A little over a week ago I took on the first commission I've had in over a decade. Back then my skills were more of the paint-by-numbers variety, and nothing really special to look at. I had a bumpy week work wise so this is coming a bit later than I'd like. I was commissioned to paint the Lady Justice box for Wyrd Miniatures Malifaux. First up is Lady Justice herself, and boy was she a difficult one to paint.
Being one of four masters for The Guild faction means that Lady Justice received a lot of love and care with painting. The more important pieces usually tend to get more love.
With the hair creeping into all the areas of the sculpt I found that doing a good job painting was troublesome. I have the alternate version of this model, and I wonder how they will compare in the difficulty with painting each of them.
There was a lot that went into this piece. The hair alone was everywhere, which mean being careful after I had painted it as well as doing some touch ups after I had finished everything else. I feel that having fleshed everything out that the skin tone fits really well.
My patron requested a darker shade of blue for the jeans, which blends really well with the black corset and gloves in a way I don't like. If you held the actual figure in front of your eyes you'd be able to tell the difference, but just looking at the pics it can be difficult to see. This is something to keep in mind as far as colors go for painting. The color black, as far as paints go, is actually a really REALLY dark blue. What this means is that it has similar tendencies when mixed with colors. Mixing black and dark grey to try and get a highlight resulted in a very dark grey denim color. Using black ink didn't help too much either. That's how it goes sometimes though, and as long as my Patron is happy then that is what counts.
UPDATE: After taking a closer look at things I decided to go back and see if I couldn't make the jeans a little bit more distinct of a blue. Here's what I got:
While you can't tell as easily in the picture, the actual miniature itself is MUCH more distinct now.
I really like your attention to the little bits- the belt, the gloves, etc.
ReplyDeleteA lot of the time it's the coloring on those little bits that help bring out the rest of the model. If everything is too close in color then a casual glace will just see it as a blob, but if you use different colors (even just a few shades) then your miniature goes from blob to eye-catching.
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