The Measure of a Painting Day: GW Dark Elf Sorceress

I've been asked a few times how long it takes me to paint something in hours, once I set my mind to it and allow myself no dithering. So I gave myself a challenge on Sunday: how much of a reasonably detailed mini could I get painted in a day?

For my little test I chose the GW Dark Elf Supreme Sorceress, which is a fun piece to paint, what with all the hair, skin, and muscle tone to deal with. I wanted particularly to see how much of Mathieu's lessons on the human form as a structure of spheres would serve me. Turns out I was able to use it a lot to handle the elf's belly and her outstretched arm. 

At the starting line:

At one hour (model cleaned and assembled, ready for priming):

At two hours (primed and basecoat underway):

At three hours (mostly basecoated):

 

At five hours (basecoated, eyes and face, and miscellaneous initial detail work):

 

At eight hours (base is basecoated, blacklining around her gold bits and some detail to her tiara -- this is where I stopped for the day):

I could get faster, I suppose, but I find that I enjoy the sculpts so much that I want to take my time trying to bring them into vivid reality to the best of my ability.

And I just have more fun that way. So there.

Masterclass II with Mathieu Fontaine!

Coming November 12-13 to Games Plus in Mt. Prospect, Illinois. Woot!

Chaos Nurgle Lord finished!

Aaaand of course I forgot to take a picture until after they put him in the case. Oh, well. Here he is courtesy of my iPhone's camera:

On the Painting Table: Nurgle Chaos Lord

Our local GW Hobby Center has started a monthly painting competition called "The Brotherhood of the Brush." It's basically a way to create some friendly low-stakes rivalry and a sense of community among the painters in the area. The way it works is that everyone paints the same mini, and at the end of the month a winner is selected by popular vote. The winner gets to pick the next month's mini.

So to kick things off, the store manager picked the newly released Nurgle Chaos Lord. Here's mine, as WIP:

Slaying Wet Blending with Tim Lison

My local GW shop manager was on vacation this week, and minding the shop in his stead was Tim Lison, multiple Slayer Sword winner. Needless to say, I spent a chunk of time hobbying there this week. Tim was even good enough to bring in some of his Slayer Sword/Demon-winning entries for me to ogle up close, and he shared a lot of his perspective on painting. A highlight (ba-dum-cha!) for me was learning how to wet blend from him, one-on-one; we did so while also doing reverse highlighting. We practiced on a couple Black Reach Terminators, and I felt like I got the basic hang of it. Woot!

On the Painting Table: Zenithal Ultramarines

A few pics of work in progress. Trying a method that Thomas David uses in the Miniature Mentor Speed Painting video, where he paints a subdued palette onto the mini in the appropriate highs and lows, and then glazes the color in over that. The starting point is to airbrush the mini using a zenithal approach. In this case, the light source is pitched forward slightly, so that the shoulder pads, head, and top of the jump pack get the brightest light. These minis have had the airbrushing done and the initial glazing. Next steps are to apply some additional manual shades and highlights to force the light where I want it (the face and tippy-tops of the pads).

The idea is that lighting these guys like this helps create not only a point of focus, but also a sense of forward motion, which the Black Reach space marines really need. These shots aren't the most balanced, but you get the idea.

Already prepping class models...

For Masterclass II, in a fervent hope that we can make it happen. Details TBD.