Report from Garness-at-Home - Part 2

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Dread Pirate Garness writes:

Hair and Face:

In keeping with my spiritual leader theme, I wanted to make her hair and features natural and fresh. I began with Andrea Color Red Leather as the base color and Amercana Soft Black as the shade, with GW Golden Yellow as the highlight. Wet-blending the hair and mixing the color as I went along, I did in fact paint every highlight on the hair individually. It was extremely time consuming, but the downside to drybrushing is it leaves a grainy look and I wanted the hair to be luxurious looking.

For the face, I used the same colors for the flesh as before.

For her lips I mixed in Andrea Red Leather with the Sunny skin tone and used it as a base. Red Leather was the shade and applied sparingly under the lips and in the mouth. I then added more Americana Pineapple to the mix to lighten it up, adding a tiny bit of Polly S Fuscia to get a little pink color into it. Then I added a little white to the basic color mix and dabbed a small dot on the center of the bottom lip for a highlight. Again, not very glamorous, but more subdued and natural.

Eyes were done with Americana Soft Black, and Ceramacoat Antique White for the whites. Americana Black is the base for the pupil, mixing GW Dark Angel Green with Ceramacoat Pineapple to build up the iris color to a nice light green shade, I dotted that with black, and then added a dot of white for a reflection.

There were two things I wanted out of the staff. One, for the staff to accentuate the figure, careful not dominate it and Two, I wanted the staff to be something a human being could lift. I opted to go with a light wood color.

I used Aleene's Light Beige as the base, Americana Soft Black as the shade, and Ceramacoat Pineapple as the highlight. Blending all the colors together, I then went back and added some very delicate lines to show a woodgrain finish.

I went over it again with the beige color in a glaze, so the colors would not be so stark. Since my staff is one big piece of wood, I put some tribal paint makings on it, inspired by the artwork in the Gael book.

The spearhead and sickle were done in NMM style. I could not see the metal being highly reflective, so I went for a dull steel look. Using Americana Victorian Blue as the base, Black as the shade, and Polly S Duck Egg Blue as the highlight - I touched the raised edges with white.

The thigh bracelet is done with the cord being made of leather, and the amulets hanging from it as bone. Cord was painted with GW Snakebite Leather as the base, Americana Soft Black as the shade, and Ceramcoat Pineapple as the highlight.

The bone amulets were painted using Aleene's Beige as the base, Americana Traditional Raw Umber as the shade, and Ceramacoat Antique White as the highlight. I then used the raw umber to paint carved-out little runic characters on each amulet. The anklet on the left leg was done the same way (minus the runes).

The armbands and anklet were also done using NMM. I paid careful attention to make sure the gold/brass looked brushed, instead of highly reflective. I wanted it to be more subdued, to fit in with the rest of the figure. Using Americana Traditional Raw Umber as the base color, Americana Soft Black as the shade, and Polly S Bug Bear Flesh (a yellow-ochre color) as the highlight, I then mixed a little white in with the Bugbear flesh and dotted the bracelets.

For the war paint, I used Vallejo Flat Red and Americana Soft Black as the shade, with GW Blood Angel Orange as the highlight.

With the base, I wanted her to appear as if she was walking towards the viewer. I sculpted a small set of stairs - more like stepping stones - out of some milliput, and after letting that cure, I painted them. I used Liquitex Ceramic Stucco Gel Medium as the dirt. This worked well, because I can add the color I like directly to the medium and then just paint it on. Letting that dry, I then glued on some static grass and painted it a bit when it dried. I painted the sides of the base in brown and grey, and blended the colors to help with the transition from the front around to the rear. I then dry brushed lightly to give a gritty dirt and grainy stone appearance.

Some of the work in progress pictures were lost - darn that file-corrupted window - but the final pictures do show everything.

I must say that this report has grown much longer than I thought it would, but I felt it important to explain the how's and why's of my painting style - especially for those who may be new to painting, or wanting to know more about certain techniques.

In particular, I love 3 colors above all others - those being the Americana Soft Black, and the Ceramacoat Antique White and Pineapple. I use them to shade and highlight almost all my figures. The soft black does not "grey out" the main color, while the white and pineapple highlight without washing out the base color.

All in all, I am very pleased with the results of this figure. I hope that you like her and appreciate the look I was trying to achieve. Thanks, all!

See the Finished Pictures