La Gallerie de Telgar

Zogar Sag dancing with Conan's heart in the hand ! (joking - he's probably trying to perform some dark ritual before cimmerian steel cut him short)

Khosatral Kel (Conan) "the devil in iron"
Some tries to mix flesh and metal (bronze) paints.

Latest paint : a new group of Pict Hunters (blue team)

The last one seems very kinetic...
I don't know if this was intended, but it looks like he's moving to strike.

It's always fun to see someone's work improving from post to post.

You should mix paints a little more, to get smoothier shading. Apply more coats, but thinner ones.

To get better pictures, try to bend a piece of regular office paper to get both the ground and the wall.

Also try a whiter light source.

Do you think you can get all of Conan's painted (+ SG ?) before you get MBP? :p

Thanks for your kind comments. I hope I am improving my skills but I am definitely not improving my speed as I am trying to apply additional techniques (highlights in this case). I am definitely trying to work with thinner coats with dilution but it takes more time

The next technique I need to master is glazing.

Photo light sources should be quite neutral as I use a deported flash. (other ambient lights are indeed warmer) However, a reflector opposing the flash would help...

(and yes I am trying to paint Conan before I get MB:P )

Instead of glazing, which I find a bit tricky (mostly because I'm far from mastering it), you can try to work on the coherence of your shadings and highlights:
once you've set the base colors with the base coat, you should try to mix this base color in both the shadings and the highlights.
Just before highlighting you can add some color and temperature to your shadows with shades. For instance, instead of Reikland Fleshshade for the skin, try some Blue (don't remember the name).

Mixing paints allows you to work on the saturation: without going into too much theory, saturated shadows and desaturated lights is the easiest way and kinda efficient for Tabletop (to desaturate, mix with a tiny drop of white).

Videos and tutos are quite useful, but the main grief I have against them is that they do not teach us the theoretical part of the art: why this color? why this tone? why mix this with that?

It feels like watching a great musician perform an amazing part and getting the part to play it by yourself: you learn to play this part, not how it was thought, and you have to spend numerous hours to learn to compose yourself.

This is a difficult journey we have begun, but a rewarding one.

Like you said, there is a world between the techniques we understand and what we are able to do without messing it.

Bonus:some explanations about color that helped me a lot

http://www.minisocles-blog.fr/2013/11/la-theorie-des-couleurs.html

https://piratevikingpainting.blogspot.fr/2012/04/colour-theory-for-miniature-painters.html

Thanks for your advices.
Here is the princess painted. I tried to work with thinner (and therefore more) paint layers.

I hate to say this, but the princess is lacking a little something. Lipstick would be a good start. But I confess, my perception may be a bit coloured here. What I can easily ignore on the male mini seems to stand out for me on the female mini.

You're right, a bit of lipstick would do a lot to improve her face.
To be honest, the paint job was fine until I tried to do the eyes... As I messed up, I had to apply some more light flesh paint to fix and the result was not great. So I put down my brushes and didn't dare touch the maini again !
Now that this unfortunate incident is over, I may go back to the mini to add a bit of red on the lips (even if it is already varnished - actually I could even add gloss !!!)

I look forward to seeing the princess again after her make over

Latest paint job : Belit's Guards. I tried to use thinner coats. Definitely spent a lot of time on these guys as I found the work on black skin and the contrast with gold bracelets to give very nice results.

I see improvement here!

You should try to desaturate the yellow and green and add some brown tones in them.

Btw, is it brown shade I see on the yellow?

Which paints do you use?

I use army painter shades : violet for the black skin and dark tone (brown) for the rest indeed.

I use both some Lefranc & Bourgeois (very old paints) which needs to be thinner-ed and some Vallejo paints.

The macro photograph remains a great humility lesson...

Don't do macro then.
The goal is to have fun painting them, and to have fun playing them!

Right ! But I am trying to improve my skills.

Don't worry, I have a lot of fun painting them and playing fun is definitely improved with the minis I spent so much time & efforts on.
(unfortunately I have been playing the infernal pursuit lately and neither boss nor pirates are painted    )

My latest work.
I must say I am quite proud of myself - I am feeling like I really improved my skills.
(but I now that there is still a lot of room for improvement)

Conan villains : the Guard Captain and Captain Zaporavo :

Much more precise than the previous ones, good job!

Yet, you should mix paints to improve your transitions (i.e. from brown to yellow)

tip: a brown wash on gold gives it a richer tone easily

and I suggest you invest in Cadian Fleshtone

Some catchup : summer's work on Conan

Last group of 5 x Pict Hunters (green team)


First group of 5 x Pirates (green too)


Skuthus :

Do my eyes deceive me or do the pict hunters have number tattooed on the backside of their right shoulder. If so, I'm trying to decide if Pict should know Roman Numerals

I like the ruby eyes on the skull of Skuthus. Very nice.

Oh my!
You upped your game, didn't you?

(was a bit away from the forum)
Thank you for the nice comments. I believe I am improving my skills (a bit - there is still a lot of room for improvement).

... time to move on to MB:P !!!
I tried to follow Martin Grandbarbe tutorial with the best of my skills (and paints). It was the opportunity to try the glazes technics. I am quite proud of the result. I believe it is my most successful mini up to now.



Grop shot for my 2 MB:P minis

Your blending has improved, indeed!
Having room for improvement is a good thing in my opinion: you have something to aim for, while had you mastered every technique, color, texture and so on, you'd just be, I guess... Bored.

I like your handling of the metallic. The shield and the damage and weathering on it are great. One thing I have to know, was the sword suppose to be chrome? I was not sure if the effect was intentional or serendipity. In either case, I like it a lot. My attempts at chrome never come out right. They just look like bluish bits instead.

For the sword paints, I followed MG's indications and used SC75 Cobalt Alchemy paint - it was a first for me but I agree it brings some nice "chrome" reflections.

Using my own paint references, it was :
base = Vallejo Natural Steel
1st highlight = SC75 Heavy Metal
2nd highlight = SC75 Cobalt Alchemy