Stoneburners - Chapter Champion (Dueling Master) WiP Model

[Interrogator Stobz]

Sorry to hear about your Dawg :)

 

Termies are looking great, really nice shading on the red and other extras. cool as.

 

When I mentioned the uneven highlights earlier I only meant that you didn't just highlight every edge the same and gave some thought to light direction, i.e. the leg piping. Looks cool, obviously you are giving these plenty of effort and it really shows.

Do try to remember which side you have chosen for the direction of the 'light' source though, the top of his head looks lit from the left (as I look at the pic) and the skulls on his waist and rope look lit from the right. Sorry to nit pic, you are doing such a fine job I thought I'd be harsh on you :)

 

Brilliant scrolling btw, great to see a steady hand at work, real letters FTW!!!

 

Question; (I'm too lazy to go back and read through B) ) did you use a sponge for the battle damage or a brush? I'm a bit scared to do it myself but am interested in giving it a try on a spare model.

 

stobz

[Bryan Blaire]

Thanks guys!

 

Stobz, thanks for the critique, that's the sort of thing I was hoping might come up. As far as the highlighting, can you tell me what it is about the head that makes it look like that, because I think there's two things going on: 1) I need to clean up the orange spot highlight, one side looks stronger than the other, and it's the wrong side (left side in the picture); 2) I think there is some actual lighting causing the right side to be a bit more shadowed than the left, so I may try to take a clearer picture with different lighting and PM it to you to see what you think. Anything else that might need to be cleaned up or revised for this or later minis?

 

The battle damage I did with a little torn off corner of sponge from a figure clamshell.

[Captain Semper]

I am a bit lost... Is Stobz refering to the head of the Sergeant with the red stripe? I thought the left part looked kind of brighter but I dismissed it as bad lighting from real light...

 

Did you use flash when you took the picture? I found taking pictures in natural daylight better - no reflection from the flash, no artificial shining etc. Then again it IS Greece :(!

 

EDIT: of course I need to get a proper camera instead of using the wife's iPhone...

[Interrogator Stobz]

Chest Crux Terminator:

Hi again,

My critique was only based on this guy, don't repaint him, he is great!!

The light 'source' appears to be from the viewers high and slightly right, at about even with the side of the model when you look at the skulls and to a lesser degree the leg piping etc on the body. This is a cool theme that is across all the models (the leg ones are wicked).

The small raised squareish shape on his forehead appears to have a cast shadow from a light source that is high, left and behind the model.

The Sgts' head has 'zenithal' shading and looks great.

Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, and it is a VEEERRRYYY small nit pic. I shouldn't be such a perfectionalist with your models when mine leave so much to be desired in the shading department :) .

Your ropes are really nice now too.

Keep up the great work, BTW your models are still 'armless :P

I hope that makes sense, I hope to get more critique when I finish and post my next termie 'geeks' (as my kids call them) too.

Never too late to learn new techniques aye? That fella 'ron' has done such a wicked job on his DW he has inspired me to change my plan for my DW(again :ph34r: ), I hope to tone them down in order to get them a bit more 'grimdark' looking, I was failing at that before. Maybe even battle damage....

Enuff waffle

stobz

[Brother Kovash]

Beautiful work as always Bryan, especially with that sergeant's helmet. The only criticism I can give is that you're doing too good of a job painting these guys up, and when I look at the 2 squads I still have to paint I cry a little inside. :(

[Bryan Blaire]

I'm glad you guys are enjoying them, and I apologize for any metaphoric tears. I'm currently in a funk because we lost our oldest dog last night at the age of 12 and a half, which is actually about 2 years longer than the vets really gave her, so we're just dealing with all the mixed emotions, so no painting right now. I am looking at the models and attempting to plan out how I'm going to paint up the claws, hammers and storm shields and I've been distracting myself with work and researching painting and light theory (based on not really knowing what Stobz was talking about with "zenithal" shading ;) ) and deciding if I want to try and do some kind of Sky/Earth True Metallic Metal painting on the shield rims (as I think they will be bronze). I really am just making this :cuss up as I go along, because TBH, I don't know what the heck I'm doing and I'm just trying to emulate pictures I've seen online and on the forums here, but I really don't know what the artists painted them that way, so I probably am mixing different lighting schemes and ideas together willy-nilly.

 

Thanks again for the support, and seriously, if people have things they think could be improved (especially if you happen to have a tutorial or "concept" article on the topic handy), it really would be greatly appreciated.

 

I am a bit lost... Is Stobz refering to the head of the Sergeant with the red stripe? I thought the left part looked kind of brighter but I dismissed it as bad lighting from real light...

 

Did you use flash when you took the picture? I found taking pictures in natural daylight better - no reflection from the flash, no artificial shining etc. Then again it IS Greece ;)!

