Eternal Paint Log

[Never Eternal]

So it's been a few days since I started painting my models and I have some results!

First off, a bit of an introduction:

The workspace:

A dark, dusty old garage; an atmosphere conducive to working on creatures that rise from tombs. My housemate collects dwarves and he's been working on his models too. The vast majority of the stuff on the table is his. I work on the left side, he works on the right.

Note the old stereo we dug out in the far right of the image. We got that running on day 2, and it has made the hours cruise by. Kind of got to be careful not to start dancing while painting though or you can seriously mess up whatever you're doing, lol.

I got this tile for mixing on while I was at the store buying the lamp. I almost didn't "bother" getting it, but man am I glad I got this thing. I imagine painting would have been impossible without it.

The photos aren't the best... I've barely ever used my camera so I couldn't really tweak the settings.

Anyway, here's how my skeles are looking:

So far I've just done the bone parts and the weapons. I'm thinking I'll do a drybrush of mithril over the hilts and blade edges of the weapons to bring out the shapes that little bit more. I'm waiting on some paints I ordered to be delievered so I can work on the shields, and I'm still a little undecided on exactly how I'm going to paint the armour.

And here's my ghouls:

These guys have taken 2 days so far... pretty intense. But I have learned soooo much with them. So far I've only done the flesh parts, all the hair and detail parts are still to do. Purple is going to be the running theme through my army, so I'm thinking the hair on these guys will be that. As for the eyes... maybe a blazing orange or something like that.

My first terrain project:

A friend of mine gave me this blob of resin foam that overflowed from a plastic cup when his dad was doing... I don't know what he was doing with foam, but yeah. I saw the potential in that blob for AWESOME SPIRAL MOUND. Carved away at it, added rocks and a base and primed it by hand with a tiny brush. A labour of love.

It's going to be grey-brown sort of clay looking dirt with dead looking static grass in patches and grey stone rocks. A morbid bit of land I imagine straight out of Sylvania.

I keep thinking about what I could add to it... like a dead tree at the summit or something. Maybe something more subtle. Any ideas?

And last but not least... practice goblins!

I've also got a Corpse Cart and 10 Dire Wolves waiting to be painted. I can't wait to have a go at the wolves... they have a fantastic variety of textures on them, and they're reasonably large surfaces, good blending practice.

More to come!

 

[Vladimir the bloody]

Hey man, your a good painter, specially like your ghouls. And the bones are nice too. Keep up the good work!

 

[Dogmar]

Hey Never Eternal.

That looks like a good start for your army. I like the clean and natural colours on both, the ghouls and the skellies. Also a purple colour scheme can look very good, if done right. Compared to mine your workspace looks pretty organized acutally. Good thing that you've so much space in the garage - where I live that would be a tad too cold in the winter months.

My only recommendation so far would be to get a bigger light source. You'll literally see your whole work in a different light with a new lamp. I recommend one that imitates daylight as it doesn't change the look of a colour and is very eye-friendly.

Cheers,

Dogmar

 

[Alfika]

Looking good, very smooth and nice flesh tone on the ghouls, will be a joy to follow.

 

[Boo]

Great to see that you've started a log here.

All your stuff look very good! I especially like the bone colour on your skellies and the flesh tone on your ghouls. Great work on them.

The terrain project looks pretty awesome so far. In my mind I can see a necromancer or a vampire standing at the top, summoning more minions!

Your painting area is much better than mine, and you've got loads of space for your stuff. Nice!

I hope more is to follow soon!

All the best,
Boo

 

[Grish]

I've bought a light source that emulates light to do painting, and I haven't really been happy with it. Main reason being is... when am I ever playing the game in natural light? It's always going to be under fluorescent bulbs or something, so the light will be distorted. I have half a mind to paint to accommodate that distortion.

 

[Never Eternal]

Thank you everyone!

The photos are misleading in that they kind of blur together the detail of the surfaces. The brush work is considerably less smooth than it looks here... its kind of scratchy and has more noticeable jumps between values.

The main technique that I've really been abusing is dry brushing. I pretty much exclusively dry-brushed the ghouls, though I did try to pull off some basic blending of the mid-tones up to the highlights.

I don't really know very much about blending technique though; I've got a feeling I'm working way too dry for it, but any time I add water to the brush the pigments immediately run into the cracks of the model, or just generally into places I don't want them to..

As for the lighting, just to be clear, I've been using the black lamp on the left of the image. It has a 100W daylight globe and provides quite clear lighting for painting. Would you guys say this is enough? Not enough? If not, what size lights are ideal?

Also a purple colour scheme can look very good, if done right.

It's been a toss-up between a classic sort of blood red theme and a regal sort of purple. But purple has prevailed.

I've been thinking Liche Purple then Warlock Purple, then probably a mix of Warlock with a warm bright colour like Bleached Bone or something. Still waiting on the new paints to see how that looks.

