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Well, I can finally share with the world the fruits of my (procrastinated) labor for the Dakka Painting Challenge that recently finished up!

My entry ended up finishing 1st in the Polling and I'm actually pretty proud of how he turned out considering the time I put into him.



Some issues I have with him:

1.) His skin. I really wanted to go all out on the skin tones here. I started off very slow and wanted to really give a good go of trying some different techniques. In the end though, I only got to do a serious try on the facial features. The rest was rushed to finish by the deadline. Even then, the face didn't have the right amount of depth and color that I was wanting.

2.) The chipped paint effect. I rushed this. No research photos. No time spent making it look 'right'. And the time I spent doing the 'nmm' which just ends up looking like grey blobs to me, is laughable at best. The effect still follows what I was going for, it's just not very realistic, not very well executed to me.

Some things I like about him:

1.) His base. I really enjoyed putting his base together and painting it. It was simple to paint (I wasn't going for super detail, my focus was on the rest of the piece). And the effect is nice. I stole some ideas from the pages of Lunchbox and Migsula of Dakka.

2.) His pants. I know the lighting isn't done well. But there is something about the smoothness and fluid look that is pleasing. In the future, I've really got to stick to the shading scheme though.

Some things to try on my next piece:

Realistic lighting/shading/highlighting
More colors for skin tones
More glazing practice (the face was the only real practice spot with this mini)

I'd love to hear what you all think. Feel free to critique the hell out of him!

For some more photos of him in progress, check out my photobucket. It's mostly just skin tone work as I ended up rushing and forgot to keep taking photos as I worked on him! x.x

I voted for this guy? Sheesh, I gotta stop drinking before I troll Dakka.

Just kidding. This guy is simply amazing. After your personal critique however I can see some of the things you were not quite happy with. The "paint chipping" effect on the bayonet for example. I'd love to see what more you could do to the face though, it's already very detailed.

One thing I got to thinking about after the voting started and the pictures were posted was that some of the entries were just doomed because of the photos themselves. I'm not saying you didn't deserver to win this by any means, but I think some other people would have done better if they could have presented crisp clean photos.

Stormtrooper X wrote:I voted for this guy? Sheesh, I gotta stop drinking before I troll Dakka.

Just kidding. This guy is simply amazing. After your personal critique however I can see some of the things you were not quite happy with. The "paint chipping" effect on the bayonet for example. I'd love to see what more you could do to the face though, it's already very detailed.

One thing I got to thinking about after the voting started and the pictures were posted was that some of the entries were just doomed because of the photos themselves. I'm not saying you didn't deserver to win this by any means, but I think some other people would have done better if they could have presented crisp clean photos.

Hehe, Thanks for the vote, and thanks for the compliments. I really try and critique myself really hard when it comes to competition minis and 'learning' minis. I'm never completely satisfied with the results I get. There is always SOMETHING that can be improved upon! It's really the whole reason I bother posting in the first place, to get better!

Photos for a mini competition are very important. If I could, I'd personally photograph each entry individually. Unfortunately the logistics of that aren't something I'm willing to deal with ^_-.

GD when you mention glazing, what is meant by that? Just a thinned down color with a lot of medium (water) and less pigment (paint)? Or if I got those assumptions wrong what is the process?

VermGho5t wrote:GD when you mention glazing, what is meant by that? Just a thinned down color with a lot of medium (water) and less pigment (paint)? Or if I got those assumptions wrong what is the process?

That's pretty much it. Thin the hell out of your paint and get a good chunk of that water out of your brush so that you're not getting a 'wash' effect (where the color pools into the crevices). So that it has much the same application style of your normal paint, only with a LOT less pigment! This can give you a lot of control while painting a mini. It just takes a LOT more time to use the technique.

I voted for you. I love the paint job you did. Congrats =)

Here are some additional shots. Some are of the Ogryn and my past DPC entries, while the other set is of the Ogryn and the squad that inspired his look. Enjoy!

you got my vote too, really liked him. A bit too many scartches on the armor for me, But well done all the way round for sure. Crisp clean lines and shades. Your color choices were well suited.