Thursday, July 11, 2013

Sean the Overzealous Cricket Player

The model is Dynamic Ray from Hasslefree Minis. I'm calling him Sean for no particular reason whatsoever.

My colour palette was based on some reference photos, so some of the colours were not quite what I might otherwise have chosen, but I really like how it turned out so no complaints.

This was my second attempt at black cloth; I used a black base, grey/white drybrushes then a mix of Badab Black and 'Ardcoat to shade. It came out a little better but next time I'll use a dark grey base rather than true black, which should look better. Not too happy about the white cloth either, but it looks good enough I guess.

The skin was the basic elf-flesh base followed by a mix of Gryphone Sepia and 'Ardcoat, then a pure sepia wash was applied in select areas (like inside the ears and between the arms) to further darken them. It looks good enough to me so I'm happy. The eyes were white with black dots but as usual the white disappeared after adding the sepia; still this is probably the best looking face I've ever managed, though that's largely down the to miniature itself having so much detail there (most models don't actually have eyebrows, for example; this one does).

I initially painted the hair in the same Elf Flesh as the skin, then drybrushed it white and glazed it yellow; I was trying to make the hair seem light and thin by using the same tones as the skin, but I decided it didn't have enough contrast. So I washed it with Devlan Mud, brushed it with more white then glazed yellow again, to get those darker areas. It's not perfect, but I think it's as good as I could have hoped for seeing as I haven't really tried to paint blonde hair before. I did make a mistake by trying to sand a little bit of the hair off the top before painting - it looked a little like a mohawk to me at the time, but I think it probably would have looked better if I hadn't as I created a solid ridge along the centre.

I mixed various browns with bleached bone until I found a colour I liked for the cricket bat. It's not obvious in the photos (or in real life for that matter), I painted on a subtle wood grain effect. It's hard to see, but I think the result looks very close to a real cricket bat so I'm very happy with it.

The watch doesn't look great as it lacks detail; in retrospect I think I could have added a bit more details with the paint (or possibly modelled some on) if I had thought things through better from the start. I think the tie and the belt came out quite nicely actually. I painted on a red name tag with white spots and a metal pocket clip; it's a bit flat up close but from the distance it adds a nice bit of detail.

Some bits do look a bit glossy; it's a problem I've been having lately, I'm not sure if I'm using too much Purity Seal or too little, or if I'm not quite using it right or something.


So yeah, overall I'm very happy with the model. I'm really starting to like the idea of more "recognisable" miniatures; though I do feel a little guilty about buying unlicensed ones - obviously if there were licensed models of the characters I want I would buy those.

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