I also have no idea as of yet what to put on the banner... looking at banners people have done here they are pretty incredible, I want to make sure I do something really cool; so thinking, thinking...

 

[Nikos]

A very nice start, I echo everyones sentiments on the ghouls skin looking really nice. Lets see some more progress soon. Any plans for characters?

 

[Never Eternal]

Thank you, Nikostratus.

The characters have been a tough one. I still haven't really formulated any kind of story or fluff for my army, and that kind of basis would really help me shape the character of my... characters.

I must attest that very few of the GW vampire models resonate with me. The ones I respond to the most are Manfred on the mount and the Aristocratic Vampire. But even those are only a partial fancy.

So it's likely I'll try to concoct some kind of custom model from other sources. I had a brief look through a few alternative miniatures catalogues, and there was a whole heap of models that I could harvest parts to create my Frankenstein, so to speak.

Initial ideas are the body of this guy, with a non-armoured head, no shield, different pose for his left arm... something like that. I've yet exhaust my search, so the idea is a work in progress.

I really like combat-oriented vampires. Blood Dragons are my favourite bloodline from the old rules, and a lot of the characters I take have that kind of direction to them. So I imagine most of my models will have lots of armour and mean looking weapons.

(Unrelated to that, I absolutely LOVE this bat swarm model.)

Anyway, little bit of a painting update:

Still waiting for my new paints to arrive (I missed the delivery somehow), so I've started working on my Dire Wolves with my existing paint collection.

Like the ghouls, I'm focusing on the flesh first. I'm using a similar scheme to what I used for the ghouls, but I added more layers to create smoother gradients, since the surfaces are generally larger on the wolves and thus gradients are put under more scrutiny.

It's only the skin that I've focused on in this pass. The muscles and bones will have their own treatments. Altogether it should bear a resemblance to the pink, fleshy wolves in the VC army book (I hope!)

I really wanted to get the pink-purple bruising to show through on the flesh, as these colours will greatly help to tie the wolves in to the army's theme of purples [bruising in the case of the wolves], muted complementary yellows [bone], neutrals (dark grey) [the fur], and red accents [exposed muscles, flecks of gore around the mouth (to be added)].

I painted a single wolf's flesh to near-completion first to make sure it would look right before committing to a whole bunch of painting on the others. I was happy with how it's looking so I started an assembly-line on 4 others to bring it up to a batch of 5.

I'm taking WIP photos of the others, which I will display when I've completed them.

Man... I sure did go on a prattle then.

 

[ValoR]

Man... the flesh looks cool! It suits me.
Very nice color gradient with clear and light edges.


I'm curious about the next steps!

P.S. The stone stair terrain look also good.
P.P.S Beware with the Reaper minis. Sometimes they are smaller then the GW-minis i think.

 

[untitled_musketeer]

That flesh on the dire wolves looks epic. Is it possible to have a quick breakdown of the colours and rough mixes?

 

[Never Eternal]

EDIT: Have updated this post with images and better paint mix description.

Cheers

That flesh on the dire wolves looks epic. Is it possible to have a quick breakdown of the colours and rough mixes?

Sure thing:

• Chaos Black primer
• Coat with Dark Flesh, may leave sockets and such black (I didn't really):
  
  
  
  
• Overbrush ~1:2 mix of Dark Flesh, Skull White
  (no image yet)
  
• Overbrush 3:4 mix of Scab Red and Bleached Bone, but leave some parts of the previous layer still showing through; this is the start of the gradient building process:
  
  
  
  
• 2:5 mix of Scab Red and Bleached Bone, dry brush fine edges, continue to build up the gradient you've established in prev layer:
  
  
  
  
  
• 1:6 mix of Scab Red and Bleached bone, dry brush fine edges further, end the gradients. Expansive or pronounced areas such as the head are good spots for this layer to be dominant.

As a general rule for deciding on laying out gradients, I thought, "Tight skin is lighter, loose/hanging skin is bruised". I didn't hold to this in all cases, but there was a lot of times I was a bit lost and used that concept as a helper.

BEWARE: I'm not 100% sure on those ratios of paint. Nearly all my mixing is kind of... improvisational. I mix it, paint a little bit on, see if it looks right, adjust the mix, etc. I really should have wrote it down when I was painting... :slapface:

So I recommend using that list as a veeery rough guide... the main one are making sure the SkullWhite/DarkFlesh layer is not too bright (should transition nicely from the Dark Flesh coat) and the final bright layer is not too dark (can use the photos to get a basic idea). I'll sit down and work out the "exact" mixes and show some WIP photos of the wolves when I get them done.

I've yet to return and finish off the other wolves. I got a Citadel Wood set and some more paints (Devlan Mud, woo!) and some scatter, so I've been a little distracted by that.

Also did a layer on the terrain with some Codex Grey. Still not 100% convinced it's what I want, but I will continue and see where it leads.

