Terminator 03 WIP - Suggestions Please

Here is the Terminator that I started on at the painting session at Sci Fi on Saturday morning.

I would like some critique on the shading... which is more or less all I have done right now.

I used a combination of multi layer dry brushing, washes and wet blending.

Base Coat of Gore Red (Vallejo)
1/1 mixture of Black and Red Citadel washes over the whole thing
Liberal dry brush of Gore red
1/1 mix of Gore Red and Blood Red (Vallejo) dry brushed
added a bit of fire orange (Vallejo) to the pot and dry brushed again
Added a little more fire orange and dry brushed again
Red Wash (Citadel) over the whole thing.
Thinned out some straight fire orange quite a bit with some water, then wet blended it onto specific areas to bring them out even more.

Let me know what you think. I have two more Black Reach terminators to play with as I develop my color scheme and technique, before moving on to the Space Hulk mini's.

Right now I'm looking specifically for critique on the shading, but any ideas for other parts of the mini let me know.

Thanks

Dry brushing 3 different times with pretty much the same color seems a little excessive. I would dry brush with a lighter red than the base color, then a very light dry brush with maybe yellow on the edges. I'm not sure what you exactly trying to produce as far as finished product, but from your pics, that is what I would do.

In essense I think you have to many base steps, 8 seems like alot before the detail. All this is IMO.

HAND OF DUME wrote:

Dry brushing 3 different times with pretty much the same color seems a little excessive. I would dry brush with a lighter red than the base color, then a very light dry brush with maybe yellow on the edges. I'm not sure what you exactly trying to produce as far as finished product, but from your pics, that is what I would do.

In essense I think you have to many base steps, 8 seems like alot before the detail. All this is IMO.

Well, the dry brush steps don't really take that long, that was actually the quickest part of the whole thing. The base coating and washing take forever due to dry time, and the wet blending takes forever just cause it does.

But I'll experiment with fewer shades on my drybrushing. Thanks for the suggestion.

Looks good.

I personally think drybrushing up in stages is fine. Drybrushing can be varied to between the layers. (heavier to lighter touch as you move up.)

Very similar colors to these bloodletters which were drybrushed as well for sale on Ebay. (I think I did 10 in 2 hours).

http://jgemrich.smugmug.com/photos/287907317_hWBcr-O.jpg
http://jgemrich.smugmug.com/photos/287907324_ht9b5-O.jpg

If you want to kick it up a notch try your fire orange at some high points only. You can still drybrush but with a very light tough and almost no paint on the brush. Concentrate you strokes on the areas you'd want to be extreme.

There you go. Listen to John.

There are very few modeler/painters that I feel can paint to GW 'eavy metal quality in our area, John Gemrich being one and Ian Villamagna from the KK being the other. These 2 could could paint for GW... any advice should be taken to heart.

HAND OF DUME wrote:

There you go. Listen to John.

There are very few modeler/painters that I feel can paint to GW 'eavy metal quality in our area, John Gemrich being one and Ian Villamagna from the KK being the other. These 2 could could paint for GW... any advice should be taken to heart.

Thanks... but hardly on my part.

For our "area" I'd add Aaron from KK and minidragon.

Don't be so modest... take the compliment and run with it. It is a consensus in the area.

Aaron and Ian are a team, but yes I should have included him. As for the other guy, I don't know him or his work.

Mini Dragon is a local that does a lot of commission work. I forget his real name. But he is very talented.

I appreciate the compliment. I just think most of those guys are head and shoulders above me.

http://www.minidragon.net/gallery.htm

Thanks for the link John. I'll admit, the guy does great work.

HAND OF DUME wrote:

There are very few modeler/painters that I feel can paint to GW 'eavy metal quality in our area...

Don't get me wrong, there are some very talented painters around here, but 'Eavy Metal? That's a bit of a stretch. We have a Golden Demon winner in Cincinnati (from the early 90's, I believe) but even he isn't 'Eavy Metal standard, in my opinion.

John Gemrich is a good painter. There's no mistaking that. But not an 'Eavy Metal caliber. I've never seen anything (that I know of) by this Aaron fellow or Ian Villamagna, so I can't comment on them. However, the Mini Dragon dude? He's hit and miss from what I saw on his website. He has some very pretty minis but some are 180° away from pretty. Some of his NMM is very convincing while some is very poorly executed.

Example:



Sorry. Nowhere near 'Eavy Metal. Maybe back in '89-'90...




Ghazkhull

Ghazkhull wrote:

Don't get me wrong, there are some very talented painters around here, but 'Eavy Metal? That's a bit of a stretch. We have a Golden Demon winner in Cincinnati (from the early 90's, I believe) but even he isn't 'Eavy Metal standard, in my opinion.

That is Jeff Wilhelm who runs www.dragonforge.com

He actually took the vehicle Gold at GD Chicago this summer. I know he has a whole bunch of stuff packed up to head to GD UK over the next 2 weeks. Most of his work is on vehicles. Trust me... Jeff is well above HM caliber in his techniques and execution now a days. He just doesn't paint as much anymore.

http://www.dragonforge.com/Painting%20service/galleries/golden_demons/golden_demon_winners.htm

I tend to agree with Ghazkhull. Heavy metal guys are good... I mean damn good. It is when you see it up close you go...whoa. Now there is a difference between Heavy Metal team doing study jobs and the Heavy metal "master class" stuff as well. But it is really a work of art to see it up close.

