I always like it when people post about their process while painting for these challenges, but it occurs to me that I never really do that myself, except sometimes in the post mortem of the voting thread. I don't know if anyone is interested, but here's some of the thought processes I went through for this month.
With the theme this month, I wanted to give the miniature the atmosphere of a last stand. That's why the base looks like a destroyed landscape, and I tried to give his face a look of grim determination, mixed with resignation that this could be the end for him. The fact that he ended up looking weirdly like Tom Cruise was an accident. I started by painting the armour, because that struck me as the most difficult bit, so if I messed that up I'd still have time to pick something else to paint instead. I did mess it up a bit, but I liked it enough to keep going. I mixed VMC Deep Sea Blue with Leadbelcher for the base, VMA Chrome mixed with Celestra Grey for the highlight, blended together on the miniature to create the gradients, with black and white added to either end for deepest shadows and brightest lights. I used these matte colours mixed in to give the armour a cold look, to add to the narrative and atmosphere. I kind of wish I hadn't painted the trousers with a blue highlight - black and grey would have worked better, and I think the blue detracts from the blue in the armour. The sword I wanted to look more of a demonic flamey sword than a flamey sword of justice. The miniature is inspired by JRPG games, and in these kind of games the hero's sword is represented as an albatross, something they wish they didn't have to use anymore. He's using the evil sword to fight evil. Again, the bright oranges are there to hopefully create contrast with the cold armour. The cogs in the base are there to look cool. They seemed like the kind of thing you might see in a Final Fantasy game.
The painting isn't as clean and precise as I would have liked, and my eye is constantly drawn to the scruffier areas and mistakes. Also, I tried to use a quasi-
nmm technique on the armour, but I don't really know how to paint
nmm. I'll leave the final judgement to the jury of the voting thread.
TLDR - I painted it silver and red.
