Kingdom Death Twilight Knight Pin-up

[DeafNala]

She just keeps getting more lovely...WONDERFULLY DONE!

That's crazy! I think I'll stop painting now.

You're supposed to be inspired to achieve more...get with the program.   

[Mrdee]

@ des loup

Like DeafNala said mate, it is supposed to inspire, well that and I seek a little objective feedback on my part, I tend to look at my models subjectively usually from a overly negative standpoint but then that also helps me push myself to improve, so a little unbiased feedback always does wonders.

@ DeafNala

Thanks mate.  I really enjoying this model it is a pleasure to paint and I reckon this model might just beat my personal best on Cool Mini Or Not of 8.1 for Urban Legend Sophie, we will have to see what the painting "elite" think of it.  I am however a little sceptical of that site at times, a table top quality squad of dark eldar scored the same as 2 of my Golden Demon final round reaching entries, go figure 

As promised for Heldrak, Thantsants and VoodoInk here is a run down of the skin process.  Take what you want from it but I will try to explain it as though you have never picked up a paint brush in your life, but I know that is not the case.

For a start I paint every skin differently, even more so between male and female skin the latter being a lot softer and a gentle transition between shade and highlight.  I use different combos of paints depending on what end result I want.  What I would say is that usually its all a matter of dark tone colour, mid tone colour and highlight colour.  For this particular little sweetheart, her colours were VGC Tanned Flesh (shade/basecoat) VGC Cadm Skin (mid tone) VGC Elfic Flesh (highlight)

I undercoat grey, all the positives of white without the negatives.

Paint prep is a big thing for me.  With skin I tend to start with a couple of coats of the dark tone colour at 1:1 - paint:water till I get a nice smoth and uniform finish, always make sure that you have an even coat NO patches of light or dark, this is of the utmost importance on the basecoat 

I then make sure that I have all my paints for the rest of the process ready for this I mix them all at a ratio of 1:2 ratio of paint to glazing medium although it is very much dependent on the paint some are thicker and require maybe a little more glazing medium.  The way I know that it is a perfect is when it goes on the brush it almost looks as though there is no paint on the brush until I do a few test strokes of the brush on my finger nail when it should be a nice smooth glaze of colour, the consistency of the paint should be that of milk.  I also make sure that I have a peice of damp kitchen towel to hand to place over my pallet to ensure the paint doesn't dry out, if it does add water till it goes back to the right consistency no glazing medium too much medium and things go tits up. 

I then take the basecoated model put it under a spot lamp so that I can simulate where light is coming from, at this point either take a photo for reference or if like me you are blessed with an almost photographic memory remember when the natural highlights will be, also a really handy way to work out NMM according to CMoN although tends only to work on bare metal models. 

Now you are ready to start painting with skin my process is very organic I merely glaze the skin with successive highlights (or shades if I feck up) of mixes of the colours i have sat in my pallete adding more and more highlights to particular areas I want to build up.  One thing I will say there are only 3 places on the entire skin of this model that i used pure elfic flesh (the highlight) and that was a glaze on the top of the breasts, the tip of the nose and the belly button rim (although not overly prone to light I wanted to make it stand out) although thats 4 if you count the breasts as seperate entities!  The rest of the highlighing it all a mix of highlight and midtone colours.

Sorry if you think that I might have a special trick, sadly not, I just do it always with the mental image of how the light hit the model when under the lamp.  The only real way would be to sit and watch me doing it.  I am thinking of asking my good friend Luke to maybe do some sort of high speed vid I can post on my website would be easier.  I enter a zen-like state when I paint and is why I paint.....it is my own form of meditation.  The only real trick for me is making sure that the paints/glazes are perfect consistency everything else just falls into place after that.

One mega tip....have a hairdryer to hand or this can take a fecking long time with all the paints mixed with glazing medium.

Was that what you guys were after?

Damien

[Heldrak]

Thanks Damien, that is very helpful.

If I understand you, you're not blending per se, but using a layered painting technique with very thin glazes. When you say 1:2 paint to glazing medium, does that mean there is no added water at all in the initial mix? Which particular glazing medium are you using? Vallejo?

[Mrdee]

If I understand you, you're not blending per se, but using a layered painting technique with very thin glazes.

Yes mate

When you say 1:2 paint to glazing medium, does that mean there is no added water at all in the initial mix?

Yes mate no water until it starts drying out but it wont fully dry out for about 24 hours with glazing medium in i find, the damp kitchen towel is more me being adhering to a habit and doing it without thinking rather than needing to do it.  Think in the 3 hours the paints for this model were out (i was doing other things whilst painting as well) i added water once and that was merely a basecoat brush worth of water, its all situational.

Which particular glazing medium are you using? Vallejo?

Yes mate. Vallejo Glaze Medium.

[Heldrak]

As regards your grey primer, spray-on or brush on? What brand? If spray-on, what are you using to match colors when tidying up areas missed by the spray?

[Mrdee]

I use Halfords grey metal primer spray (on plastics too) it is meant for car body work so is a nice tough base to work from.

IF i miss anything, which rarely happens.........I am the poster boy for attention to detail....would say anal but who the bloody hell wants to be the poster boy for anal, maybe George Michael .........I digress, I use a 50/50 mix of black and white brush on primers from reaper master series

[Sangennaru]

as always:

Oh
My
God

[Mrdee]

as always:

Oh
My
God

Wondered how long before you raised your latin head to the wonders that are boobs 

Thanks matey

[fairoaks024]

as others have said, it's all really impressive, but even by your standard, the flesh is amazing!

regards

jim

[Sangennaru]

Wondered how long before you raised your latin head to the wonders that are boobs 

Thanks matey

i was looking at that miniature 20 minutes ago, and now i see yours painted... shock.

[Mrdee]

@ Jim

Cheers mate

@ Sang

Welcome to the Twilight Knight Zone

She is finished.  Am just taking the photos.

Damien

[Mrdee]

All finished

Have loads of pictures











Sorry couldn't resist this one....sad I know



*EDIT*

23rd March 2011

**Replaced the pictures of the old cloak with pictures of the redone one**

[Sangennaru]

WOW!

i love the miniature : is it the 54mm one?

the only remark is about the cloak: the layers are a bit fast, and i can see the layer borders... but still a GREAT piece!

[Mrdee]

nope 28mm

Yeah and I aint that happy with the cloak will have to revisit it I think

[Sangennaru]

LOL, double shock then!