Vulpa Daemonica Warlord Titan Done!

Finally, the centerpiece of my Vulpa legio is done!

I'm really proud of this one. It's by far the best mini I ever painted, owning mostly to just too many hours spent. I literally worked on him until I burned out, took a ~6 month break while working on other models, and then went back to refine and improve for about one month more. It's not without fault, it's not getting me a Golden Daemon or anything, but I've given it everything I got and it was worth it.

I learned a lot with this project. I switched to using Contrast paints for glazes halfway through the project. I started using FW Sepia as my main shadow color, eventually changing to Wildwood Contrast there the shadow is warm and a mix of black and Space Wolves Gray where it's cold. Contrast thins into a barely noticeable glaze better, is easier to control, and don't dry glossy.

I enjoyed doing chipping on this one a lot. Previously, I weathered mostly by applying enamel dust and grime and removing it with white spirits. On this model it was more or less just chipping. Grime and dust make a model feel old and deserted, which is not appropriate for the energy of this model. Also, the layers of grime toned down surfaces that I worked hard to differentiate between glossy and matte. Instead, I chipped with matte dark lines and silver/gold highlights: because the chips are effectivelly matte, they stand out so well and look so realistic. It looks great on the orange parts, it's only meh on the purple; it's too dark to work well with this approach.

I also took these pics very differently than usual. I spent a lot more time controlling lights, used a black backdrop and edited every single pic to control the background, which was never truly black, as much as possible. Gimp was used, what can I say. I also used a little portable light on the fireball, pointing from below - counteracting the natural shadow that exists in other parts of the scene, making it look like it's glowing even more. It turned out really well.

Thanks for looking!

Gundam Zaku Head

I took a course on modding and weathering models until they look realistic, aged and weathered. It was a fun premise - get a toy and make it look like a piece of art. The course was taught by Seth, an amazing miniature artist.

Here's the original model:

I did a a few things I've never done before, and a few others I've never done nearly as successfully. I added addinional panel lines to the model, underpainted the panel lines in black on top of white, then glazed the model into taking shape. Weathering was done before and after the glaze, to show several layers of age.

But more than anything, it was just fun to take a model I didn't care about and go ham.

I'll post more of my pictures at the bottom of the post, but here are a few pics from other attendees of the course. It looks like I don't have closeups from all the pieces! I'm sorry to those that I've missed, I fully expected to have taken a pic of each piece. Luckily there are more pics that Seth uploaded at https://www.instagram.com/p/B7hziDsnpE5.

And finally here's mine. Do note that I've spent a few hours touching up some mistakes after the course, and that I took these pictures with a much better camera. Thanks for looking!

Adeptus Titanicus Warlord Titan Done!

Phew! A lot of stuff I've done for the first time here. Lacquer metallics, inks, value sketching, OSL using inks, painting in scratches and bullet marks. I'm very proud of how it turned out.

There are a few things I could have done better, and I hope I will in the future.

My value sketch didn't account for OSL enough, and it got completely lost when I layered on steel metallics. I maintained diffuse, zenithal lights and shadows all along, but when it came time to do OSL after having finished all painting and weathering, I found myself layering orange inks over black and that wasn't working out. I went back with a brush and reconstructed some of the OSL values after having painted the rest of the model; that's unfortunate.

The decal on his loin plate is too white. It's no surprise since it's a white decal, but I should tone it down. It's in deep shadow and it should pop out as much. The black side of that decal got ruined when I repainted the beige part of the plate. I may need to go back and reapply the black decals there, humph.

Due to the fact I was doing orange OSL over neutral to cold tinted metallics, there are regions where the light tints green a bit too much. I should have warmed up metallics in vicinity of where light would be, just to be ready for warm colors.

There were a few places where the paint has rubbed off from handling, and you can see them on the pictures. I've touched those up already but I don't want to do another photo session.

All that said, I'm still very proud of what I got here. I definitely stretched my limits here and have learned a lot from it.

Enough words! Thanks for looking.