Crimson Court, Vellas von Faine - Part II (Showcase)

 

Reinforced neck to help hold up the hair.

Vellas von Faine is "done", even if I'm not happy once again with the results. I skipped a few corners, trying to focus more on presentation than finer technical points. The gemstones for example are not done in the usual style, instead relying on a more solid colour to make the detail stand out. By this stage there's not much point in going over exactly which paints were used where, and instead give a post-analysis of what works, and what doesn't.

I attempts NMM on the swords, which in general is a weak area of mine. It didn't work out quite how I wanted, but does work better than a simple steel metallic paint approach. The reflective nature of metallics would have stood out too much against the armour. If I were to do this again, I would go with NMM on the swords - but I would also research a lot more, and use a lot more reference photos to get it right.

The purple armour was just something I wanted to try. It worked acceptably well, but I might use a dark blue in the shadows to increase the contrast a little more. I purposefully did not use variation in armour colour, opting to keep it all the same, but a little variation in places might be beneficial. This would come in the form of ambient light, or  perhaps some OSL from an off-model source. Either a red tint, or a more blue one to perhaps indicate night.

The skin tone I'm not unhappy with, but the highlights could have been pushed more on the face. This is difficult once the model is assembled (it's not a painter friendly sculpt) and I would probably need to invest in a better brush, but it would draw a little more attention there. The red eyes work well enough, and don't think I would change that.

The hair is acceptable, but could use something more. Normally this would be used to frame the face, but the volumes are used to balance out the darker nature of the rest of the model. Instead, it would benefit from a similar OSL mentioned previously - a light source to help define the geometry of the model. A cold white (i.e a very bright, desaturated blue) would go well here.

The cloth is both ok, and terrible. It works, and doesn't. The colour is ok, very desaturated purple-greys, but ends up looking like it was badly airbrushed. Perhaps some brown on the bottom to make it looks more dirty, or a freehand pattern to give it some more interest.

The base I'm ok with. This was a simple Basilicanum Grey over white through the airbrush, followed by Wyldwood splotched in a few places, and finally Dawnstone used for uneven edge highlights. Neutral hues, some tonal variation, enough to look like a stone dungeon but not enough to detract from the model. It didn't need to do any more than that. If the model was more complex, then the base might need some more work to balance that out, but in this case there's not a lot I would change to it.

So there we have it, another model finished. Running tally of permissible purchases is now 8.5, and there still remains one more with the Crimson Court. That last model isn't fitting my current painting mood, so I suspect it will end up again being something I won't be entirely happy with, so I will try to use it as another test piece for experimental techniques.

-- silly painter.