Hooray for terrain!

Pictures to follow soon...

UPDATE:

I got the trunks of the woods assembled. First time I've used greenstuff; was really fun, I can see myself using it way more in the future.

I'm going for a "not quite dead" look for the woods. There'll be patches of yellow leaves and a dry, yellow grass for the ground. Pale blue-greys for the bark. I'm trying to think of some Sylvania-specific details I can add... so far all I've come up with is a busted coffin lid (shield from the Skeleton Warriors sprue) or maybe some territorial markings of ghouls. Anyone have any other ideas?

Also here's how the spiral piece is looking with the new coat:

Not really that exciting yet. Will be a couple more layers of grey yet. Now that I have my new paints I'll be able to get working on the dirt, too. The spiral piece will share the same scheme as the woods; dry dead grass, dark, loose soil and grey-blue stone.

 

[Azrael]

love the purple on the skeletons and love the terrain
keep the good work i'll be watching.......................... :Vampire1:

edit
ps really like the ghouls

 

[Monkey's_Uncle]

Those skellies are looking really nice!
I also really like the way you've painted your ghouls they seem to really fit the background very well...

The dire wolves look a bit ugghh, but that's because I have an irrational dislike and hatred for the models and nothing to do with your painting!

 

[Boo]

This is coming along nicely!

I quite like how those dire wolves are looking.

Have you decided what to put on the top of your stone structure?

 

[Touraant]

I had an idea for the top of your stone and tree with a noose in it (add zombie/skeleton or a model from a friends army)

great stuff! love the paint jobs.

Touraant

 

[Never Eternal]

Thanks everyone!

Well I painted for 14 hours straight the other day...

The skeletons are basically finished now. There's still some very minor details like little bits of gold and stuff on trinkets, but here's how they look anyway:

Apologies for the bad photo quality... hopefully you can make out whats going on.

I'm really happy with this shield:

I'm also really pleased with the blending I got on the purple clothes:

I still have to think of a design to put on the banner. I'm kind of terrified to proceed with that. :lol:


I also got a lot done on the ghouls:

I still have more work to do on the bone areas to brighten them up, as well as touch ups on a lot of mistakes I made (was towards the 5am mark at the time, lol). Ghouls are seriously tricky to paint compared to skeletons... there's hair and chains and bones and crap all mixed together. Cool though.

Oh and I've got the flesh done on 5 of the wolves now:

I spent a toooonne of time trying to work a scheme for the exposed muscles... it still eludes me.

I had an idea for the top of your stone and tree with a noose in it (add zombie/skeleton or a model from a friends army)

great stuff! love the paint jobs.

Touraant

Thank you Touraant! Way back when I was originally carving out the shape of the spire I thought a big tree on top of it could look cool, but dismissed the idea as "too over-the-top". How foolish I was.

Here's a quick concept I sketched up:

I should be able to sculpt the crows and nooses, but I'm going to need some delicious corpse models. Any recommendations?

 

[Mr Saturday]

There's the skeleton in the gibbet on the giant sprue, (there's also a crow and vulture on there) and there's some usable bits on the corpse cart frames. I've a good feeling about this plog, I think it's gonna be a great one. I love your dire wolf skin technique, it looks fantastic. I shall be watching for updates with great interest!

 

[Nikos]

The zombie kit has half a zombie hanging from a rope. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out

 

[Count Lasombra]

Nice concept art.I really love the flesh on your wolves,it's enough to make you wanna weep at their current rules nerf.Your plog is quite promising

 

[Vladimir the bloody]

Nice man, youre coming along all fine. Hope to see that sketch come alive MUAHAHHAHA!

 

[Never Eternal]

Thank you everyone for the suggestions and encouragement!

There are definitely some useful bits around... but I've really only just started my collection so there's not a lot of spare stuff I have around; a Giant kit is packed full of goodies, but a little expensive for me to get at the moment.

Also, I dislike the GW zombies. I've been eying off the Mantic zombies to fill my ranks, so I'll be missing out on any goodies that the GW kit holds.

I DO have a ghoul arm holding a mutilated torso+head and a torso+skull from the skeleton sprues. With a little bit of greenstuff I should be able to really dress them up to look like corpses that have been picked at by carrion for weeks.

I might... might even be able to just make a gibbet. It seems to be a relatively simple structure...

Besides that here's a small update on how the wood is looking:

I've yet to add the grunge/moss/scum on the rocks, roots and bases of the trees, as well as another layer or two of the bark for the trees themselves. Then I have to add scatter and of course the leaves!

I'm excited about making a gibbet now... may have updates regarding it to follow!

 

[Touraant]

Love the concept art! looks great keep it up

Touraant

 

[Vladimir the bloody]

Well eternal you can find most of the stuff here:

http://www.bitzbox.co.uk/

 

[WeakNagash345]

wow.... i love it!!! i wanna paint like that but i lack in the skill....:'(