Nah, no flash, they we actually sitting on a window sill near the sunlight, but it was washing all the detail out in the photos, so I retook shots in the same place but sitting in the shadow of the little bar that goes up the center of the window so that it still got the ambient light, but the direct light wasn't there any more. I think the left part is kind of brighter, but I think that is just me not getting enough of the brighter paint onto the right side of the model, and I'm going to work on touching that part up.

 

Hi again,

 

My critique was only based on this guy, don't repaint him, he is great!!

The light 'source' appears to be from the viewers high and slightly right, at about even with the side of the model when you look at the skulls and to a lesser degree the leg piping etc on the body. This is a cool theme that is across all the models (the leg ones are wicked).

The small raised squareish shape on his forehead appears to have a cast shadow from a light source that is high, left and behind the model.

 

The Sgts' head has 'zenithal' shading and looks great.

Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, and it is a VEEERRRYYY small nit pic. I shouldn't be such a perfectionalist with your models when mine leave so much to be desired in the shading department B) .

 

Your ropes are really nice now too.

 

Keep up the great work, BTW your models are still 'armless :P

 

I hope that makes sense, I hope to get more critique when I finish and post my next termie 'geeks' (as my kids call them) too.

Never too late to learn new techniques aye? That fella 'ron' has done such a wicked job on his DW he has inspired me to change my plan for my DW(again B) ), I hope to tone them down in order to get them a bit more 'grimdark' looking, I was failing at that before. Maybe even battle damage....

 

Enuff waffle

 

 

stobz

I think the light direction thing is because I paint with a desk lamp attached to the right side of my painting tray, so it is a lot easier to paint the things I see, although I still have some issues with my layering and deciding where my mid-tone really is. The little dark spot on the top of the head, I don't honestly know why I painted it that way, I definitely didn't intend to paint it as a cast shadow, but just as a highlight of paint transitional area. I think that one has it the most pronounced because I was likely a bit sloppy on that one, so I probably need to touch it up if it looks bad. It does look a bit lop-sided on the picture, I need to figure out if it really looks that lop-sided IRL. Do all the heads look odd like that, with a cast shadow from that little raised square head part?

 

Thanks on the ropes, Stobz, I think they may need a touch more highlight on the more exposed tips of the ropes, but I'm a tad worried about getting them too sloppy.

 

I've really liked your Termis, Stobz, I don't think you need that much toning down really to make them "grimdark" but then, the old "grimdark" stuff was usually starkly, brightly painted. :D Good luck though!

 

Did you say waffles? I like my drown in syrup, with a little butter, but that's cause I'm a sugar freak. :D

[Bryan Blaire]

Well, work has begun some progress. They are now on their way toward having arms! Now it ain't a scene, it's an arms race!

The plan is for black armor and bone supports, similar to the legs of the Terminators. The wire enclosures running down the back of both arms are going to be darkened with washes and then highlighted. The icons on the arms will be bone with brass (where appropriate). The grip and generator wire housings are also going to be brass, with the conduction wires on the hands being red with a lightning appearance. The exposed wires from the enclosures to the grip are going to be red in combination with black and yellow hazard striped (hopefully I can make that look good). I plan to do the claw blades with red lightning "Catattafish style," which I hope I can make good without having the reference points of the corners of the thunder hammers.

Here's the beginning (and hopefully shows that Stobz's previous concern has been fixed some):

Hope you guys think this is a cool idea. Thanks and any CnC appreciated!

[Brother Kovash]

Sorry to hear about your dog. Losing pets is never a good thing.

 

 

And once again, awesome work on the arms. I went with Hawk Turquoise for my Lightning Claws, but I can't wait to see your red claws. What color do you plan on painting the crux?

[Interrogator Stobz]

Echos Brother Kovash's dog comments.

 

Man you are a steady painter, I'm loving the way every brush stroke on every part of every mini is well thought out and precise. Sooo different to my process, well done on the arms and the slight change on the helmet has balanced the light direction too(sorry I'm an egg sometimes).

Can't wait to see more Bryan, my life is a no paint zone this week too, family visitors for the holidays and rugby semifinals tonight and tomorrow. GO THE ABs!!

[Captain Semper]

Tell me what you like, the Lightning Claws are the coolest looking Terminator weapon! :). I also like the interesting touch of the bullet trace on the shoulder pad. B)

 

Good luck with the hazard stripes on wires... I find this very challenging because unless the yellow & black segments are identical in size it looks soooooo wrong.

 

Red LC? Great idea! contrasting enough but also binding them with the rest of the force that has red elements (helmets for one).

 

What/who is Cattafish? (excuse the ignorance).

[Bryan Blaire]

Sorry to hear about your dog. Losing pets is never a good thing.

Echos Brother Kovash's dog comments.

