Montag, 9. April 2012

Robin Hood on cmon

Some months ago, Raffa (Picster) took pics of some of my finished projects for me. For some reason, I forgot to put a few of them online. If you like, you can click here and rate or even leave a comment on my version of Latorres Robin Hood. Thanks a lot in advance.


Chris

Samstag, 7. April 2012

Nork Deddog, update #9

"One, two, three, four."
                                                                                    Nork Deddog
(Highest mental effort ever performed by Homo Sapiens Gigantus)




Painting is fun at the moment, blendings work for me and Nork developes into a reasonable direction. You can see the result of two days of painting below. I think I will add some more shadows to that brown belt-thingy and do some blacklining.












Chris

Donnerstag, 5. April 2012

Live painting, update 8 (finished armour)

Here is the last update of the current live painting. I have finished the armour by painting scratches onto it. Note that the flash makes the colours look more vibrant than they are irl. I am quite happy with the outcome, it is kind of an eyecatcher near the face, just in the right position.

I will stop the live painting at this stage, because up next are large parts of skin, something you  have already seen yesterday. Nevertheless, I will post regular updates during the next couple of days. Maybe I will build the base before the mini is finished, it will be a wild jungle with some hidden nids.




Thanks a lot for following all the time, I am very happy about the positive feedback.


Chris

Live painting, update 7 (armour)

"Da Sergeant Major asked me what my job was an' I said it was to, uh, do what I was told. He said I was a genius and gave me another medal. I likes da Imperial Guard!"
                                                                                                         Nork Deddog


As I said yesterday, todays progress will be much faster. I started about 90 minutes ago and have already finished the general lights of the armour. Up next is the detail work, scratches etc.

A huge mistake one can make on an area like the plate on his shoulder considers the length of blendings. We tend to paint them equally all the time, that means same lights, same shadows and same lenght of blending. That creates a very artificial look, as this seldom appears in nature. Therefore I used a trick to force myself not to do this mistake. You can see what I did in the picture, the main thing is not to paint all areas at once and to use different tones of the same colour. For more contrast, I painted a warm-cold contrast with those green colours, adding fleshtones for the warmer areas and blue for the cold areas.

Each area still looks a bit strange and isolated but that will change with the next step.

Pics of this mornings work:














Chris

Mittwoch, 4. April 2012

Live painting, update 6 (almost finished face)

This is the last update for today, but don't forget to come back tomorrow, when I go on painting from 08:00 in the morning to about 12:00 o'clock.

I had dinner with my wife, so I got a little bit of distance between me and my brush-victim. I am still not overly satisfied with the result, but I will go on with the next part of the miniature. I might rework some parts this evening, but there won't be any updates today.

Tomorrow, I will paint the armour on his shoulder. That should be something worth watching and progress will be much faster. Hope to see you!!!

Here are pics of the current state:





Thanks for following my painting process today, I hopy you liked it!!!



Chris

Live painting, update 5 (more details)

Sometimes it helps to lay away a miniature for some time and just think about how you can improve your work. After lunch I started to add more details, scars, black eye and different, stronger shadows. The pictures are still crap but thats the best I can get at the moment.







Looking at the pictures, I just noticed that the black eye hardly can be seen. These pics really are a shame, I am so sorry.I have to think of something better next time. A few more single lights and the face is finished.


Chris

Live painting, update 4 (detail work on the face)

It looks like I won't be able to paint any other parts than the face today. I have painted different shades onto the face to make it look more interesting. For some reason, I am not yet satisfied with the result. This might still be a wip but I don't really like the direction this moves towards. On the other hand, I can't really tell what the problem is. I have the feeling that the forehead is lacking some details. Maybe some scars solve this problem.

The hair is just a basecoat, nothing really happened here. I just painted it to get a better feeling for the contrast I want to achieve. I am not sure about a beard, we will see.



The cam takes away a lot of contrast, the paper in the background is meant to be white. :)




I will have a break for at least 30 minutes now, please don't expect the next update during the next hour or so.

Any ideas what I have to change?


Chris

Live painting, update 3 (exaggerating the face)

The next steps might seem quite drastic but this is the fastest way to get a decent result. I have painted the face way to light with extreme highlights and pretty bad blendings. No need to worry though, as now begins the fun part.

Here are some wips, the last picture shows the current state:







Chris

Live painting, update 2 (starting the face)

Painting shadows is very easy and you see progress quickly. Therefore, you should never start by painting the shadows, before you have painted the lights. The reason for that is very simple, the overall look of the painted area will be too dark. I always start with the middle tone and work towards the lightest colour. After that, I use different tones for the shadows. This way, the light areas will dominate and make the painted area look more interesting to the viewer.

I tried a new mix of colours for the face, what is risky when you want to show something. The colours I used for the base tone are Bronzed Flesh, Flat Tan (Vallejo Air Colour), dark flesh and US Grey Light (Vallejo Air Colour). This mix is totally different to the tones I usually use. I want to reduce the red tones in the flesh because I aim for some kind of pale flesh. Not ill looking, but definitely not healthy as well.



After a few layers with the base colour, I had this result:




A few mixtures later (I added Bronzed Flesh and Elf Flesh to the mix):



More Elf Flesh has been added:




Current state:




All I have done so far, is giving the face a very general direction. Painting up to now has been a pain in the ass, because you can hardly see any progress, yet this stage is very important for the final result. You don't have to care that much about blendings up to here because most of it wont be visible in the end. From this point on, I begin to work out the strong, characteristic lines and areas of the face, still only with lights.

