The latest Workbench theme is "Animals (and How to Paint Them)," and - since I'm very poor at painting animals - I thought I'd give it a try myself and see what I could do.
The miniature I selected was the Giant Bearman from Peter Pig - which I first spotted in one of doc mcb's armies, and I couldn't resist picking up a model for my own "collection."
The Bearman stands 36mm tall from bottom of feet to top of head, which makes him a towering figure in 15mm scale (and not insignificant in 25/28mm scale...).
I did some Google'ing, and decided that I wanted my Bearman to be golden brown with black paws. Some photos showed lighter muzzle and belly colors, but others didn't, so I kept it simple and planned for a single over-all color.
I chose to base the figure to a metal base, and used spackle to smooth the transition from the cast-on base to the metal base. I then primed everything white with gesso (it took three passes to get good coverage).
When I paint fur, I usually start with a dark color, wash with a dark ink or wash, and then drybrush lighter colors until everything looks OK. So I gave the figure a basecoat of Regal Realms Tree Trunk.
I've been mostly using Renaisance Ink-brand inks lately, but their brown has been out-of-stock... so I used Games Workshop's Flesh Wash instead.
I then drybrushed with Tree Trunk again, to bring back some of the highlights...
...and then with Delta Ceramcoat Golden Brown (on the "upper" surfaces mostly):
According to my original plan, I was done... but I didn't like the way the figure had turned out. It didn't have that "warm" golden brown look I wanted. So I thought, maybe if I gave it another drybrush with a still lighter shade... perhaps Americana Mink Tan?
Ugh. That looked awful.
Somewhat in desperation, I decided to give the whole figure a glaze of Golden Brown - meaning, a watered-down coat of paint, but not quite a wash. Well, maybe it is a wash, but it's for a different purpose - not to darken the shadows, but to tint the entire figure.
That seemed to work OK, so I finished up by painting the details, and flocked the base.
So that's it! I'm not claiming this is any sort of a stellar paintjob, but perhaps this can be an "average" benchmark by which future Workbench articles in this series can be measured.
Now, what can I use a Giant Bearman for...