Mistweaver Saih

Mistweaver Saih



05/11/19

I decided to try something different with this mini. Wise or not, I decided to paint on a zenithal highlight, instead of spraying one on. Three reasons for this, 1) the air brush annoys the hell out of me in how quickly it gets clogged up, 2) I wanted to save my lungs and not use a rattle can, and 3) I just wanted to see how it would turn out. 

I think I have been somewhat bolstered by my success with Lady Olynder, having won all the categories in the Masters section at my local Warhammer shop with her. That and that one painting seems to have shifted my perspective slightly when it comes to painting. 

I have sprayed zenithal on miniatures before, but I always put the paint on too thick so it obscured the light/shadows provided by the technique. Not this time! This time I'm going to use glazes like I did with Olynder. Yes, it is more time consuming, but for this mini it is the journey that interests me more than reaching the end. (My future self may not share that same sentiment in a few months time if she is still hanging around on my desk though!)

I also purchased some Scalecolour paints, the Blood and Fire set, which I hope will help me on my quest to paint better reds. My painting weak spots I see as challenges to overcome!

I have also wondered, as I have been sketching in the highlights and shadows on Saih, how can one painting suddenly change your perspective so drastically? Did I really learn that much on painting Olynder? It feels like I did. I just hope they were good habits I picked up and not bad ones.

Also tonight I have started painting Saih's hair. I did at one point look at what I had done so far on the monochromatic side and think, how am I supposed to colour this in? But it seems to be a simple enough process, and the zenithal seems to be doing quite a bit of the work. We will see: 



01/12/19

I have been progressing somewhat with this model, but what I've been doing is not exactly my usual way of painting so it is difficult to put into words exactly what I've been doing. I have been in some sense trying to duplicate what I did with Lady Olynder and I am pleased with how things have been going, but seeing as I am trying to figure stuff out as I go along it's difficult to explain how or why I've done something. 


I painted her skin following Darren Latham's method of painting female faces, but she's seems a bit too warm skinned for the model, so I think I need to lighten this up and it needs to be darker between her fingers. Working from photos definitely helps because you can see where you need to go a little better (I think) than working directly from the model.

I'm happy with the skirt, smoke, top and hair, I just need to tweak the skin and put a wash over the trousers to tone them down a bit. Then figure out what colours I'm going to use for my attempt at NMM gold! 

19/04/20

I will have to do another post on NMM as I finished this model without actually doing a step by step, but it was a difficult thing to do given that I was figuring this out for the first time. But here some pictures of the finished model: 






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Journey with Burnout

Having recently suffered major burnout for the 2nd time, following finishing a competition/display project, I got to thinking and tried to understand it better rather than it being this thing I was feeling that I had no context for.   The first time I suffered it was after painting the Mucha: Music piece back in 2022, after which I suffered nearly 3 months of burnout that made me abjectly miserable. I tried and tried to push through it, but just felt like I was hitting a brick wall no matter what I tried to do. It basically felt like I’d forgotten how to paint. I couldn’t blend, mix my colours right, my brush control had vanished and everything was a slog.  Then this time it happened again after finishing my Goblin Airship diorama. I felt strange afterward, like I’d been holding my breath during the whole project and finally let that breath out. I wanted to paint and did paint, but again I started going through the phase of feeling like I couldn’t paint anything. Again, I kept tryin
Read more

Let's Talk About Non-Metal-Metal (NMM)

Image
A lot of new painters want to jump straight into this advance technique without realising it is built on the foundation of most of the basics along with a couple of intermediate techniques.   The basics being; blending, glazing, layering, colour mixing, contrast, and edge highlighting. The intermediate techniques that help with the advanced ones are: understanding how base coats interact with the paints you put on top, brush control and having a solid understanding of light sources. I certainly would never discourage anyone from having a go, but if you haven’t quite figured out the above, you are setting yourself up to fail. And then get disheartened and probably get fed up, you know how it goes.  You are after all trying to paint an illusion, a ‘trompe l’oeil’ (deceive the eye). You are trying to make a piece of 3d moulded plastic look like a piece of metal, without using metallic paints (paint which has flecks of actual metal in it).  You also have to remember that metal being
Read more

Recommended Brushes

Image
As miniature painters, we often get asked what are our favourite brushes. The ones I've always used and gone back to time and again are Rosemary & Co. They are a UK based company producing their own brushes, however, there are some countries they do not deliver to, so please check if they deliver to your country first before purchasing.  Below is my recommended brush list, with a mixture of sable and synthetic brushes, depending on your preferences. If you are new to R & Co, I would recommend trying out the brush set first, as this is a good introduction to their range of brushes.  I have an affiliate link here:  https://www.rosemaryandco.com?u=LMASON2024 My affiliate code is: LMASON2024  Please enter the code in the coupon/affiliate code box at the shopping cart or checkout page. If you have any further questions regarding these, please do ask!  
Read more