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Excellent work, Ezki! She looks fantastic! The base color vs the skintone, the finish on the leather, the axe. All great.


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 Ezki wrote:
Thanks youwashock!


Bam, she is finished.
It was quite the run, but managed to get her done before the deadline (both the dakka monthly challenge and MPO 2023).




This project definitely had it's challenges, even if the usual problems with resin prints are not counted (breaking pieces, smoothing out the textures etc.).
The large even surfaces for example felt very scary at first. The sheer amount of detail and different textures provided additional challenges to overcome.

I also struggled with the eyes quite a bit. Just when I thought I got them about right, my girlfriend offered her harsh judgment: "they look weird" or "now they look too uneven".
After maybe the 8th attempt they were "hmm, guess they are alright" and I decided to call it before stacking too many layers of paint
She rarely sugar coats when I ask for feedback, which is quite helpful. But as she is not very "art oriented" and more "logical", I take her feedback with a grain of salt haha.
As a huge fan of the original character, she was however happy with the end result.

When it comes to practicing NMM, I'm still not very familiar how the light works with metallic objects. For example the axe's edge was clear enough, but especially the middle part proved a bit difficult. One can watch hundreds of reference pictures, but still not find the exact same shape. After consulting a few fellow painters at the Finnish mini painting discord and watching Vince Venturella's "Non-metallic metal axes" I got the most important tip: "don't sweat it too much" and decided to wing it.

There are a few things that could be fixed a bit of course, but regardless I'm actually really happy how this turned out.
Especially the axe and the weathered leather turned out quite well. NMM was something that felt too overwhelming, but I think I'm slowly getting the hang of it.
It's still slow as heck to paint, so not going to do that for tabletop miniatures.

In addition to this being the first large model, it's the first actual step towards display painting.
This does not mean that I will venture away from tabletop miniatures or start painting purely display pieces, but I will definitely broaden my horizons in the future!

Thank you for looking!

Excellent stuff, she certainly seems to be a step up in display painting, though from an already high standard! You weren’t kidding about the nsfw tag either!

Thank you gobert!

Been a while since last update!

The hour is late and my eyes are quite strained for painting quite a few hours during the last couple of days, so I'm keeping this short even though I would have a lot to say about this project.
But here's the latest work.

Continuing with the Baldur's Gate theme with Shadowheart.
Painted this for the Dakka challenge, but did not manage to get her completely done. Doing a full round of NMM in this scale (~70mm) was a bit too much for a single month's endeavour.

The base is still in the works and there are a few unfinished areas (like the hands and the gold on her backside), but other than that I'm calling here done.
Taking a small break and painting something else before I get back to it.



Definitely out of my comfort zone, but a very interesting challenge and a blast to paint.
At first I was about to give up on the whole thing, as the NMM scetching started looking horrible and I was at a loss.
Luckily there were many reference pictures of this character, so I kept on brushing away. After a while, the shapes started to make a bit more sense and I started feeling a lot more confident.

Poured my heart and soul to this and I'm actually really happy how it turned out. Hopefully I have the energy to finish the base later. Maybe... MAYBE even tackle that OSL from the candles?

Thanks for looking!

Your paint game lately has been TIGHT. Excellent work on her. The nmm wants to be center stage, but the work on the face keeps pulling me back. Just stellar.

That's just a very beautiful piece- all of the techniques combine to make a perfect whole. NMM, skin tones, detailing, simply wonderful. Please finish the base and add the OSL for the candles.

I enjoy looking at all the pics that folks post here on Dakka: some show the improvements we gain in skill with practice and advice, some are funny, some detail difficult techniques that most of us will never try, some are breath-taking in their scope and some very few are simply for looking at and marveling. This is one of the latter.

Well done, indeed. Rock on.

Very nice work Ezki.

Cheers,

CB

Absolutely stunning Ezki, you can certainly see the effort that’s gone in to her! Amazing!

Stunning work on Shadowheart (and Karlach as well)! Do go for the OSL effect!

Wow, those are just beautifully painted minis!

Thank you so much for all the comments everyone. I'm flattered.
I've yet to paint the OSL effects on Shadowheart, but I'll get to it in due time.

And sorry for not getting back earlier.

Meer_Cat wrote:That's just a very beautiful piece- all of the techniques combine to make a perfect whole. NMM, skin tones, detailing, simply wonderful. Please finish the base and add the OSL for the candles.

I enjoy looking at all the pics that folks post here on Dakka: some show the improvements we gain in skill with practice and advice, some are funny, some detail difficult techniques that most of us will never try, some are breath-taking in their scope and some very few are simply for looking at and marveling. This is one of the latter.

Well done, indeed. Rock on.

Thank you so much for your kind workds!
Looking at different miniature pictures in Dakka and/or Instagram is one of my favorite pass times and that summed up really well why it is so addictive.


