Hey guys, I finally made it to the new forums and would like to show you some of the stuff I am currently working on. I have a really hard time finishing stuff and deciding on armies to play. So I have a variety of models flying around in different WIP stages. I love to do some converting from time to time as well. Hope you like what you see. I am always happy for some feedback and hints on how to improve my skills! Take care. Mo
Very nice work: you've achieved high contrast -- making the details easy to see -- while also maintaining natural color tones and smooth transitions. Very nice, indeed.
Holy jesus those models are beautiful! Great smooth transitions and dark faded schemes. So, to answer the post I really like what I see. However, feedback or advice is a lot harder when models look these great. I thought about it for a while and I really feel it's extreme nitpicking and not really needed. But if you would like a challenge I would say that: From your paiting-style it's pretty clear that you're going for the dark and gritty realistic style. With your execution it yields a great result. However, if you would like to spice them up you could try and add either 1. Some kind of detail, either in the shape of a logo or text that can act as a focal point and contrast to the smooth transitions. or 2. Osl or some kind of light-effects. I can never remember the guy on the old forum that had the same kind of style as you, but had painted his ariadnans in a kind S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-scheme. Faded and dark, but extreme lighting-effects that draws the attention. Hope you try it out as a challenge, and do tell how it works out for you!
A stunning result! The only thing I can think of that might make a difference is to increase the impression of harder material -- more contrast on a smaller area and a harder reflection edges/points. The rest is without a doubt masterclass.
Thank you guys so much! Those are the kind of comments that help me to stay motivated. Especially for the really usefull hints on improvement, I value those the most because it can be hard to see your own mistakes and problems. I am still learning and trying to get better every time I paint, I love the process. @Brawler Freehands is definitely something I will try in the future, but I am always too afraid to ruin everything, so most of the time I decide not to do it. OSL is something that I have already done some time ago. I will try and find the pictures even though it is a far way to go, because I wasnt really happy with the results. And yes, I know exactly the person you mean. His works (the S.T.A.L.K.E.R-themed Ariadna) was actually what got me into converting van Zant. I really loved his works in the old forums. Unfortunately i havnt seen him around in the new one. I think the name was something like WhisperWhip, could be entirely wrong though. @lefrank well, what can I say. I envied your skills back in the old forums, especially your jade empire works. To hear those words from you leaves me speechless and is a great honor. thank you. Concerning harder material – you are absolutely right. My golds and metals often looks like grey and yelow plastic. Thats something I will try to work on in the future, NMM still gives me a hard time, especially the hard contrasts, but I love the challenge. EDIT: Here are the pictures I talked about
Love the muted tones on these, how do you find they look on the table? That's where I'm always disappointed if I use muted tones. Mine are never this good though so maybe that's my problem! The red (or purple?) on the Aleph is top notch. I can't help with the NMM, I have the same problem that they come out looking like plastic rather than metal! I'm not very good with black/grey as it is and struggle to differentiate between NMM metal sections and grey.
@lefrank lets hope so, i will give it my best :) @Billy thanks a lot! I have to agree with you, muted palettes usually dont work that well on the tabletop. Its just a matter of distance and brightness I guess. For me, I mostly paint for the display and most of all for the pure joy. I love to play, but when I compare the time spent in painting to time playing, its problably 100:1. At a certain point in my life it just got frustratingly difficult to find the time to meet with my friends. Painting on the others hand is something I can do much much easier. Plus, I simply love the details on the models of CB. At times, It takes me for ever to just hold a miniature and look at it from every angle. So the close up is usually my view, not the one from afar. Additionally in my meta, its a really rare occasion where you have a very nice table, plus painted only troops, plus everything in a more or less correlating style. Concerning the NMM: I guess what helped me a little is to stop focusing on the blending when trying to achieve nmm. What i realized is: in the beginning my major focus was to achieve proper blending, but that takes space. I dont know how to better explain it in english. It gets harder (and I think less important) the smaller the area is, where the blending has to happen. And with nmm, so with hard contrasts, the change from dark to bright hast to happen in very small area. @Mob of Blondes awesome, thanks so much! Thats exactly the thread i was talking about! And it is just now that I realize his name is only Whisper and rest was meant to be WIP xD xD
If you don't already know it, have a look at these tutorials. The artist Ben Komets is one of the world's best, and here he uses really simpe techniques for the NMM Gold (and I don't mean the Loaded Brush -- that's black magic)
@lefrank thx a lot, i havnt watched this one yet, looking forward to it! I Just ordered the crane agent that comes with the v2 masterclass book from giraldez. I will try it on him!
Great job. A bit disappointing at first sight as it looks like a ghost until I notice you only worked the hands
Thanks guys! Here is something new: my take on fixing the dakinis. I converted them quite some time ago. with the new vedic starter around the corner I thought I better hurry putting some paint on them. Here is the first one. The conversion is rather easy but I like them better than the original ones.
Saw your stuff on facebook and camere here aswell to follow! Keep it up man real good painting skills and I love your color choices.
Thanks for all the nice comments! I appreciate it! Here is some more WIP stuff. A little Aleph, with vedic coming out soon I am hyped :) Plus I Found some "old" images I would like to share too, Cheers Aleph WIP Skectching the color scheme for my ariadna # WIP stages of my van Zant