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 Fifty wrote:
I am not so sure you ought to change this bit of marble. Maybe just approach it differently next time. I think it would be very easy to ruin what is a very nice piece of work. The minor additions of darker tone you added already did enough, in my opinion.

Oh for sure, I'm calling this guy done. I don't want to get in to the trap of constantly touching things up and never moving on. Definitely this attempt has given me lots to think about on how to improve for next time, and that is the main aim for sure.

Nothing fancy, but starting to get the black robes down. Always found black a tricky colour to get right, but I'm happy with this. Thinking I'm going to use a nice vibrant purple to paint the details. Got some ideas to improve on the marble from last time so I might try that out. Sticking to NMM for the rune armour to see if I can start to get that down. As I said before, going to try to improve my freehand skills with some of that classic Ulthwe bone zigzags on the cloak.

Any advice on any of that would be greatly appreciated!

Little by little I am making some headway! Most of the little details are done now. My next step will be to fill in the facemask, and then have a crack at the freehand pattern on the cloak. Also considering another, finer, highlight on the brown to give it a little lift. Concerned it looks a little flat right now. Additional cleanup is also required, but I'll get to that another time.

Looking great so far. Really digging those sharp highlights.

I'd say go with the highlight on the brown, I think it needs it to bring it up to the level the rest of your model is at.

The helm is outstanding. The cloak is almost as good.

(Is the brown finished? My guess is no, but if it is, it needs more)

Thanks for the kind words! Definitely going on the brown highlight. Oddly, it doesn't look so flat in person, but either way adding it can only make it better!

Finished highlighting the brown (not the staff). I think it looks great in person, but the photos don't really do it justice for whatever reason... Started also blocking in the brown for the ulthwe pattern on the cloak and the sash around the robes. Very excited indeed about the direction it's going in, if a little daunted by the thought of highlighting the crazy 4 way intersection of lines down the middle!

Oooh...that's gonna be cool.

Hazy pics aside, you can see the extra definition on the leather. It is an improvement, for sure.

Looking good man. You are a braver man than me when it comes to free handing. I need to pull my finger out and start painting my spirit seer.

Good work, keen to see how the detail on the cloak turns out!

Tyranid Horde wrote:Good work, keen to see how the detail on the cloak turns out!

Thanks! Im excited about it too. Will take pictures as I go along and post results at the end. Don't want to spam too much!

Argive wrote:Looking good man. You are a braver man than me when it comes to free handing. I need to pull my finger out and start painting my spirit seer.

Honestly, the best advice I can give is to just bite the bullet and go for it. I've been painting for over 10 years and I really stagnated until the last 6 months when I finally decided to actively try new things and improve. Wish Id done it sooner, so worth it.

youwashock wrote:Oooh...that's gonna be cool.

Hazy pics aside, you can see the extra definition on the leather. It is an improvement, for sure.

Thanks man, sorry for the poor pics! I lost natural light outside but I still wanted to post... I'll try to get better pics in future.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Got to sit down today and finish up the cloak details. Could it have been better? Probably. Am I happy with it as my first attempt? Definitely. What made this difficult for sure was the folds in the cloak. The angles made it difficult to get the brush in there, but also distorts the pattern slightly. Heres my step by step:

The first step, blocking in the colours to layer the bone colour over.



Layer over a slightly darker bone colour than Ushabti Bone.



Ushabti Bone selectively layered towards the upper half of the lines (in an attempt to achieve a sort of 3d effect.



Use a darker brown to redefine the areas where the lines overlap.



Highlight with Ushabti Bone mixed with a little white.



Chase your cat to get your brush back so you can finish.



Final very fine highlight of near white, and tidy up edges with black.

Made some headway! Another attempt at the NMM on the rune armour. Pretty happy with it overall. Getting the transitions to be stark, yet smooth, is proving very tricky, but I think I've done a better job here of getting the highlights in the right places. Not too sure on the rune armour on the shoulders. Not sure that is pops enough, but at the same time I'm not sure how I could fix it without changing the colour of the shoulder pad.Pretty happy with how the gemstones came out.

Next time I'm going to take a crack at marble again on the staff. But this time I'm going to take a different approach to see if it works. Will be trying a purple marble too, I think the white might look too out of place amongst all the yellow, purple and bone.

Oh, and I also added some yellow stripes to the tabard to practice my freehand again. I think it breaks up the colour very nicely and adds another level of detail. At some point I'm going to take a look at some runes on the yellow areas on the cloak to get some more practice.

Let me know what you think!

The freehand on the cloak and tabard both look amazing!

Cat! Ahhh!

Ahem, also the yellow looks very good.

Got around to finishing him! Very pleased in particular with the sheath on his back, that turned out better than I could have dreamed! Not sure about the red on the staff, but that's how it is now so I'm moving on!

Wow! Awesome job! A real model to be proud of. The cape is so good.