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I've been painting this guy up for a while now on and off in what little painting time I get for personal projects these days, and he's getting to the stage where I really need to start thinking about what (obligatory!) freehand to do on his cloak.

He will be going on a kinda watery, rocky, reefy (as in corals etc) base, and with the flow, the water, foliage, cloak etc is all sweeping out with the same direction (where he's pointing too). 'Flow' I guess is the theme, with a watery/sea and wind thang, and a slight moonlight sorta alien ambience will be applied... I think. So I was thinking about maybe a watery sea dragon (curling in the same direction again), or some kinda glowing runic star chart mebbe. I did think about doing a 'great deeds!' type mural too at one point just for extreme freehand pimpness, but as much as I'd like to stretch my legs a bit with a Khaine-slaying-some-gak type mural, I don't think this will be neccessarily befitting the overall vibe and theme.

Anyway, if anyone has got any suggestions on this i'd love to hear them! Feel free to post up any art or other references you think might be nice on him.

Cheers guys.

I am thinking a space scene on his cape. Playing on his name "farseer" and it can also go very well with your "flow" theme

i think its beautiful as is...

on a side note our names are very similar

Gorgeous work, so far!

I was initially thinking of going with a lunar theme, to tie into the whole flow thing (tides and whatnot), but I can't, for the life of me, think of a way to make that look great on its own, nor can I imagine it being incorporated into a starry field (which I think would look awesome, by the way) without overpowering it and throwing off the balance.

Hrmm... Perhaps a "border" within the trim showing a stylized progression of lunar phases? If you put the full moon all the way left and new to the right, the two phases with the highest tides would be the most forward-swept sections, which is fitting. The height you make the trim would dictate how many "snapshots" of the cycle you could display - about half a dozen looks like it would allow you to cover roughly the bottom 1/3 of the cloak - enough to provide visual and thematic interest and allow you just enough space to get some detail in there, while allowing some of the lovely cloth you've already painted to shine, as well. A light speckling of stars above might not detract overmuch, now that I think about it...

[edit: typo]

Cheers for the comments guys. Some nice ideas there thanks, and very similar to some of my other ideas and what has been suggested elsewhere online.

I'll go and get sketching and see where it takes me now...

How about some of the old Japanese woodcut wave pictures. One famous one:

URL if you can't see the image here: http://randomknowledge.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/the_great_wave_off_kanagawa.jpg?w=400&h=258

hahah!! That's one of the reference pics i've got put aside for it already!

I'll explain the masterplan once my sketches are done. Assuming I can get my ancient scanner to work anyway...

vitki wrote:How about some of the old Japanese woodcut wave pictures. One famous one:

URL if you can't see the image here: http://randomknowledge.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/the_great_wave_off_kanagawa.jpg?w=400&h=258

I have this poster in my house

Ooh, the Japanese woodcut style could work quite nicely, although I don't know how well it would translate into a muted palette, like the one you have (painting it as-is would look a bit out of place, I imagine). Get that scanner up and running, man! The suspense is killing me...

You know it is a good looking paintjob when people suggest freehand painting a miniature version of the Japanese woodcut wave pictures on his cloak. I mean how much else could you do to improve it?

That's a fine looking paintjob!

hehe Cheers guys!

Managed tyo squeeze in a bit progress on this at the expense of sleep (who really needs it anyway, huh?). My scanner ain't having it though so I knocked up a quick composite in Gimp. It'll be something like this. Well, sort of. There a few more touches that I didn't bother to add to the pic, but all the main components are there to help me start plotting it out on the cape.




Started sketching the layout and proportions. I'm not sure how many WIP pics i'll get of this as I hate interrupting my flow once i'm going, but as a few people have asked in the past to see my freehand in stages I thought i'd try to get some along the way this time. Just roughing out at the mo so don't expect anything cool yet.

simply beautiful....

Even the rough works looks awesome... damn you for your talent, sir

WOW!!!! Seriously that is beautiful and it's a nice homage to the woodcut pictures. It looks seriously Weeabo-Eldar, 10 out of 10 for effort and painting.

Thanks guys. A bit more progress for you...

sweet jesus....

Simply amazing...heck even before the freehand it was good.

This is beautiful! Awesome freehand.

Thanks for the comments!

Here's another couple of WIP pics then - The freehand is coming on nicely now after a few modifications here and there, and I thought it wise to get some more pics of the reef's progress before I potentially ruin it with the water fx!

Awesome! That's how to make your models pop on the battlefield!

That is quite simply stunning! wow.

I am the Hulk of envy right now...

Christ that's beautiful, talent doesn't even begin to describe it. A masterpiece.