So.
Since Shadowheart, I've managed to paint just one miniature: a Triss Merigold bust.
Some of you saw her already at the February Dakka Challenge.

I was planning to do a post here soon after that, but then things happended.
Me and the missus caught the good old 'rona. Both of us were under the weather for a while.
The timing was truly impeccable, as we were moving in two weeks and were in the middle of packing our old home.

Once we survived that, the real work began: decorating the new home.
Usually I'm not one to care much about decoration (or so I thought), but something hit me.
I spent my free time browsing the net and running around different furniture stores with the missus. It was both exciting and very stressful at the same time.
Add to that, I did not yet have any place to do any painting as my old desk did not fit the new hobby room.

But now, finally sitting in my new armchair, I'm able to take a breather and finally post an update.


Triss Merigold. Sculpted by H3llcreator.
First bust I have ever painted and a fitting project for the Dakka challenge "Out with the old, in with the new".


Painting in this scale offered many new and exciting challenges.
The larger surfaces made it possible to play around with textures but at the same time were quite intimidating.
And the face. Oh that was truly scary. But I think I managed quite alright, despite messing up many many times, especially with the eyes.
I tried to replicate the original color scheme the best I could by mixing different tones.

I did not record the time very accurately, but I'd wager that it took around ~55 hours to paint this.
Usually I'm spent after 20 hours into the same project, but this time I wanted to see it properly through.
No shortcuts under the sleeves or on the backside or any other place which I would usually just base coat and slap a wash on.

After looking at the pictures, there are a few things that could be improved upon a bit. Regardless, I'm happy how it turned out.
Busts were something I was previously terrified of painting. Maybe now some of that fear is gone.

She immediately found a new (temporary) place in our new home.




And to keep the engine running, a sneak peek from the next project:
I'm still looking for a new hobby desk (preferably an old secretary desk), but I setup a temporary painting station on my work desk.

Started working on Yennefer. Cannot have one without the other.


Finished the face last night. Tried to replicate her "cold personality"



Thank you for looking!

Beautiful work, Ezki. Glad real life is settling down and I am sure Yen will blow doors off, too.

Gorgeous painjob, looking forward to see Yen!

Thank you both!

To compensate the hiatus, I'm hitting you with a progress update!

Face nearly complete and started on the clothes.
Differentiating the hair, the cloak and the black fur is going to be hard, especially as at times all three of them overlap each other

Looks like another grand slam in the making. Lovely face.

Stunning work on the busts Ezki. You’ve really got the skin looking great on both of them. Good luck sorting out the different blacks

Thank you both!

I think I'm finally calling Yennefer done.
This project had a lot of ups and downs. I think I went through the whole spectrum of emotions with her.

I'll do a more broad write up when I get a proper photo set up figured out in the new apartment.
In the meanwhile, here's a couple quick shots from last night fresh from the desk:





The raven is bound to fall off when I as much as look at it wrong.
One of the legs snapped when I was cleaning the supports, so I carefully removed it for the painting. Here's hoping that it'll stick...


Oh! And I finally managed to score an old "Secretary Desk" from a thrift store.
Still have to figure out a thing or two with the lighting setup etc., but other than that I'm quite digging it!

Don't mind the white pantyhose on the lamps. "Poor man's diffusers" or something like that.

Painting mode activated.


And packed up.

Yennefer looks amazing! That blue flame is so cool!

Cute doggo too!

Nice to see her finished. Amazing work! Always not fun when fiddly bits break off at the wrong spot. Could you even pit a pin in those raven legs? At least it’s a decorative bust and not a game piece so it doesn’t need to worry about getting knocked around the battlefield.

Cute little desk set up. Very classy looking! I’ve gotten spoiled by giant slabs of space I don’t know if I could go back to something that small. But it makes for a great little dedicated space the packs away nicely. And frankly space is not the important thing, it’s lighting and position.

Pupper is looking good. I’m guessing you spend a lot of time plucking that fuzz off of your minis. So fluffy....

Floof.

Yen has turned out marvelously. Have fun at the new desk! Great classic look.

Superb bust, really satisfying dark textures throughout. I can't quite tell if it has really subtle blue OSL going on, or those are my eyes playing tricks with the overall cool tones. Either way, exalt!

Thank you kindly everyone!

Nevelon wrote:Could you even pit a pin in those raven legs?

Pinning might be the solution if and when the legs snap!

Nevelon wrote:Pupper is looking good. I’m guessing you spend a lot of time plucking that fuzz off of your minis. So fluffy....

... All the time. And from my palette. And the paint pots.

Boss Salvage wrote:Superb bust, really satisfying dark textures throughout. I can't quite tell if it has really subtle blue OSL going on, or those are my eyes playing tricks with the overall cool tones. Either way, exalt!

Thank you so much!
There is indeed a teeny tiny OSL effect going on. I want to make it really subtle, as the rest of the models is quite "lit up".


So, Yennefer is done.

