Oz Painters

hi guys, here's a mini I started working on yesterday - he's an orc from zenit miniatures, a new spanish mini company I think his name is kurtx or something haha. I was sent him and another from one of my friends in spain, as part of a thank you for doing an article for a magazine hehe.

Anyway, I am thinking of a kind of red-earth wasteland for the setting, and I want to incorporate a lot of red tones into the colours of the painting.

For his skin, I am sort of keeping with a greenish aspect, but there are going to be a lot of other colours in it - you can see how it is coming at the moment. SOmething unusual, for experiments`!

It's a bit hard for me to ask for feedback and crits during the process, because the way I paint is a bit different from most of you guys - instead of working section by section, I sort of work on everything at once haha - well, what I mean is that I am working on his skin and cloak at the moment, but when they have progressed a bit I will move onto another part, then another part, without finishing any parts until later in the process when i will return to the flesh, etc. So maybe it will be hard to offer any good comments until nearer to the end, when parts of the mini get closer to being finished!

But maybe it will be interesting to some of you anyway - or maybe for this mini I will try to be more like you guys haha, and make more progress on the skin etc. before moving on to other parts. we'll see. But of course you are welcome to offer any thoughts you have about anything at all!

So, stage 1 we;ve got base coats; then the next pic, I have started to add some rudimentary shading; then some further shading in pic 3. I'm not worrying much about smoothness at this point - I'm just getting colour in the right areas, the smoothness comes later.

Thanks for doing this Seb, I'm very interested to see the steps you go through to get the excellent results you do.

As for the way you paint - I don't think I could do it but it does make sense, I think it would help with cohesiveness... It's easy for separate elements to not match up in the end when you paint one completely before moving on to the next.

Nothing much in the way of criticism yet ofcourse (I think this'll be more of a "watch and learn" thread than a "I need help" thread ) but I'll be watching eagerly.

Very interesting. Just curious, why did you start so bright on the cape when you were only going to bring the whole thing down darker?

yeah russell, it helps with colours etc - it's good to get everything underqay because it allows me to see how - and if - the colours will work together. I frequently change my mind about colours during the process, depending on how things are looking! SO it's good in that way. It does mean that things start off a bit boring for a while though, until all the more basic stuff is out of the way and it's time to move on to the interesting parts.

and max - well I started off with the base coat of medium grey, because it is quite light, and I wasn't totally sure where I was going with it...I didn't know that I would be making it so dark - that is jsut the direction I ended up taking. So I am sort of feeling it out as I go haha - just going with the flow, yeah?

The skin is looking good. I like the base colour - is that a VMC one?.
I shall watch the progress with interest.

sorry angora I missed your question before - the skin base colour was a mix of colours: mainly VMC yellow green, with some VMC gunship green and VMC light sand added.


Now, high time for an update, eh! here are the next pics of my progress.

First pic: I've done some more work on his cape at the back, added some more highlighting. On the front pic,. I have done some highlights on the skin, and added some glazes of coour incertain sections - slightly colder green in the inner areas around his under arms and ribs, with VMC gunship green, which is a sort of blueish green colour. And I also decided on a colour change for the pants, to a sort of grey-blue colour, which I think will better suit the scheme that is developing.





Next pic - I won't bother with the back shot for the next few, because I didn't change much, so nothing to see really. SO then, let's see - I did some shading on the pants and the red tabard at the front, and hmm....I swear I did something else as well...can't rememeber! haha. I should try to get some better angle photos actually, because you can't really see most of the pants very well, or in where his ribs are etc.




Ok, on this one I have done the highlighting for the pants, moving to quite a light orange-yellow tone for the lightest parts, by adding VMC beige red nad VMC light sand. Also a bit more work on the skin, and a wash of dark blue/black over the brown straps, belt etc. in preparation for the next step on those. Also, base coats and some rudimentary shading on more of the metal parts, and the hair.

Loverly! The skin looks ACE!
I like the pants too. Are you deliberately keeping the colours failt muted or will you add some bright bits later on? Great job so far...

It's an excellent read
Wonderful to see how you approach a fig
Must admit I tend to focus on one thing after another

angora, well I don't think I will be adding to many bright colours - I think the contrast provided by the red tabard at the front is enough, plus there will be some more colour with the oxidations etc.... but you think I should give him more colour?

On reflection, I think he'll be right once he gets teeth, tongue, boney piercings and the metallic details. Maybe you could add a little touch of colour on the empty scabbardy thing at his belt. I'm sure you know what you're doing though - colour balance is always tough to judge on a half done mini

yeah, we'll see how thing turn out....although I don't think there will be all that much more colour added - small things, but nothing major, or very bright...but we'll see!

Yes the little scabbard on his belt at the front, I'm not sure what colour to paint that at the moment - the metal bits, gold or silver, not sure, and the rest of it...I was going to wait until later to see what colour might be needed. But I wasn't planning on using any bright colour, because it's right in the colourful part of the mini, that red tabard/loincloth bit, which the blue pants next to it. So I was thinking of a more neutral colour, like bone, or dark grey green or something like that.

Seb, going right back to the first post, I have a few questions

Was curious what colour undercoat you use Especially after I did my samurai helmet in white and then realised I wanted a dark metal

For the base colours, how many layers did you need to get the even colour

And do you generally use any flow improver or medium for the normal painting work

sorry prawn man, I forgot to reply to all your questions from ages ago!!

I used a black undercoat for this one, but really these days the undercoat colour, whether white or black, isn't making much difference to the final result for me I don't think - my GD ork was with white undercoat. I would really like to get one of those grey undercoats actually - I'll have to find one.

Bsae colours, well it depends on the colour you are using, and the undercoat colour! But I would say about 3 or 4 layers maybe - it gets easier after the first 1 or 2 layers,, much quicker.

And no I don't use any flow improver, the only thing I sometimes use is matte medium, but I don't use it much - mainly with metallics, and sometimes when the juices aren't behaving quite right...did you see that article about it in the articles section?

ok, back again with more updates!

First pics: I did a lot of work on the leather straps, belt etc/ - I will probably do a little more work on them towards the end, but they are at a fairly advanced stage of the painting now. I also started doing some work on the metallics, adding some colour with washes/glazes/juices (take your pic! haha). I'm not worrying about being too smooth at this point - I'm going to be doing layers with metallics over the top, and then more glazes and maybe more metallic layers - so it's just to create some sort of under colour and give some nice tones to the metal, you know? Also, I took some side photos, so that you can see the pants better, and the sides of his body with the skin etc.





Next - more work no the metallics, with glazes of blue-ish and purplish colours in certain areas - again, to try to give create some interesting undertones in the metal for future steps. And some other little things here and there....and I worked on the strapping on the axe handle, and changed the colour slightly.





And for the last pics, I worked on his red tabard, did some highlighting etc. And I started working on all the fur parts - I just used a sort of light grey colour for now to give some contrast, but I am planning to use lots of juices and different colourings over it, and I want it all to be quite dark at the end.

Thats coming along very nicely seb, cant wait to see it finished. Would you be able to tell me how you did the belts/straps?
If you want to know where to get some grey spray undercoat, go to bunning's, thats where i got mine, it works great, but make sure its the primer.