Feel free to let me know what you think so far. If you have any questions, please post a comment.



Chris

Live painting, update 1 (background concerning the mini)

Let us start this day with a little bit of background information about Nork Deddog, the character I would like to paint. The Text below is taken from an old White Dwarf, copyright by Games Workshop.




The huge figure shambled toward the thin and tangled body of Colonel Greiss. Luckily, the ancient colonel had been thrown free of the carrier as it veered out of control. Now the Chimera perched up-ended in a drainage ditch, steam and smoke pouring from its crew compartment. The force of the explosion had pitched Greiss into a ditch on the other side of the track. As the massive Ogryn towered over the tiny body, he sensed that his master was badly hurt. He looked for a moment at the oddly twisted limbs and blood-soaked uniform and poked the old man a couple of times to make sure he wasn't fooling. Greiss moaned faintly.
Nork felt a tide of misery well up inside his huge and faithful heart. Greiss was his friend. Greiss had been good to Nork and let him fight by his side. The Ogryn fumbled with his water
bottle, breaking off the cap with clumsy hands as he gently proffered the bottle to the man's lips. Greiss murmured as the cool water splashed over his face. "Nork," he whispered. "Stop trying to drown me and fetch the medi-pack."
" Yus, sarr!" shouted Nork, saluting instinctively with his left hand, then his right hand, then
both hands together. Nork shuffled to his feet and loped back toward the carrier. He picked his way past the crumpled bodies of the crew and the HQ squad and noticed with only passing curiosity the pain in his own legs where numerous shrapnel hits had penetrated his thick hide. Without a second thought, he grabbed hold of the Chimera behind its rear track guards and heaved. The weighty vehicle shifted slightly. He heaved again. There was a creak of tortured metal as the carrier pivoted against the soft edge of the ditch and came to rest on its broad tracks.
Colonel Greiss tried to flex his hands. Nothing. He tried to raise his head but as he did so
his vision swirled and he lost consciousness. He came round moments later, or minutes,
or was it hours, it was hard to tell. His ears were booming from the noise of the explosion.
All he could hear was a sound like something large and heavy being slowly dragged over
an unyielding surface. His sight seemed to be growing dim and shadowy. Then he realized
Nork was standing over him and beside Nork was the wreckage of the Chimera. The
Ogryn had dragged the armored carrier out of the ditch and 20 yards down the road.
" I said fetch the medi-kit, not the carrier, Nork," whispered Greiss. He was regaining the
feeling in his arms and legs and didn't like it much.
" Da medi-kit is in da carrier, sarr," beamed the Ogryn.
" Good thinking Nork," grunted the colonel through clenched teeth and mounting pain.
"Now bring the medi-kit over here."
" Yus, sarr!" came the loud and snappy response as Nork plunged into the Chimera,
remembered he had forgotten to salute, came back, saluted twice for good measure, and
busied himself searching for the vehicle's medical supply chest.
Nork is a legend in his own time, an Ogryn whose fighting abilities were as astonishing as
his mental development. By Ogryn standards, he was a genius and said to have been able
to write his own name, count, and even speak with reasonable fluency. Such precocious
development in one of his race inevitably came to the attention of the Commissars, and
Nork soon found himself pulled out of the main line and placed on special duties.
After extensive training, involving artificial mental enhancement, Nork was assigned to the
2nd Catachan fighting on Balur. The regiment's commander, Colonel Greiss, adopted Nork
as his personal bodyguard, and the Ogryn accompanied Greiss through the 4 years that
the war lasted. During this time the sight of Greiss and Nork became a familiar one: the
ancient bone thin colonel bawling out his orders while shells burst around him and
ricocheted off Nork's dense skull. The Ogryn saved the colonel's life on more than one
occasion, most famously when he carried the badly wounded commander back from the
disaster at Breakback Hill.


As you can see, this character isn't treated to serious by GW, it is going back to the days when the staff was allowed to actually have fun during the process of character- and background creation. Nowadays, you hardly see this.

Here you can see the original version of Nork released by GW:




And here is my interpretation once again, a lot of details are missing because I will paint them separately and add them later.

I will now get my painting place prepared to start and begin with the face. This will easily take 3 to 4 hours to finish but I will post wip shots in between.


Chris

Dienstag, 3. April 2012

Live painting update aka Nork Deddog


(WIP - Nork Deddog)

I can't sculpt, as I don't seem to understand proportions. Therefore, I sometimes convert miniatures and try to give them an unique expression. This time, I chose a random Ogryn from GW and converted it in two days. Stupid as I am, I fogot to take a picture before I primed the mini. However, this guy will be the victim during the live painting tomorrow (click for more information). This will also be the first painting session in the new flat.

Converting an Ogryn to an unique character is my dream ever since I have seen Banshees Ogryn versions. He managed to make them look "lovely" in a way only an Ogryn can look. Not just a stupid, brawny source of death, but a living creature.

I chose the character "Nork Deddog", by far the most famous Ogryn in the 40k universe. I will give some more background information and post his hilarious statements tomorrow during the live painting. For me, this is one of the funniest persons in the rather dark world of Warhammer 40k. Let's hope my painted version will do justice to this "highly intelligent" version of an Ogryn. To see what I changed, go here.

This will also be my 40k Moster entry for this years Golden Demon in Cologne. Depending on how fast I manage to paint the figure, I will also show the process of building the jungle base.

See you tomorrow in the morning!!!



Chris