While I'm loth to say anything that isn't praise for the (almost) final product, I think I actually prefer the nebulous swirl of your "roughing out" picture, perhaps with minor tweaks to clarify the dragon, a touch.

Thanks everyone for the kind words.

oadie wrote:...I think I actually prefer the nebulous swirl of your "roughing out" picture, perhaps with minor tweaks to clarify the dragon, a touch.

'Nebulous swirl", eh? I like that phrase!

While certainly not what I want from the outcome, I do kinda see the appeal in that. I think it has a bit more energy I guess, kinda like the looser styles of painting, both in the mini world and in other arts. I think it's a bit late now to go back of course should I have been so inclined, but certainly something to consider for a future project maybe.

I reckon there may yet be some more energy that I can add to this, possibly a more aggressive jaw still and some more motion and splashiness to some of the waves (particularly where he morphs out of them, as that looks a little too sudden still imo).

Thanks for the input, Oadie. Please do feel free to suggest anything you think may add to the 'excitement' of it.

Cheers!

I'd love to see what happens when you "paint loosely" as an intentional effect, not merely the first step of several. I demand a tribute piece (God knows I can't pay you for a commission, as much as I'd love to throw money at you) to satisfy my curiosity!

More excitement? Hmm... You could always epoxy a couple of scalpel blades to key points on the model. That'll keep you on your toes!

On a more serious note (the only one, it seems), is it just me or are the foreground waves breaking against the flow of the cloak and the largest wave?

heheh I'll pass on the scalpels thanks.

Good spot with the wave crest btw. I was dabbling with different swoops to the waves, kinda creating a semi-circular flow, a sweeping u-turn in the momentum of the water.
It balances it out much better to the eye actually when they're all doing it, and provides a better sensation of the speed and direction of the dragon in much the same way that forward-blurring backgrounds add momentum to 2d art.

I'm not sure about the effect on the final composition though, and as It's only really the foam/spray at the crest of the waves i'll probably leave it until it all comes together at the end.

Wow, simply amazing.....

Righty ho then! Time for what will likely be tha last update before I dash to meet the Wamped comp deadline.

First up is the aborted first run with the EZ water on the initial base. I expected for it to be a learning curve anyway, so I really wasn't fussed when the first lesson dawned upon me. In all honesty I felt like a complete idiot for not thinking about this first, but when I poured the water it melted the plastic barrier I had used to keep the water in place. The result was this horribly distorted edging to the pool which was not what I wanted.



Another thing you'll notice in this one, are the 'waves' on the surface of the water. This was a deliberate experiment to see how much manipulation the EZ water would take while cooling. By poking, dragging, and smooshing it about, you can create some excellent waves and water dynamics as you can see.
I however continued to work it as it was setting, and created some very unnatural looking voids and cavities. This stuff does not re-bond particularly well without leaving unsightly joins, and would explain why the instructions tell you to pour all in one sitting, rather than in layers.

I will certainly be experimenting with some crazy waves and things on another piece in the future though, and I can see some excellent potential with this stuff, despite it's flaws elsewhere.

The strange brown foamy stuff is gorilla glue, where I was testing it's foaming properties. There's also some random patches of diff coloured varnish, and some air-drying single part water fx for good measure. Just playing with it all really and getting used to some new products.

Anyway, back to the progress!!!

I decided that I really wasn't liking the rocks on the base as you saw it last, as they were too simple and fake looking, so last night I hacked out the foam and replaced them with some more foam and bark bits. This gave a much more natural look that I was very pleased with. I have since fleshed it out with some foliage which is all flowing in the same direction of the breeze, the cascading water, his cloak and the direction he's pointing in.

I've got the rocks and the ambience tied in nicely with him now too, by working some of the same purples into the scenery as on his clothes, and highlighting with some SW grey to get the upper range gelling. The greens from the foliage create a nice complimentary to the mainly cold purples on him, and harmonise with the yellow golds, and blues of his gems and water.

While this sets off the Farseer nicely now however, i've now lost the initial 'alien shore' vibe that I was shooting for, and instead he feels a little more laid back, and in a more familiar (to us anyway) environment. I'm thinking I need to bring him back into the 41st millenium and so am toying with some small artifacts to decorate the base with, such as a Marine helmet or a small transmitter ie. There's not a lot of space though so if anyone's got any ideas for how to tech it up a bit I'd love to hear them. I did consider a small beacon-y pole thing with a bit of flag/tassles on as it would add to the flow while fluttering in the breeze...

Oh yeah! Pics! Thanks for sticking it out!

Final pics are now up in the P&M showcase.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/433529.page