Showing posts with label orc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label orc. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Gurkhan Part 5 and NOVA Open Recap

 My painting time has been a bit limited over the summer, but I did manage to finish updated my pirate orc vignette in time for NOVA's Capital Palette competition. Here's a look at the finished piece. The main orc is pretty much the same, I added some color to the knuckles and feet plus some stains on the pants, but that's about it. The rest, however, went through more extensive revisions. I repainted the face on the goblin and the highlights on the hat to give it some more pop. The base was pretty rushed so I at least had something to enter at KublaCon. I decided to add a little more to the scene, placing a case of run in the front and a knocked over bottle behind the orc. I went over the wood with a variety of glazes to give it a stained look with a lot more nuance and visual interest. Then I added some blood stains/streaks and a bit of bird poop on the back. I didn't want to go overboard, but I spoke with Krzysztof Kobalczyk at NOVA and apparently he wished I had put even more bird poop on the base.

Looking at the piece some more, I feel like I could have also added some weathering to the goblin. Perhaps some splotches and stains on his coat for example. I don't have plans to take it to any more shows, but if that changes maybe I'll go in and add a bit more detail to it.







I brought this piece with me to the NOVA Open and used Gurkan, the main orc figure, to teach a class on painting large-scale display figures. It was a 6 hour workshop, so we have time to tackle a couple different topics including painting skin, leather textures, and cloth (including stripes). I had a blast teaching the class and was really happy with all of the students progress. I also loved seeing one of the students, Karen M., finish her figure afterward and enter it into the Capital Palette painting competition. She did a fantastic job and ended up with a silver in the apprentice division!





I entered my piece into the Masterclass division and ended up winning Best in Category with it for diorama. Overall it was a great show. I had fun teaching and taking some classes too. There was a fantastic group of instructors covering a ton of subjects. This was my first time traveling to a show since before covid, so I had a great time catching up with old friends, finally meeting a bunch of online friends in person, and getting to know some new friends as well.

The painting competition had a lot of really impressive entries. There was a lot of impressive work from around the US as well as some international entries. The show is judged on the open system, so there are multiple gold, silver, and bronze medals awarded in each category. However, the standard for medals was the toughest I've seen in the US so far. For example, the piece I'd won Best of Show with at KublaCon ended up with a silver at NOVA. And looking at the other entries, there were clearly pieces that were a level above it and I completely agree with the judges decisions. I ended up with two silvers and two golds. The golds were for my most recent pieces (these pirates and the Neko Galaxy figure I finished), so it's nice to see that growth over this past year. And it's nice to see the additional work I did to improve the pirates was worth the effort.

I would definitely recommend NOVA's Capital Palette to anyone interested in competing. You'll see some amazing figures in person, which I've found to be a huge help in my own painting journey. Just be aware this is going to be a tough competition and force you to push yourself. The show also has three divisions: apprentice, journeyman, and masterclass. So even if you're not an experience competition painter, you can still find a place to enter your work and be judged at the appropriate level. Whichever level you're in, the judging is still tough, but that also means if you do win something you should feel proud of the accomplishment. I'm excited to go back next year and know I've got to come up with something even better if I want to do well.


Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Class Figure (Gurkhan) Part 4

 I got back from KublaCon the other day and had a blast at the show. I had a workshop on painting large scale figures using Gurkhan which I think went really well. It's such a fun figure that can be used to discuss a lot of topics (lighting, skin, leather, cloth, metals, etc). I'll be teaching with it again at NOVA Open in DC this Aug/Sept. That class will be a bit longer (6 hours instead of 4), so we'll be able to go even more in-depth in some areas.


I also entered this piece into the KublaBrush awards and got the Big Child manufacturers award for the best Big Child piece at the show. There were quite a few Big Child pieces entered and I thought David Diamondstone's painting on their Idril bust was particularly nice. So I felt very fortunate to end up with the win. I also took my Vesha bust which ended up winning Best of Show.


