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Hey guys,

I'm relatively new to painting, almost a year in, and have maybe 30 minis under my belt.

I've recently started in on the kdm minis and they are super fun. I have the white lion, antelope, and butcher in my gallery, but I'm just posting my butcher here since I just finished it last week, and being brand new to dakkadakka, thought I'd share my latest work.

The stylized photos are definitely more edited, whereas the normal full model photos have minimal editing.

I don't know if there's a way to easily just link or share the gallery i've already setup on the site, or if i should just be uploading the images as separate files like i've done here...

Thanks!

Beautifull pictures... you're really good at it

Really great painting and fantastic photography! Well done sir!!

Very moody. Very nice.

I'll stick my neck out and "think aloud" that perhaps a single, smallish light source somewhere down in front on the skulls matching the orangy glow might be worth a try?

Thanks guys! I like your suggestion war drone, maybe I can still add that. A lantern on the floor adding some yellow to the base... Thanks for that feedback

Beautiful work!!

It looks good from the back, with the glowing lanterns on the cape. From the front it feels a bit... unfocussed? Like, there's a lot of different colours and materials but no real focal point. The bones on the left shoulder take attention away from the face. The glow on the eyes doesn't actually look bright, especially since they're competing against the much brighter yellow/orange glows from the lamps.

I'm not really sure what the fix would be; it's a bit of a complex model with different textures spread all over, which I think makes it inherently unfocused. I'm not sure what I would have done myself to get over that; maybe pick one detail (possibly the cleavers) and paint them in a much brighter colour that isn't used anywhere else (like maybe doing the armour in bronze then the cleavers in bright steel/silver).

BTW the photos are a little dark, which is thematically appropriate but might not be showing the model off to best effect. It might be that my comments are meaningless in brighter, more natural lighting.

 Soul Samurai wrote:
It looks good from the back, with the glowing lanterns on the cape. From the front it feels a bit... unfocussed? Like, there's a lot of different colours and materials but no real focal point. The bones on the left shoulder take attention away from the face. The glow on the eyes doesn't actually look bright, especially since they're competing against the much brighter yellow/orange glows from the lamps.

I'm not really sure what the fix would be; it's a bit of a complex model with different textures spread all over, which I think makes it inherently unfocused. I'm not sure what I would have done myself to get over that; maybe pick one detail (possibly the cleavers) and paint them in a much brighter colour that isn't used anywhere else (like maybe doing the armour in bronze then the cleavers in bright steel/silver).

BTW the photos are a little dark, which is thematically appropriate but might not be showing the model off to best effect. It might be that my comments are meaningless in brighter, more natural lighting.

Yea it is a very busy model. I suppose I could have chosen some different colors, which is probably what I need to work on. I don't think it will look too much different in natural light. I mean everything would be a bit brighter, certainly, but there really isn't much underexposed in the full model shots so I don't know how it would change what you're seeing. I did try to bring attention to the front cleaver on his belt by keeping it clean, with no blood, while everything else is bloody. How could I make the eyes brighter? I spent a fair bit of time painting and repainting the eyes. Thanks for the feedback.

 War Drone wrote:
Very moody. Very nice.
I'll stick my neck out and "think aloud" that perhaps a single, smallish light source somewhere down in front on the skulls matching the orangy glow might be worth a try?

Agreed. Or paint one or two of the skulls in the came way as the lanterns, like they're possesed.

squirtis wrote:
How could I make the eyes brighter? I spent a fair bit of time painting and repainting the eyes.

I'm not really sure, I'm not the best at painting glows, and you've got red competing against orange, which is sort of inherently brighter. Plus the orange glows cover a larger area because the lanterns are brighter than the eyes; I'm just not sure the model lends itself to having the eyes glow brighter than the lanterns.

It does look like you used a blood red for the glow? I think it might have looked brighter if you used something like blood red at the very edges, but then went up to a bright orange for the bulk of the glow, with white at the center? Another thing that makes glows look brighter is if the surrounding surface is darker. I've actually darkened surfaces just around a glow, to make the glow stand out a bit more. You've got the glow from the eyes against a pale white face; maybe if the face was darker (at least just before the area of the glow) then the glow would stand out more?