Thanks a bunch guys. Pain's slowly fading, but we haven't been prepared to scatter her ashes just yet. (Yeah, we're weirdos like that)

And once again, awesome work on the arms. I went with Hawk Turquoise for my Lightning Claws, but I can't wait to see your red claws. What color do you plan on painting the crux?

Man you are a steady painter, I'm loving the way every brush stroke on every part of every mini is well thought out and precise. Sooo different to my process, well done on the arms and the slight change on the helmet has balanced the light direction too(sorry I'm an egg sometimes).

Can't wait to see more Bryan, my life is a no paint zone this week too, family visitors for the holidays and rugby semifinals tonight and tomorrow. GO THE ABs!!

Tell me what you like, the Lightning Claws are the coolest looking Terminator weapon! :). I also like the interesting touch of the bullet trace on the shoulder pad. :cuss

Good luck with the hazard stripes on wires... I find this very challenging because unless the yellow & black segments are identical in size it looks soooooo wrong.

Red LC? Great idea! contrasting enough but also binding them with the rest of the force that has red elements (helmets for one).

What/who is Cattafish? (excuse the ignorance).

Brother Kovash, I'll be doing the Crux Terminatus in bone, similar to the icon on the leg of my Cyclone launcher Terminator (the guy with the eye targeter on his head).

The head thing is funny, because I actually didn't touch the paint on it at all. I have a feeling that may have just been a "feature" of how I took that particular photo, because this is the exact same guy with the image taken with the same camera in the same place. :cuss

Quick update, hope you guys like! I think I started to feel a little rushed to get it done last night, so some of the lightning got a little too thick. I like the effect, but I may go back and take the white lines along the lower edge of the blades back off. I've always pictured lightning claws with bolts of the lightning energy moving down the claws themselves and between the claws in cascading arcs, but there really isn't a way to paint that, so I thought this effect might look cool. Not sure I totally pulled it off, and I may end up just painting a faded dark red -> red -> orange -> yellow -> white just at the tips version as well.

Anyway, the claws!

CPT Semper:

Catattafish on YouTube:

He's got many more in his channel, and they are usually pretty good.

CnC? Thoughts?

[Bryan Blaire]

Thunder Hammer! I like this effect, however, I'm not terribly sure on the border/divides between the dark -> light transitions, but even my thinning and feathering of the paint didn't make it any less stark.

Thoughts, CnC?

[Captain Semper]

My first reaction when I saw the pictures was WOW! Then I read your comment and start me thinking...

 

OK the red/yellow contrast to the black is win! Pure and simple. The divides between red and black could be more gradual but it is a small surface, which means sharp contrast can work. Of course if you zoom it in the picture it kind of asks for a black-ish red "glow" around the edges of the bright areas kind of thing... But that's no biggie and the model can stand its ground as is (pun intended :P)

 

What I think can do with a re-visit (I don't know if it is possible in this model though) is the electric sparks. I'd expect something more angular/edgy to represent electricity... But this is a matter of taste.

 

Overall congrats for a brave and original approach! Even with no further touches it is a great miniature!

[Brother Immolator]

Semper remember that those are from a zoomed in camera.With naked eyes even we were handling the terminator up close we woudnt notice.

 

Those are win!I have never seen a thunder hammer like this before!

[Captain Semper]

Semper remember that those are from a zoomed in camera.With naked eyes even we were handling the terminator up close we woudnt notice.

 

I thought that's what I said... maybe I wasn't clear. But that's what I meant regarding the black/red boundries. However the lightning lines will stand out and I just think it'd be better to make them more angular and less curvy. No matter, it looks awesome as is anyway!

 

Those are win!I have never seen a thunder hammer like this before!

 

Neither have I! Full points for originality!!! (Personally I am unable to do any effect on the power weapons without ruining them and therefore stick to bolt metal with maybe some washes: BORING).

[Isiah]

To say these are really coming together nicely is a bit of an understatement I guess. The thunder hammers and claws are pure awesome sauce. What I like best is the way you are shading the curved recesses in the 'cheeks' of the terminator helms - in fact all the bone area recesses :D.

 

Cheers

I

[Bryan Blaire]

My first reaction when I saw the pictures was WOW! Then I read your comment and start me thinking...

 

OK the red/yellow contrast to the black is win! Pure and simple. The divides between red and black could be more gradual but it is a small surface, which means sharp contrast can work. Of course if you zoom it in the picture it kind of asks for a black-ish red "glow" around the edges of the bright areas kind of thing... But that's no biggie and the model can stand its ground as is (pun intended :D)

 

What I think can do with a re-visit (I don't know if it is possible in this model though) is the electric sparks. I'd expect something more angular/edgy to represent electricity... But this is a matter of taste.

 

Overall congrats for a brave and original approach! Even with no further touches it is a great miniature!