Getting back to Gurkhan, I wanted to share the version I brought to the show. I could say finished version, but since I was trying to get all my class figures prepped, I ended up being pretty rushed to finish the base. Since I plan to bring the piece along with me to NOVA too, I'd like to send a little more time refining the work on the base and maybe adding a bit more detail in spots. But I think these images still give you a pretty good idea how the finished piece will look.



One of the topics I discussed in the class (and plan to spend time on at NOVA too) is creating focal points on your pieces. There's a lot of detail on the sculpt, a lot going on, so how do you help the viewer focus? One way is by using brightness. If we strip away the colors and just look at the light, you can see there are some brighter spots in the piece that draw your eye and create some focal points in the scene. I tried to also use color to reinforce this, so you've got multiple things helping direct the viewer around the scene.



I might take a little break and try to finish up my Neko Galaxy project (Nancy) from a few months back. But I don't want to leave this sitting too long, as I'd like to get the quality of the base in line with the quality of the figures before NOVA.

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Class Figure (Gurkhan) Part 3

Work has kept me pretty busy this past month, so I haven't made quite as much progress on my painting projects as I'd like. So, with about a week and a half left until KublaCon, I'm working hard to get my pieces finished. The Gurkhan figure itself has been pretty much finished for a few weeks, but I wanted to create a little more of a scene around him. I thought I'd pair him with another figure from Big Child Creatives that I've had hanging around my collection since their first kickstarter. I liked their size difference and felt the poses worked well together. I picked a similar color scheme for the new figure, though leaning more heavily on the purple than the orange to help balance out the colors overall. I also went for a slightly different skin tone, introducing some Command Green and Grey Green into the shadows and midtone respectively. Just as skin tone can differ from person to person, I wanted to introduce a little variation between these two.

The base is certainly still a work in progress with just a simple first coat applied to get a sense for the colors. The scene is 3D printed. I mainly used the ship model from Loot Studios and clipped it down to a small section that would fit the 70 mm by 70 mm base. Then I added a few elements to go alongside the chest, representing some supplies they picked up (stole perhaps) and have now brought on board. Some of these are also from Loot and some are from Keta Minies.

I have some other work to do in order to prep for all my classes at the show, so I'm getting low on time. But I'm sure I'll find a way to get the base painted along with all the other stuff I have on my list.





Just for fun, here's a little comparison of the two figures from when the 2nd guy was mostly a base coat (plus some early shadow work on the face) and where they are now. I remember in my early stages as a painter I struggled with online images trying to understand what was just the lighting of the photos and what was actually painted. So I find these side by sides helpful as you can see the piece under the same lighting conditions (as you can see from the other figure) before and after the painting of highlights and shadows.



Monday, April 17, 2023

Class Figure (Gurkhan) Part 2

 I'm trying to make quick progress on this class figure that I'll be using at KublaCon and NOVA Open. I'd like to have the painting on the figure itself done by the end of the month, so I have plenty of time to work on a base for him before KublaCon.


I've done a lot of the leather work recently, focusing on texture as well as light. While I intend to keep the class schedule flexible, so we can touch on the topics based on the interests of the students, I except leather and textures will be something we'll discuss. I spent some time on the chest yesterday and still need to finish the metal portions on the sides and back. After that I want to tackle the basket on his back. Then I'll finally feel comfortable attaching his other hand and not feeling concerned I'll accidentally knock it off while painting the other sections of the figure.






Monday, April 3, 2023

Class Figure (Gurkhan) Part 1

 I'm going to be teaching classes a KublaCon and NOVA Open this year. I'm covering topics on painting faces and skin, introduction to freehand work, and a longer class on painting 75mm display figures. For that final class I picked Gurkhan, an orc from Big Child Creatives, as the subject. I love the Big Child Creatives figures in general, so I'm excited to use one for a class. That all have so much character and are a lot of fun to work on. I picked this one in particular since it gives us the flexibility to cover a number of topics such as skin, cloth, leather, weathered metals, etc depending on the interests of the class and how much time we have. It's also a figure I haven't seen many versions of online, so we can explore something somewhat new.