I think mini dragon posts picks of stuff he does on commission too. That tends to mean you can paint to different standards depending on the paying customer. Hence the wide variety in quality that you may see in his figures. I'm pretty similar, other then I just don't paint to a hi standard that often anymore. Just not worth it for th gaming table.

I believe that time is a factor.
I've seen flashes of quality work from a few players on board and if life permitted they could channel the talent and churn out top flight models for sure. For example, when you read about players spending hours on just a cloak for one model it makes you wonder what else they have going on in their life.

Marc wrote:

For example, when you read about players spending hours on just a cloak for one model it makes you wonder what else they have going on in their life.

Well yeah, there may be those who have no lives outside of painting, but then there are also those who I have seen that CLAIM they painted something in less than 4 hours, and it looks fantastic.

CaelynTek wrote:

Marc wrote:

For example, when you read about players spending hours on just a cloak for one model it makes you wonder what else they have going on in their life.

Well yeah, there may be those who have no lives outside of painting, but then there are also those who I have seen that CLAIM they painted something in less than 4 hours, and it looks fantastic.

You'd be surprised how fast some folks can paint.

John Gemrich wrote:

You'd be surprised how fast some folks can paint.

Mega Dave from the 40k basement site in Columbus painted an entire 1750 pt chaos army in a weekend. He kept track of his progress on the site. Honestly, they looked pretty good.

Just think about those painting companies who paint an army with fantastic detail in a short amount of time. They can't drag it out or they won't make any money. I have a buddy who had an entire Dark Angels army painted in Sri Lanka. When he told me about it, all I could think about was a "sweatshop" of people painting figures for pennies. But man they look good!

John Gemrich wrote:

That is Jeff Wilhelm...

YES! That's him. He used to work for Ral Partha. I was kicking myself because I couldn't remember his name. He's a nice guy and quite a talented painter. I've known him for some time through Acme. Hate myself for not rememebring his name. Nice to hear he took another gold this year. Good for him.

John Gemrich wrote:

I think mini dragon posts picks of stuff he does on commission too. That tends to mean you can paint to different standards depending on the paying customer. Hence the wide variety in quality that you may see in his figures.

Truth. I hadn't really thought about him being a commission painter. It didn't really factor in to my reply above. That certainly explains the vagaries in the pics in his galleries. Though his NMM is still quite hit or miss. His silver is far better than his gold.


Also, when I hear 'Eavy Metal standard in comparison to us "regular people", I immediately think of the retail box art quality minis and the White Dwarf showcase models. So, I immediately think "not a chance so-and-so is that good". I guess it depends on which 'Eavy Metal paintjobs you're referring to. They have an unrealistic (for the majority of the population) level of painting, but they also have a lot of bang-up quickies like the studio armies for BatReps. It certainly stands to reason that many non-Golden Demon caliber people could paint to that 'Eavy Metal standard. However, that's typically not what people are referring to when they make that comparison.




Ghazkhull

You guys should see Joe's (Minidragon's) Trollblood army.

I agree that his work varies alot. That picture somebody posted on the last page is only meh for him.

His trollbloods are crazy. He plays them up at Sci Fi once in a while with this other guy (whose name I can't remember). Both of their armies are some of the best work I have ever seen.

It's funny because the other guy does Golden Daemon quality work too, and I don't even think he realizes. He's not on the tournament scene. He doesn't seem to fraternize with any of the groups around town. He just pops up with these incredible minis and vanishes like the Legion of the Damned. Who was that masked man?

Update #2

POWER glove.... F-YEAH!

I am so freaking happy with the result of this blending job I'm ecstatic. It is by no means perfect, and I don't expect it to be, but I think I did a great job on it.

In addition to the blending job I did on the glove (Which took many steps and about an hour's time) I also did some highlighting on the rest of the armor, experimented with an alternating color pattern on the power cables (not done yet), basecoated the storm bolter and skulls, and base coated, inked and highlighted the wings and belt buckle.

Both the wings on the chest and the power glove blend job were accomplished thanks solely to John Gemrich's advice on the subjects in previous threads... thanks John.

And here it is:

Oh yeah John, I also attribute my vast improvement to the brushes you recommended. These things are SO much easier to do when you have good brushes... I didn't realize the truth of that until now.

Here is how I did the power glove.

I base coated it with watered down white. (About 2-3 applications) this gave me a fairly smooth finish to work from.

Then I made an orange wash by mixing some Citadel Baal Red wash with some old fashioned Citadel Yellow Ink, then added a little more water to thin it out more.

I used this mixture to wash over the whole power glove, then hit it with a blow dryer to speed up the drying process.

After the wash was dry I took the same thinned out white and re-painted all the flat surfaces with white, leaving only the crevasses and the areas around the bolts dark from the wash.

Then I added some yellow paint to the thinned out white and added a little more water.

I blended this yellow lightly, leaving only a small amount of white at the edge of the finger sections and the back of the hand.

Then I thinned out some straight Sunburst Yellow paint till it was almost like an Ink. Continued the blending process, always starting just a hair further back from the last layer.

Then added some Vallejo Fire Orange and some more water, and did it again.

Then added some Vallejo Blood Red and some more water and did it again till I finally finished.

I would have liked the transition from orange to red at the back to have been more smooth, but I can live with how it turned out.