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I painted this guy up for the Chicago Golden Demon, hoping to make the first cut this year.  He did!  So now my goal is to show up next year and get an honorable mention and maybe a website picture.  This model will be part of a shaper council of 5 shapers and 10 hounds, and I plan on entering them under the 40K Unit Category.  The feedback I am looking for is, specifically:

Metals:  I am hopeless on metals.  The Vallejo metals are awful.  With this model, I painted all the metals (except the dagger) grey or yellow with highlights, then drybrushed silver or gold, respectively.  I need a consistent way to make good metals, if the Reaper line of metallics go on smoothly, please let me know!

Woodstock:  The pistol handles are all done in the same method, with 3 lighter highlights in fine lines over a dark flesh basecoat.  I am not aware of any better way to do woodstock, or whether it would look good to paint on the 'spirals' that a lot of wooden furniture have on them.

Natural Earth Tone / 'Eavy Metal Paintstyle Clash:  Most of the criticism on this guy was on how cartoony the pistols and eviscerator looked compared to the natural skintones of the Kroot itself.  Most models I see either take an all-natural look or an all-cartoony look, and I was wondering whether it is possible to mix the two to a good effect, as this model definitely mixes the two.

Cloak Sculpting:  Are there any tutorials out there about cloak sculpting?  I've been teaching myself over many different models, but am far from happy with the results.

Painting Feathers:  Again, any known way to do these?  I took a look at the Wood Elf line on the GW website, but I can't seem to get a good effect that I am happy with other than highlighting the feathers in thin lines.

If you can help with any of these concerns I would greatly appreciate it.

- Oaka

You first need to work the base,make it more interesting that simple grass.
The metal looks fine to me,i dont think there is anything wrong with them.You could always try normal,highlighted metal paints.
The wood,leave it like it is.that is with the wood grain.For more interest,try doing some freehand kroot cammo on the cloak,something you could use to tie up the whole crew

I think it's great, far better then anything I could do. As for golden daemon though, all it needs is a little more work. Basically everything Clayman said is right. I think the base is the main thing that should be made cooler.

Well everything your said I'm much worse at so I have to pass. I will say the pose seems very awkward, the guns should be out more or recoiling. Of course with kroot bitz so limited it's hard to pull off.

I agree with Kid_Kyoto. I got to admit i like the yellow skull got some smile like appaerence .

I really like this mini and all your kroot models. Congrats on making the final cut.

Metals: I am hopeless on metals. The Vallejo metals are awful. With this model, I painted all the metals (except the dagger) grey or yellow with highlights, then drybrushed silver or gold, respectively. I need a consistent way to make good metals, if the Reaper line of metallics go on smoothly, please let me know!

I'm no expert mind you but I always use washes and am always pleased with the results (this is for table top quality mind you). Washes work much better then dry brushing IMHO as they produce very rich and realistic metals.

Additionally, there's a method that I've been meaning to try that I thought I'd link to.

http://www.brushthralls.com/Trollblood10Day/p3.php

Its a Trollblood in 10 days tutorial but it contains a really involved way of doing metallics with lots of washes. The results seem very impressive.

Hope that helps!

DRAW!

Yeah, give washes a try for the metalwork. For detailed stuff like weapons it always looks good.