While I'll obviously be painting one live at the class, I also wanted to paint a version beforehand. I think it's nice to have a finished one there for reference and what can be done when you have longer than a single class to work on him. And I can also work out some of the kinks before teaching the class. It's rare that I'm every happy with all parts of a figure on the first attempt. There's often areas that I will paint and, when I step back to evaluate, realize aren't working quite like I hoped. So I'll go back in and make adjustments. Better to learn those lessons at home so I can make the most of the time I have in the actual class!

Here's a quick look at the class figure about halfway done. I'm having a lot of fun painting him and am very excited for the classes!




You can find and sign up for my classes at the links below. The NOVA classes are about half full and the KublaCon ones just went live, so spaces are still available at each.

https://tabletop.events/conventions/nova-open-2023/schedule#?query=powell

https://tabletop.events/conventions/kublacon-211/schedule#?query=powell

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Sharki - Part 2

I've made some relatively quick progress on Sharki. I'm trying to keep a consistent lighting approach with the figure, so everything has blue in the shadows and yellow in the highlights, including the TMM with those same matte colors mixed into the TMM paints. I'm also working on cast shadows with this piece, so you can see those on the left leg (hook arm shadow) and then in numerous places in the front view image.



I'm planning to take a short break from this project so I can finish up my bust of Vesha from Bold Miniatures. But I hope to get back to Sharki right after that.

Monday, June 27, 2022

Sharki - Part 1

After working on a couple human-like figures (Frank von Stein, Vesha, and a historical I haven't posted yet), I felt like changing things up a bit and painting an orc. I have a couple unstarted kits from the original Big Child Creatives orc kickstarter. Those sculpts are all so full of character and fun to paint, they seemed like an ideal choice. After poking through my stash I settled on Sharki.

I'm practicing atmospheric lighting and cast shadows on this piece. I began by taking reference photos for the shadows which I highly recommend. I'll be working blue into all of the shaded regions for the ambient light and yellow into the primary light. Fun fact: no bottled green was used on the skin, just yellows and blues. The only colors used for the green were AK's Strong Dark Blue, WWI French Uniform Base, and Lemon Yellow.





Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Onitsukaji Part 3 - Completed

I recently returned to this project from 2019. I was really happy with the start on this orc but got bogged down in painting the sash around his waist. Seems like a silly thing to get stuck on, especially since you can barely see it in most of the views below. But I found trying to paint the sculpted on texture to be a pain and it took away a lot of the joy from painting the piece.


But, I was looking for a project to use in a Secret Santa mini exchange and decided this would be a great subject. Plus I could use the extra motivation to get me through my painters block on this figure and actually finish him! 


After painting the figure, I took advantage of a 3D printer I'd picked up a little over a year ago to print out a few props for the base. While I've used it for a number of figures, I also really value the ability to resize and print scenery objects to fit whatever scale figure I'm working on. It's given me a lot more freedom to come up with more details for the scenes I'm creating.




Friday, October 25, 2019

Female Orc Part 3


Taking a break from all that blue, I decided to work on a few other parts of this figure. The non-metal covering on her looks to be of two types. Ones smoother and one has jagged edges (and stitches between sections), so I opted for two colors/materials. The jagged section is painted to look a bit more like raw hide while the smoother sections are treated as regular leather. I also started to work a bit on the hair, though there is still more to do. I wanted the hair to be mostly black, with a shock of white. Black hair can be tricky. Once you start to highlight it, the hair can quickly start to look like grey hair instead of black. I've dealt with this on a few pieces (the fallen angel and the dragoon) by painting a shine/reflection onto the hair. I feel like it successfully implies glossy black hair, so that's the approach I've used here as well.

There are a couple tricks with this approach. First, think about how the light would reflect off the hair. Don't simply place the shine at the topmost part (like you would with regular zenithal shading). Imagine the location of your light source and what angle the shine might appear if you viewed the figure from the front (the light reflection depends on both the position of the light source and the viewer). The other trick is making a quick transition from white (or near white) to black. You can see a full discussion of how I do that in this tutorial. In short, I begin with a sketch using 4 or so colors. I want to rough in the reflection which then allows me to see how it looks (is the placement right, how's the size, etc). I then do my traditional layering but this time working from light to dark. Start at the brightest spot and then blend outward to black. I like to maintain a gradient of color on my palette as it's easy to goof up the blend. When that happens, I can go back and grab an intermediate shade(s) and redo the transition. Eventually I get to a place I'm happy with, like below. At the moment I'm trying to decide if the reflection extends too far up and down. Perhaps it should be narrower? I might go back with some glazes and try to reduce the size a bit if I decide that is needed.



