The Mark of Zorro - update 17/11

[Malamute]

HE has added them.

I like Masons idea for Flash Gordon in b&w.  Don't think I can match these for quality though   I did some dwarves this way about 25 years ago and they were not that great

I second Mason's Flash Gordon idea, excellent!

Go on Bago, have a go at some dwarves in B&W again, I am sure they will turn out Peachy

[white knight]

Some more locals from the Pueblo of Los Angeles. These figures are made by Perry Miniatures and are meant to be Spanish civilians from the Carlist War, roughly contemporary to Zorro's time and it stands to reason you'd find elements of their traditional dress in California residents of Spanish decent. These are slightly better off than the poorer peons.

Casting on the figures was rather rough, which required a lot of cleaning and generally made the painting experience far from pleasant. Still, they are done and while not my best work for this project, they will fit in just find as random bystanders.



And another group shot.

[Malamute]

Excellente!
The Senora in the black mantilla has made an appearance in one of my games as El Zorro's eighty year old love interest
Her dress is perfect for Alta California or Tejas in the early 1800s.

[white knight]

I think my Zorro will prefer to use the running one as his love interest, but then again, it may not always be up to him. 

[Malamute]

I think my Zorro will prefer to use the running one as his love interest, but then again, it may not always be up to him. 

She is certainly more attractive and looks a lot younger

[Dr. The Viking]

Ooh good idea about the carlist perry's there. Knicked!

[Faber]

  Found this thread only now.
I have to say that zorro adventures aren't definetly my cup of tea BUT I remember BW zorro on television when I was a child and you are doing it perfectly WK. I'm really stunned by the quality of your paintjob. The pic with the landsknecht really shows what you have achieved. 
(now please, keep going on renaissance)

[Svennn]

Not your best?  Still look mighty fine to me

[Mason]

Not your best?  Still look mighty fine to me

I am with Svennn on this one: They do look bloody good.

Seems that you have really got this Black and White lark down to a tee.
Lovely!
 

[white knight]

Well, there are some fuddled bits that don't show on the picture, especially hands and such. This is mainly due to the hands being really undefined on the perry sculpts and generally a source of casting errors to make it worse.

In fact I can positively say I hate painting the perry metals as the castings are terrible (rough spots, missing or obscured detail and misaligned mouldhalves). They must have been made aware of this issue by now and the fact that they have done nothing to resolve it must mean they either don't care or don't take enough pride in their work.

[Prof.Witchheimer]

beautiful painting, very impressive, WK!

In fact I can positively say I hate painting the perry metals as the castings are terrible

Unfortunately seconded.

[white knight]

Black & white (or rather, grey and grey) seems to suit my painting style.

[Mason]

Black & white (or rather, grey and grey) seems to suit my painting style.

It certainly does.
i will have to give it a go myself.
Any tips?

[white knight]

Well, first thing is that you have to realise that there are two types of greys: warm greys and cool greys and that you can only use all cool greys or all warm greys if you don't want to spoil the effect. It may not always be evident which is which and you can only know for sure by painting them on a piece of paper and putting them side by side. And even then, there can be so many gradations in warmth that that not all cool greys will work perfectly together.

Mainly, I have found I only use 4 different shades of the dozen or so greys I have and 90% of all the work is done using 2 out of those (a light one and a dark one, mixed together to create lighter and darker shades). So you really only need to find 2  that work well together. The fewer different paints used, the better the effect IMO.

The dark one I use is vallejo german grey and the light one is a coat d'arms one which I think is called light grey, but I'm not a 100% sure without checking. I also use one of the Foundry arctic grey shades when I do the skin, but don't remember exactly which one (the middle one or the shading one) and in any event, you don't really need it as a similar tone can be obtained when you mix the other two. The advantage offered by the arctic grey is just that your skintone remains consistent throughout, which can be hard when mixing shades (I have some trouble with matching my bases for instance as it's not an "out of the pot" shade).

I use black for blacklining and truly black items like zorro's clothes, anything else is grey. Even then, only the basecoat is black and then highlighted with the german grey, leaving black only in the deeper folds. I don't use any white anywhere.

Finally, do not expect this to be faster than colour painting, for the effect to fool the eye, you can't cut corners. You have to paint them as if you were painting in colour, but substitute different grey shades for different colours.

If you're not exactly sure what shade to use where, look at greysale pictures of the subject you are painting (with zorro it is easy to look for pictures of the TV show) and if none are available, find some nicely painted pictures of the same figures and convert them to greyscale. I have done this for inspiration on these perry figures and while I strayed a bit from it, it did help to give me a basic idea of what would look good.

[Mason]

Thank you very much, WK!

Much appreciated as the 'warmth' of the grey was something that I had not considered.