Golden Demon Canada 07

So I'm painting right now for Toronto Games Day - May 5th

At the moment I have a LOTR radagast, which is basically done:





Then the Tau special character Shadowsun, which is 95% painted, but still left to do is also the basework, and 3 of his little drones, so still quite a bit. I'm going to title it "extended campaign" and have it write on the base, the idea was to get a beaten up, but still bad ass Tau look:




And now I'm also working on my ogre, which I think I've posted before, but just started painting now, photos of that to come, once I've finished my wyrd piece

I'm also hoping for at least 1 maybe 2 more entries, although not sure what yet, we'll see!

Looks very cool, Eric! I really like Radagast and the Tau looks pretty cool too, though I expect it will come more to its right with a proper base. What are your plans for basing? Do you have photos from other angles too?

Radagast is nice, but the Tau kicks ass .

Any basing ideas?

Both are really really nice! is the tau converted (I don't know the line so well...)? I like the Tau especially.. the colours are really great.

yeah, the photos of the tau obviously are not the best with both the back leg and guns out of focus and the rest not the best, but I'm still learning this new camera.

The Tau is converted, although not that heavily. From the box she has both her legs side by side, and both her guns pointing down, and it is supposed to look like she's flying down and shooting towards the ground...which I thought was increadibly boring, so I changed it, and this pose actually look very much like the one in the codex for her.

The funny thing is that these 2 minis were painted with the exact same colors, just one with blue highlights rather than red, but it is amazing how different they appear when using the paints differently.

As for the Taus base, I'm still a little at a loss, something battlefield-like to fit the theme, and also something where I can fit the 3 drones around her, I'm not going to put the drones on her actual base as they wouldn't be there in game play, but rather included in the just slightly larger display base. However ideas would be great!

It's strange, I thought I thought she might be attempting a counter strike. She seems both cornered to a wall but attacking ... know what I mean?

So maybe hace some ruins behind her, but that seems a bit boring and will hide part of your paint job.

Maybe have arches or some Tau archetecture?

New camera?

yep! Cannon XTI digital SLR

more for my own photography, but it should do well with minis too...once I figure out the best lighting and set up. I really need a dedicated camera setup, not just the corner of my desk with a piece of paper tacked to the wall as a background and undiffused light

Maybe you might want to mark the light spot on her chin a wee bit more. Like a a tiny orange dot.

Macro lens? Tripod? Is that a white or pale grey piece of paper? try using a slightly darker one. What aperature setting did you use?

ok, I'm finally back to painting for this project after a wyrd detour and then another life detour away from painting.

Sven, I don't have a dedicated macro lense, but a rather high quality lens with a macro setting which takes shots as close as .5m. The background is off white, but I really should get a better background, even my blue fade back probably. I think my lighting it the real problem at the moment, since I have 2 lamps but no diffusion. I'm still working on the set up, it just always seems to be 2nd behind actually painting, and there is always more painting to do!

Right now workign on Andre the ogre (you might remember him, I've posted the conversion here) I hope to give him some more attention soon and get up some WIPs

EricJ wrote:

Right now workign on Andre the ogre (you might remember him, I've posted the conversion here) I hope to give him some more attention soon and get up some WIPs

Oh! I thought you were doing a giant based on what you had in your blog . Any new pics?

green stuff wrote:

EricJ wrote:

Right now workign on Andre the ogre (you might remember him, I've posted the conversion here) I hope to give him some more attention soon and get up some WIPs

Oh! I thought you were doing a giant based on what you had in your blog . Any new pics?

Nothing new yet, been a CRAZY couple of weeks of work, and paint time went to wyrd, but yes, the rips are from the ogre, I sort of am having to squeeze in the freehand onto the model since there is not nearly as much space on ogres as giants!

Looking forward to seeing him then .

Yep I'm looking forward too!

I don't think difusion is a major problem atm for your pictures as they don't have really sharp glares or shadows. You might need more light though so that you can use a larger aperature and get more of it in focus.

ok, so I'm painting it for the IP for Wyrd, but also am going to use him for LOTR large at tortonto GD. Wanted to play up the fact that trolls are stone creations by freehanding stone scales as skin. (also a rational for a "different color" skin for the IP). Also figure this mini will be a popular one in the category since it's a really nice sculpt, so wanted to do something to make him stand out.

just a WIP now, mostly to show the skin




I think I like it so far, although all those tiny blends are driving me a little crazy

Positive side : excellent idea!!!

Minor critic : the blends are a bit "too" clean IMHO. Try to put in some variations in the cracks and add some browns and greens here and there to make it feel like he's got moss or dirt on him. You might also want to paint the joints (knuckles, knees, ...) a lighter color to get a worn out feel in them.

Looking forward to seeing him complete!

I agree with cedric, excellent idea and very neat, but a bit too clean! More variations in colourwould also give more of an "organic" stone approach.

BtW, how is the base for the Tau going?

Yeah, I've added a hint of brown to the stone, but it doesn't show real well either in photo or in hand...so it needs more. I like the moss idea, I'll try something with that, what about a vine or something on the leg? Or do you think that would be too much? At the moment the leg seems a large expanse of the stone pattern that could use something to break it up.

As for the tau, I haven't really touched him yet. I just ordered a resin display base for him, which I want to integrate the whole look into, since I'm going to add the 3 drones she has as wargear to that. It's not here yet, but once I have it, I'll have my base to build off of. Still not completely sure what i'll do, I think probably the standard tech ruins if I can't think of something better.

on a side note, Sven, look at that latest photo, I think I managed to get a set up a little better, the photo is crisper and better lit, don't you think?

I think the exposed leg is a good place to really let the colour shifts Cédric and Sven suggested become very apparent. On the other, smaller, areas they wouldn't be as obvious, but on the leg you could really let them show. I think that would be enough for breaking the monotonousness.

A good thing Callumrice doesn't know that he's competing against a future GD entry!

The back leg is actually just as exposed as the front, just from the angle it doesn't seem like it...but of course still the front leg is more in your face, so a good place to add some more interest.

haha, yeah, I sort of feel bad putting this much effort into round 1 against Cal, but it honestly I wanted to do IP to motivate me to do a GD entry every round, and do it to a high level, I think 2 weeks is a good amount of time to get a lot of things done, except for those real complex entries, like the ogre...which reminds me I need to remember to make time to get him done between it all!

A freehand vine? hmm.. then I think it'll have to be very sutbtle. Probably better to do just shifts or moss like Cedric suggested.

Yes I think the picture is a definitive improvement!

Sven wrote:

A freehand vine? hmm.. then I think it'll have to be very sutbtle.

I vote against the freehand. Not because I don't think you could do something believable on a flat zone (those stiches on the under taker sure prove it ), but because here the legs are curved (like most legs ) and so on the "edges" you won't be able to judge and see the "3D" effect ... was that clear ?