And here's another close up showing the latest work. You can click on the image to see the full resolution version in case you want an even closer look!


Monday, October 21, 2019

Female Orc Part 2 and Thoughts on Light

I've made some more progress with the skin and based a lot of her clothing. Here's a quick look at my latest progress.




One of the areas I wanted to work on with this figure was my use of ambient light. The general idea is how does light bouncing off the environment show up on the figure? In some sense, we all include this without thinking about it. Basic zenithal lighting (or the stop sign rule for the historical painters) has you transition from lightest at the top (or surfaces facing the light source) to darkest at the bottom (or surfaces away from the light source). If we actually excluded all of the ambient light and only had the single direct light source, every surface pointed away from the light source would be completely black. Instead we gradually transition to our darkest shade and even surfaces angled away from the primary light have some light hitting them (bounce light from the environment).

What I want to work on is using that light to convey more information about the environment and by that I mean color! Assume the surrounding environment is primarily one color (yellow for a desert, green for a field or forest, etc). That color light would be reflected back at the figure and tint the shaded regions. For this piece, I plan to have her over a primarily red base, so that will be my ambient color.

One important question to ask is how does ambient light differ from OSL? Strictly speaking, ambient light is a form of OSL in my opinion. Light is bouncing off the environment and hitting the figure. Thus the environment is my light source. However, unlike OSL from a lantern, the source is not concentrated but distributed over the entire ground. So it should be treated more like a directional light (up from below) rather than a point light source. We likely also want to approach the fall off and intensity a bit differently from typical OSL. With traditional OSL, we want that light to be dramatic! So you probably have a strong intensity near the source and then all that to quickly fall off with distance. For ambient light, the source is probably far more subtle (it's just reflected light, the ground is not generating its own light). And thus the fall off should be more gradual (or subtle) too. Now, let's say the primary light source is very strong and the environment is reflective/shiny. In that case, quite a bit of light might be reflected and thus you would have a stronger intensity to the ambient light. That is of course a special case, but I wanted to point it out as you should consider what you're painting and how it might affect the 'rules' rather than just blindly following them.

Below is a close up of the back of the orc (where you will see most of the ambient light at the moment). I'd say it's somewhat exaggerated, but I didn't want to go too subtle and not be able to tell it was there. Besides, the skin could be a bit reflective (satin finish) and thus pick up a bit more light. Still, I think the light is not too strong. You can compare that to the more intense OSL I used on the orc bust. Also a light from below, but meant to imply a source generating light rather than just a reflected light.






Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Female Orc Part 1

I decided to take another try at an old project. I got this 75mm scale female orc from GT Studio Creations. It's a bit of a different take on the subject and I liked the sculpt. It's also (hopefully) a straightforward project as there's just a few materials to work with (skin, leather, and metal). I actually first started painting her about a year and a half ago, but I got stuck. I had a basic vision for the piece but had trouble figure out exactly how I wanted to do the blue skin. I started on her and then changed my mind, painting over my previous work. I did this a couple times and the piece, especially the face, started to get over worked. It was turning into a mess so I abandoned the project.

Lately I've been looking for something fun to paint. There are a couple areas I want to work on, so I wanted a figure that would let me explore those topics. But I also wanted something that wasn't too complicated. I didn't want a project where I felt I'd likely get bogged down halfway through. After a bunch of indecisiveness, I decided to give this orc another shot. Since it was already in danger of having too much paint built up on it, I decided to just strip my old work and start fresh.

I'm sticking with my earlier vision, just not second guessing myself with the color mixes. For the skin I'm using a 3:2 mix of Void Blue and Violet Red. From there I transition to a 2:1 mix of Void Blue and Snow Shadow. From there I transition up to pure Snow Shadow and then some Vampiric Highlight for the brightest spots.