I do agree with you a little bit on the angular bolt trail, but most lightning shots I have been looking at as inspiration generally are mostly organically curved with a couple of jagged corners, at least from a distance in photos. Unfortunately, that hammer is probably the best it is going to be on the head, but I'm going to be doing two things on the following hammers (especially as this guy is one of the back row combatants):

1. At least one jagged corner in the main bolt.

2. One main bolt per hammer side, and many fewer side bolts to make each side less busy.

 

I definitely have a lot more work to do on this guy though, wires, grip, the small skull set as the pommel, and the entire shield! :lol:

 

Those are win!I have never seen a thunder hammer like this before!

Many thanks, but you need to check out those links, Catattafish does do some great stuff on his hammers!

 

Neither have I! Full points for originality!!! (Personally I am unable to do any effect on the power weapons without ruining them and therefore stick to bolt metal with maybe some washes: BORING).

Nah nah nah, not that original. And honestly, being able to do a good wash gradient over metal is definitely something that takes some talent, IMO, as any blending is, which I've been unable to get down so far.

 

To say these are really coming together nicely is a bit of an understatement I guess. The thunder hammers and claws are pure awesome sauce. What I like best is the way you are shading the curved recesses in the 'cheeks' of the terminator helms - in fact all the bone area recesses :D.

 

Cheers

I

Thanks a ton, Master Isiah! :lol: I'm glad people are liking them. I think that the claws are going to need a lighter base coat color, to make the "glow" a little more obvious, and I'm definitely going to try and step the dark corners back some as well on the hammers. I also probably need to stop being such a stickler for getting the details "perfect" and actually get to painting my dang army. I've had only two tactical squads, one Dreadnought, a LR, LR Crusader and Command squad painted up for something like 4 to 5 years.

[Interrogator Stobz]

You've done a great job on the weapons BB, I wish mine were half as good (it just aint my forte).

 

Take as long as you need with these bad boys , it's better to get it right than to be constantly repainting (believe you me ^_^).

 

stobz

 

Btw, funny about the head :D

[shabbadoo]

Pretty nice thread. :D I always like to see how people deal with lightning claw/thunder hammer effects. It is probably one the toughest things to get "right".

[Bryan Blaire]

So, after a long while, I've finally started working some on improving the basics of my Tactical Squads (I just can't find the motivation to get going on the Terminators again for some reason), and I've decided to start working on the highlighting. I have been working on them with the idea that the sun during this fight is just a bit more on the yellowish side of light, rather than the Earth-standard "white" we're used to, so I worked on some black + bleached bone coloration (best cream-ish off-white I have) for highlights, and this is what I have right now:

 

Suffice it to say, I was trying to go for a "subtle" edge highlighting, which is probably a dumb idea, because most of the edge highlighting is in reality extreme highlighting, so that's like saying "I wanted a subtle extreme"... personally I think this guy is the suckage.

 

So, can someone point me in the direct of a good "edge highlighting" tutorial and give me some comments/criticism? Please note: the helmet should be black, but that hasn't been painted yet, or highlighted, and I apologize for the crappy pictures.

 

Edit: removed images because they were junk and I don't know what I was thinking.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Highlighting black is tough, if I ever figure it out I'll let you know ;)

 

Nice to see you back at it brother.

[Captain Semper]

Hey! Good to see you back on the painting station!

 

Ok firstly, this guy looks menacing - choice of colors works very well... AND he's got a drilled barrel - I know Stobz would be happy ;). Secondly the idea of a more yellowish highlighting is not bad at all. Judging from the picture it's as sharp as it needs to be and I like your style of highlighting certain parts of the same contour to make the effect, umm... effective? :).

 

"Subtle-exterme" could be your signature style - don't play it down, I'm telling you it works! Maybe you need to do it on more areas of the model - like the edges of the leg-armour and the hands, and I also think the figure would benefit from some Green highlighting for the shoulder pad... I'm sure you'll get round to it once you're happy with the black highlighting.

 

Good to know the helmet is not done yet (it looked like it could use some highlighting) but the eyes look ace.

 

Now you are committed! Let's see these guys roll out! Which Company are you gonna do for the Greenwing guys?

[Isiah]

Great looking marine.

 

I really like the large bore drilled barrel on that guy :). So often the drill used for drilling barrels is too small so consequently the holes just look wrong somehow. So great work on that.

 

Cheers

I

[Bryan Blaire]

Thanks guys! When I get an entire squad painted up and finished (including battle damage), I'll post them up, then you can let me know what you guys really think. :)

 

I figured the Bleached Bone added in for the highlights because I'm already using Bleached Bone for the harshest highlights on the bases I've already done, so I figure hopefully it will help tie everything all in.

 

Isiah, I think that might be a 3/32" drill bit I've been using. I think I also used the same bit on my Heavy Bolter, so it isn't large enough, I think I'm going to try a 1/8" or 5/32" bit.

[ellis_esquire]

Looking crisp and clean Bryan!