Anduriel, Elf Warrior

So here’s the results of my first lesson in NMM. Thanks to Anne Foerster! Overall I have to say I’m pretty happy with how he came out (I hope you’re sitting down!).

I also went a bit further with the hair thanks to ttuckerman mentioning Oiled Leather as a shade for blond hair, and I decided to punch up a couple highlights in my quest to work on my contrast. Now I need to go back and revamp my cloth and leather techniques! I like the effect I got glazing a dark red over the little scroll case or whatever it is, tucked between the sheaths and bedroll.

Tried for some blue/green eyes but it didn’t photograph well. I’ll probably get an eyeroll (hah) from my fiancee, she likes to make fun of the freaky eyes I give characters in video games.

And for fun, here’s an elf I did back in the 90s for comparison.

Anduriel WIP 5

Just about done. Stomach bug is good for one thing, sitting at home with a project I can set down at a moment’s notice…

Everything but the flesh and hair is pretty much done. For some reason the consistency of the green/brown was really fighting me. I was going to get fancier, but just getting in the tonal gradient was a pain. Once again, tried to make the leathers a bit different here and there with some glazes and highlighting a couple different paths. Bedroll I just did like Dain’s, taking the top end leather highlights way higher to simulate a coarse cloth.

Anduriel WIP 4

I’ll start off with this statement: NMM is HARD.

Apologies for the blurry pics as always, autofocus doesn’t like these WIP pics. I usually take a few so one might come out in focus…

So there’s the steel and gold NMM. Easily the most difficult technique I’ve tried, purely from a theoretical standpoint. I’m happy with a few spots (the gold bracers). For something of this level of complexity, I wish the instructions had three WIP pics of each area to be painted as well as a couple larger front/back shots of the completed minis. I was winging it for most of the mini with very little idea of what I was supposed to be doing.

Anduriel WIP 3

 

Eyes done, linen white and the shadow color from the sea blue triad (name escapes me). First pass of highlight on the steel nmm.

Anduriel WIP 2

Base coating completed!

I was originally thinking green scabbards, but changed my mind for leather. Now the fun part starts!

Anduriel WIP 1

Base coating the steel:

 

 

Base coating the leather and skin:

 

Terse!

Non-Metallic Metal

Kit 3 time, finally getting into some NMM!  This Reaper Learn to Paint Kit focuses on painting metal surfaces with non-metallic paint. Metallic paints contain small reflective metal particles (I think it’s ground aluminum). The NMM method is akin to how a traditional painter would paint metal surfaces. I’m going to start with Anduriel.

Primed above, and then lined with Walnut Brown:

The mini I was painting for an exchange ventured too far into the land of experimentation for me to feel comfortable sending it to the recipient. I’ve chosen a pair of minis to paint up for the exchange and will post the WIP for the other mini soon.

The Dead of Winter

Just a quick update for anyone who actually reads this thing. When I wrapped up Dain, I began cleaning up the L2PK3 minis, filing off the offending casting detritus, etc. I noticed the first of the two minis I wanted to paint was mis-aligned, so I contacted Reaper and Adrienne quickly dispatched a replacement. Well, the blistered replacement is also misaligned…So I’ll just go ahead and paint the mini with apologies for alignment issues.

I should probably use the second one to practice fixing things like this with green stuff, but in some places it’s pretty finicky, the braid work around the pouch, for instance.

I am actually painting something else, but it’s for a mini exchange on the Reaper forum and I want to keep it under wraps until I deliver it. It’s already an incredibly challenging project, I have a vision for how I want it to look and my color theory is utterly deficient in delivering that vision. As I’ve said to a few folks, except for the Ogre (and gnoll), all my projects have been fancy paint-by-numbers, whether following Ali McVey’s recipes or the L2PK instructions. So my mental muscles for color choices are not as exercised as my painting muscles.

Dain Deepaxe

Dain WIP 6

First up, clipped off the shield and cleaned up the metal. Then used the engraving pen to take the primer off the socket and filed the primer off the ball, glued it up. Pic freshly glued, filed metal from the join on the shield visible.

Touched up the armpit join and shield, painted the base. Done!

Also, a bonus pic! While I was painting Dain, I kept thinking of a mini I painted probably 1992. So here they are getting ready to go have a beer or twenty.