I want to play around with light on this figure. My main interest is playing with ambient or bounce lighting. This was something covered by Roman Lappat in a class I took with him at NOVA Open and I want to get in some practice. For this piece I plan to have a base that's mostly red. So that's why I'm adding Violet Red into the shadows. As I move down the figure and closer to the base, I plan to have the reflected red become more apparent. Of less importance, I wanted to work with a brighter main light as well. Recently I've fallen to using some rather dull off whites for my main highlights. I feel like it's creating the sensation of an overcast day. For this piece I switched to Vampiric Highlight (a nearly white highlight) just to switch things up a bit.


And here's a close up of the face. You can click on the image for the full resolution version. I like sharing these close ups from time to time as I think they're helpful in seeing what's actually going on with the brush strokes and blending.

Monday, August 26, 2019

Onitsukaji Part 2

I've done a bit more work on the new orc. I moved on to the forearms, painting the bit of skin poking through the wrappings and one of his hands. I also painted the wrappings. I'm still making some adjustments there, but it's nice to start painting something other than skin! I've blocked in some colors on the lower body... but I'm still debating what I want to do there, so I may switch that up a bit.



I've posted about photography before, but it's been a while so I thought I'd share a peak at my photo setup. It's rather simple and I find that to be helpful. I can quickly turn my painting station into my photography area and then back again to painting with a minimum of hassle. My lights are adjusted to be hitting the model from the front and on either side. I want to minimize any shadows cast by the lights so I can more clearly show what's been painted


Aside from the painting, I've been rethinking the base and composition. I went into this piece with a number of ideas for the scene and the intention to more fully flush them out as I went. As I continued to brainstorm and play around with different ideas, I kept feeling like I wasn't happy with the composition I'd put together. Plus I was developing a favorite angle from which to view the orc and would prefer to have that facing the front of the base. I decided to swap sides and move the goblin to the orc's left. I like this much more. It feels better balanced to me and creates a nice tightly packed scene I can work with. I think I've settled on a scene for them too... though I need to make sure I can actually create the details I need, so we'll see how it goes!


Monday, August 19, 2019

Onitsukaji Part 1

I gave you a preview of this project in my previous post. I needed a fun piece to help me recharge and so far this has fit the bill well. I'm planning to make this part of a 2 figure scene, but I had to start somewhere so I chose to begin with the larger of the two.

I spent a bit of time thinking about what sort of color scheme I wanted for the piece. Part of the fun of fantasy is the freedom to work with a variety of colors. While orcs are most commonly depicted as green, there's plenty of fantasy work (for example Paul Bonner's art) where they come in a variety of colors. I've already done some variations on green with orcs and just did a blue one for the Hera Models bust. So I opted for something of a red-violet shade for the big orc. My intention is to go with a triadic color scheme, so that makes blue-green and orange-yellow as my other main colors. I can certainly work both of those into details on this figure's body. For the goblin, I might switch back to green for the skin, but use more of a blue-green shade like I did with the Orc Brave from Ouroboros.

This guy has a lot of exposed skin. Since it's such a large area, I prefer to break it into smaller sections and work on one of those at a time. This helps me keep track of things like where I put my last layer, which regions I've started to reduce the area of application to form the top highlights, etc. If you're part of the Kimera Kolors Painting Club on Facebook, you can find a bit of a longer discussion on why I choose to paint this way and some tips on how I make it work there. Just search the 'Tutorial' topic. Anyway, below you can see how he came together one section at a time.
I still have the back to finish, along with the forearms and hands. But I'd at least like to base coat those straps around his arms before I work on those sections of skin. The mix I'm using for the skin is a variation I've used on red for a couple of figures and one I happen to like. For the base coat, I used a 60/40 mix of Violet Red and Dark Elf Skin. Burgundy Wine for the shadows and then a mix of 50/25/25 Fire Red, Dark Elf Highlight, and Vampiric Shadow for the highlights. I mix some Linen White into that for the top highlights. I think the combination of the red with a cool grey creates a nice desaturated red-violet.