This project definitely had it's ups and downs.
I started painting her on a temporary painting station in the middle of our move. I tried to score an hour here and there of painting time in between unpacking boxes and trying to find new furniture.
The stress of moving really had an impact on the early stages of the project and I encountered many setbacks.
Rushing to remove the supports had me going back and forth between painting and cleaning and repainting the areas again.
I even managed to break a few of the feathers and had to sculpt new ones.
The cloak was a bit cracked and full of print support marks, so I decided to carefully remove it for cleaning.
As a happy accident, I thought that the model looked rather cool with the short cape.

There were positives too.
I really liked painting the face, even though that's something I'm usually terrified of. I tried to capture the cold and determined look of Yennefer.
I also really liked experimenting with the feathers and different textures. At first I decided against doing the OSL effect, but ended up giving it a try!

When the project began, I wanted to get her done rather quickly so I could focus on other projects that I had lined up.
Time spent on going back and forth with cleaning and redoing different areas felt like wasted effort. "Why even bother, this is a waste of time!".
I stressed the end result all too much and was afraid of failing. I jumped to other projects for a while and almost decided to give up on this.

Then something happened.

We were at our summer cottage and I was repainting some old Warhammer skeleton models, as I've been planning to create a small Mordheim display.
It was fun for an hour or two. Then I started feeling anxious. I had a bunch of pieces I "should be doing" instead of wasting my time repainting old skeletons.
"Why am I wasting my time, these will not be good enough anyway. I should be finishing my competition pieces. Or painting something unpainted. This is useless".

Luckily, I vented out loud. My dear girlfriend noted, that "you do that because it's fun".
Those words hit me harder than I could have though.

The next day, we went home. I headed to my painting desk and looked at Yennefer again.
"Heck it" I though and started mixing different tones of blue for that OSL effect I was so terrified of. "It's only paint after all".
I opened Youtube and listened to Roman Lappat's videos while trying to channel his "Happy Painting Philosophy".

I ended up painting until 3am. I really, really enjoyed myself.

What I learnt that day is, that I often forget why I paint miniatures. I forget to have fun.
I often create this mental project queue that "I have to follow or else". I get stressed if I cannot finish a project quick enough, as I would rather be painting something else.
Honestly, I often get the feeling that I'm not good enough and stress about the final result. I'm afraid of trying new techniques fearing that I will ruin what little I have to show for.
These thoughts are something that's common even in the top painters in the world. No one is the best. There is always someone who is better.
Everyone who is having fun is good enough.

From now on, I will allow myself to differ from my "set path". I will not paint for the judges, social media or anyone else. I will paint to have fun. Or at least try to.
This does not mean that I will not take part in competitions or challenges. Quite the opposite.
By changing the mentality from "painting for the judges or likes on Instagram" to "painting to have fun and create something cool" often yields better results.

Of course there will be projects and events on my hobby journey that will provoke the same feelings. But that too, is alright.
It's all part of "the pain of creation" and getting to know ourselves.

In the end, I'm really happy with the result.
Not just for the sake of painting, but for learning a lot about myself and overcoming the fear of experimenting.

Just wanted to share the range of emotions that went into this project.


Anyway, here's the finished result.

Forgot to scale the pics. So smaller pictures here, full sized in the gallery
She was a tough model to photograph, as there is so many dark tones!









Thank you for reading and looking.
Until next time!

Remembering it’s a hobby and that we are here to have fun is an important thing to keep in mind. And also easy to loose track of. I set all sorts of goals for myself, but I try to remember that it’s OK to miss a few. I want to paint better, finish projects, reduce the pile of shame, paint different things etc. So I made goals to help focus me. I’ve never hit them all at the end of the year. And that’s OK. If you make 100% of your goals, you probably are not reaching high enough.

But when they get in the way of fun, it’s fine to ignore them. Like when choosing my project for last month’s painting completion I was pushing myself to choose an entry that would check boxes off my yearly to-do list. But I wanted and was excited to paint the bike chaplain, so that’s what I did. And he was fun and I’m (mostly) happy how he turned out.

We are out own worst critics when it comes to looking at our own work.

Yours, as always, is amazing here.

And you can talk the good talk about just painting for yourself and not for the judges, but I still expect to see you in our monthly comps occasionally. You brighten up the the podium whenever you show up, glad to have you with us when things align to let you.

Awesome job, as usual! Seriously, the face, the layers so good!

Enjoying the process is the key, and it is "tricky" to stay in that zone.
I always though that the "master" will eventually succeed (financially and personally, for own life and soul) But that is not true.
Best of luck on your journey! Your work and the progress you share sets the bar for us, for me, and it IS very inspirational. I do get a spur and burst of enthusiasm when I see something outside of my ability, so thank you for sharing, it is a small thing, but it valuable.

To quote:


Love your painting corner! Do you have a nice tea/coffee station near by? Feels like there must be a dedicated tea/coffee station that is a support add-on to the painting corner.