Sunday Funday 6/28

This weekend the in-laws visited less than 48 hours after we had our flood-damaged floors replaced. Thank goodness our place is no longer a construction zone! It was so great to see my MIL & SIL and spend time catching up since we hadn't seen them since traveling to visit right before Memorial Day (right before the floods). We went to brunch and then enjoyed the weather and played with our three dogs-- they were so happy to be reunited for a day of play! While the pups were fast asleep, we even found some time to play Dungeons & Dragons! We dusted off our dice immediately began face-planting with natural 1s-- at one point, we all failed a skill check and went tumbling down a chimney to take a considerable amount of damage right before the big boss fight. Hilarity ensued and we had to get extremely creative to avoid that last battle and escape with our lives since we absolutely refused to leave without the treasure!

Obligatory picture of food!

One pooped pup napping after playing outside with his buddies :)

Yesterday, after we hugged and said goodbye to MIL & SIL for now, I sat down to paint and was horrified. I opened my wet palette only to find all sorts of nasty bits of fur and dark spots (is that mold?!) on my sponge. I swear I'd soaked it in boiling water just the other week, but with all the construction going on, I needed to replace it. I also admit to accidentally leaving it out for a few days with the lid on-- never a good move in this humidity! Since I only had about an hour to paint last night, I decided to clean up my workspace and make sure my wet palette was good to go for some Monday night painting. I got a few base coats on Bailey Silverbell's crossbow weapon and greaves, but I soon became frustrated with the NMM and called it a night. Sometimes you feel rusty and try to push through it. Other times, you've put too much time and love into a miniature that you don't want to compromise. Since this is a miniature I'm painting just for myself, I'm fine with setting her down and beginning again tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll admire my squeaky clean wet palette and do some more research on how light will reflect off metal greaves. Here's what I've found in the meantime!

Moving Back In

We're finally able to move back into our house after a miserable month of flood damage, filthy floors, and replacement repairs. I haven't been able to do any painting since I've been camped out at a co-workers house. We're finally moving back in and I can PAINT again! I'll be posting some pictures later today once I get my desk set up. It's like moving in all over again. Super. Stay tuned for a time lapse video of me putting table back together tonight... and drinking wine.

*update* Here it is-- my first (crooked) attempt at a time-lapse video! 

Can't Argue With Contrast!

Have you ever heard "You could really use some more contrast on the  ____"? Yeah, me too. It's a horrible shouty-voice in my head that keeps pushing me to paint my shadows darker and my highlights lighter. I can't argue with the results, but it takes quite a while to blend smoothly. I'll get faster, but I need to focus on "seeing" how to incorporate more contrast in my figures. Previously, I'd see a model and think "Wow, that really 'pops'! How did they do that?" Now I understand that it's really about high contrast and using a wide range of dark & light values. While there's something to be said for being true to textures (for example, rugged leather won't contain nearly as many different values as a reflective silk), I want to experiment a little more. I decided to do a side-by-side comparison just to see how much I could push things visually. 

Here are the Reaper paints I used:

  • Brown Liner
  • Olive Skin Shadow
  • Linen White

I painted the entire section of upper leg wrap in Brown Liner and then painted the individual sections with "Olive Skin Shadow" as the base coat. I went back in with Brown Liner to clean up and differentiate the wrap strips. I mixed about three progressive shades in between Olive Skin Shadow and Linen White to achieve smoother blending, continuing to push all the way up to pure Linen White for the upper edges. In the back view below, you can see a big difference between the flat base coat and liner version I started with. You can't argue with contrast!