

The horns on top, however, are coming along better than I had expected.

Lest I forget, work is still being done on the underbelly as well. However, it had become 2 AM, the beer had run out, and work beckoned less than four hours away...

[JLLongshore]

very very nice!! I picture Glaun as kind of a block of concrete.. greyish, no shiny bits and teeth, but I really like yours!

[razormage]

Well, I worked on Glaun some more this weekend, and thought I'd share where he is right now.

Layer Five is all Medium Gray, mixed just over 4:1 with Goblin Green. I've started pulling back the Goblin Green slightly, so that by layer eight it will be all gone.

Medium Gray is my second utility color - I use it in almost everything I paint. It allows me to grey out colors and dim their vibrancy without completely changing their hue.

It also has a great side effect of being very useful in bringing darker browns into a bone shade, and you can see that leather brown starting to look much brighter.


Layer six:

Now I've mixed Medium Grey 1:1 with Pale Flesh. Usually I use bone white for bone, but I usually use Beastial Brown for my bone, rather than Leather Brown. Bone white is very close to Medium Grey, while Pale Flesh is closer to yellow than grey. With the goblin green still being added in minute amounts, I went with the yellower shade to continue emphasizing those shades.

From the back, you can see the complexity of shading scales while continuing to shade the model.

I'm still very pleased with the way the horns are turning out; I was expecting more trouble from them.

Layer seven:

Layer seven is all Pale Flesh. I just barely touched the dropper of Goblin Green to my mixing tray, so there's a hint in there, but not an excessive amount.

The back continues to show the complexities of scale.

The front from above and below. The chest is pretty much done with highlighting at this point - light reflected from the ground wouldn't highlight a model to my next highlight step.

Layer eight:

The last layer is a 50/50 mix of Pale Flesh and White. The green tint is entirely gone. Slowly, with a 000 Winsor Newton Series 7, we hit the edges of the scales, the tips and tops of the claws and teeth, and the horns.

On the back, we hit the scales where our natural light highlights would hit.

And there you have it! Glaun, at 90% completed. The eyes still need to be painted and he needs to be based, but that's all that's left. Since he's likely going to be entered in the WAMP contest, this WiP will finish here. Once the contest is over, I'll share the final pics. I hope you enjoyed watching him get painted!

[AndyS]

That looks awesome. I may need to reassess my entry to wamp!

[Sorn]

Absolutely wonderful paint job! Great work!

[grefven]

Looking ace.

[Endor]

Great work! Now I am looking forward to paint my own, you make it seem a joy to paint it