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Yeah, 60,000 posts!

WTF?!?

Anyway...

I wanted Adepticon to be a nice relaxing vacation type event this time around.

So, no 40K for me!

I signed up for a 'Bring a SpecOps mini' Infinity Event - so I had to paint a SpecOps!

PanO it is, because if I'm going to get in gear painting again, I'm going to be working up to that JOTUM.

A couple of things I learned...

1) Getting older sucks - my hands aren't nearly as steady as they used to be!

2) I REALLY need to get better at painting skin and faces. Never mind eyes. Sometimes I get it right, most times I don't.

Anyway, here's my PanO Spec Ops!

Somewhat crappy iPhone pics:





And I'm not kidding about he whole skin/faces thing - I've got a ton of Arena Rex and Mierce Daklands miniatures on the way!

Alph what brushes are you using?

I have a shakey hands problem (thanks caffeine...) and I've found that the brushes from the Army Painter "starter sets" are great because of the widened handles.


In regards to the Indigo? I think the face looks fine! It just looks like you might want to hit the face overall with a really light wash to differentiate the facial structure a bit.

Yeah, I'll state the infamous "It looks better in person!" line here!

I thought I started light enough, but it ended up getting a bit darker than I liked in the end.

Having said that, INFINITY models are *tiny* when compared to GW's stuff - the scale is 'true', and small!

Were you trying for a really light flesh tone?

Not specifically - just lighter than it ended up being.

Part of the problem is that I procrastinated until almost the last minute.

I'm glad I didn't wait for the real 'last minute', which would have been Tuesday night!

*looks at his half-finished writing assignment due in an hour*

I cannot relate to procrastination, at all.

If you are having problems with shaking hands hold the mini in one hand and rest the brush hand's palm against the mini hand as for eyes get a fineline pen you can find them in art stores or office max for the black spot the whites are on you sorry

Looks good Alpharius, keep it up and I can't wait to see more.

Also it begs the question where is your Jotum

I always like well painted Infinity blog, and it looks like this is off to a great start.

If you are still concerned about the definition on the face I'd just second what Kan says, a wash may help. Even if you just apply it to the recessed areas.

Or just a little bit of higher highlighting. I tend to fuss with my faces a lot, and usually end up with them looking like the guy from the Goonies.

The model looks good! I can't wait until the rest of the Fusiliers look like that.

And for a certain Jotum to get painted.

Yay! Infinity painting blog And I'm glad to see that I am not the only one who keeps the cards that come in the blisters.

Looks like the face needs some shading, and eyebrows?

For shaking hands, rest your forearms and sides of hands on the table. This works for me, although you have to take frequent breaks to avoid shoulder strain. The worst thing about the getting older stuff is the presbyopia. Reading glasses help here; really, really strong reading glasses. And lots of light, since, as you age, your eyes see less well in dim light. I have trouble using black paint these days because of this.

You should come down to DC for the NOVA Open tournament too. There is a nice slate of Infinity events this year.

Commenting now so I can find this again later. Looks good but I can't see very well on the phone to mention specifics.

I think he looks good. The shade of blue you used for his armor especially came out well. Dips and washes always help my stuff look better, especially faces since I suck at doing highlights.

I'm a huge fan of ink washes - I use a blue wash over a grey/blue paint on the armor, and then Devlan on the pants and pouches, with Badab on the gun and some of the other bits.

I've yet to hit upon the right combo of paints/washes for skin/faces though...

I really need to write it down next time I 'get it right'!

 Alpharius wrote:
I'm a huge fan of ink washes - I use a blue wash over a grey/blue paint on the armor, and then Devlan on the pants and pouches, with Badab on the gun and some of the other bits.

I've yet to hit upon the right combo of paints/washes for skin/faces though...

I really need to write it down next time I 'get it right'!

Yeah no kidding. I tend to get really fidgety when I do faces, and end up layering and mixing and mixing and washing and... well... you get the idea. The upside is that it usually looks good, and all the faces look just a bit different!

The downside is it takes foooorever. And then I stress... and start looking for helmets.

My tip for doing faces is that i dont stress about recreating an actual skin tone. IE the one i did on the previous mini. Even using the exact same paint recipes, skin tones never look the same twice. Roll with it and improvise with your colors as you go and youll find faces to be more fun and less aggravating/time consuming...
Looks good though. I sometimes will do a blue glaze over the face for definitions...watery blue....almost no tint at all...

cheers
BB

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/300322.page

I did a tutorial on flesh a long while back. Its a simple technique and you can use any shade of flesh you want.

I gave you the link above if you want to check it out.

awesome model by the way.

 bebopdrums2424 wrote:
My tip for doing faces is that i dont stress about recreating an actual skin tone. IE the one i did on the previous mini. Even using the exact same paint recipes, skin tones never look the same twice. Roll with it and improvise with your colors as you go and youll find faces to be more fun and less aggravating/time consuming...
Looks good though. I sometimes will do a blue glaze over the face for definitions...watery blue....almost no tint at all...

cheers
BB

I'd honestly say don't even try to adapt to different skin tones. Everyone is different. Paint your models this way. Different hair colours too. Matching uniforms is one thing, but matching skin tones and hair just looks plain weird.

I'm not too worried about matching skin tones - I'm more worried about getting better at painting skin and faces, as I have a LOT of that to be doing in the coming months!

I've got the same problem. I need to get better at painting skin. I've got a fair few helmetless females to paint for my Haqqislam, and I'd like them to look good.

Faces are intimidating., consider they can literally make or break an otherwise decent paint job, but in all honesty they are not hard. The biggest mistake people make is before paint even hits the mini. They choose the wrong colors!! The technical side of it is very basic. High and low points. Shadows in the low and highlights in the high. Inks and washes can be your best friend for this process, but you have to remember to dilute them and do final highlights AFTER the washing stage, otherwise your inks and washes have a tendency to cover up or mask the highlights.

I used to practice faces on extra heads from kits. Heads that I most likely would not use in the near future.

I definitely like the color choice, he has that certain Infinity-ness that most of the house paint jobs CB have. Something to do with the lighter tone and the combination of colors... I'm grasping for the right words, but basically I'm trying for 'he looks like an Infinity mini, good job'

Another problem which is more common with Infinity due the the quantity of female models and lack of defining lines on them is the ink and wash method is hard to get right on them. They produce hard lines, which on a male model makes it look grizzled. On a female model it makes them look like a transvestite. Getting soft highlights and soft shadows but still enough definition to see the gradiants is a lot harder.

 GrimDork wrote:
I definitely like the color choice, he has that certain Infinity-ness that most of the house paint jobs CB have. Something to do with the lighter tone and the combination of colors... I'm grasping for the right words, but basically I'm trying for 'he looks like an Infinity mini, good job'

More sci-fi, less grimdark

Is this going to be one of those blogs with a few pictures to start and then nothing for over a year? Hate those.

I love painting flesh tones. You can really go nuts, keep your paint even thinner than normal. Take a look at portrait painting, use blues, greens, purples for tinting and shading.
You'll probably see a big jump once you get to roll around in a flesh heavy model like some of the Darklands stuff.

That SpecOps looks great, definitely on my list of things I will be spending money on. And I have to say the more I look at the Jotum, the more I want it.

Looking forward to updates

I've got the painting bug now, so there really should be any year long gaps in here!

I'll be working up a full 300 point PanO force - with the end goal being getting the mighty JOTUM on the table!

You'll get the Jotum done in time for the Svalarheim sectorial. That should be the goal.

I hope to get it done before then - and only have to worry about new Fusilers/equivalents and Nisses then!