[ACHERON ARMY - WINTER IS COMING] LE GRAND CRANE - The horns

After a little bit of anger  for my "non painting" situation, I've been lucky yesterday evening as my kids have decided to go to bed early. (Finally!!!)

So I've catched the opportunity to go ahead with my Grand Crane. Just a short session but enough to complete the huge horns of my skull warrior.

The base color was already painted. I used a  yellow ocre + a touch of blue wet blended with pure black.

Mainly I've worked the light and shadow, defining again the volume. For the color recipe I've semply used the base color with black and white to desaturate the overall color. The base color was a little bit too yellow, not in line with the rest of the miniature and because I wanted to make the horns old and worn, it was important to not let the colors too satutared.

I've also painted some dammages  just to add a little bit of texture because the horns were a little bit too flat for my taste.

    

Next step: finish the legs and the hoofs.

[DISNEY INFINITY MV CHALLENGE] GAME OVER

And it is a failure...
Unfortunatly the due date of the Massive Voodoo challenge was for October the 19th and I was not able to conclude it in time.
To be absolutly honest, I don't even have the time to put my pencil on.
It's the problem when you're a hobbyst with a full time job and a two small kids at home, you never have the guarantee to find free time for yourself.
I'm quite upset with that also because all my painting projects are stopped since 2 months.
In fact, I was also confident to finish  my Rackham Grand Crane before November the 1st for the FigureMentors' Art Quest 2017 but at this point, It will be impossible to do it in time.

Hard time for dad painters...

[ACHERON ARMY- WINTER IS COMING] LE GRAND CRANE- finishing the metals

After finishing my steel metal, I've decided to add some details to make my undead warrior more realistic. So I've painted some battle damage on the armor. The effect is very simple to do and it's a cool added value to the overall result.
Paint your damage in black and underline the reflection of the light in silver on the lower part of the damage. And you have a 3D effect on your flat surface. Quick and simple.
I've also created a little bit of weathering just to make the armor even more broken looking. I've painted the rust with orange brown focusing the effect on the deep spot (including the fake battle damage).
I've decided to go very easy with the rust because I want to keep my color hue the most colder as possible which is quite incompatible with the orange of the rust.  

Enough with the steel metal, it's time to proceed with the golden part of the armor.
Following the same principle than the other color of the mini, I've choosen a cold color for my gold. So pale gold (warcolour) with a drop of black to desature it and a drop of blue to make it colder.
 The result is a fondation of pale greenish gold.

Then I've worked the shades with a first washe of Dark Sepia (secret weapon) and a second wash for the extreme shades of Dark Sepia + Black ink (warcolour) then finished the shading process with a glaze of purple ink (warcolour) always for the extreme shades.

 For the highlights, I've come back first on the light zone with my fondation of pale gold and then increase the light adding silver (warcolour) to the mix until reach pure silver for the extreme lights.
Then some glazes of green ink (warcolour) in the mid light area and finally some touches of turquoise on the deeper textured area to create some verd-de-gris.

 

That's all for today. Next step: the horns.

[ACHERON ARMY - WINTER IS COMING] LE GRAND CRANE - let's play with metal.

A little bit of advancement with my Almighty Skull.
I've decided to work with true metal for the armor parts. I've tried to follow the good tips of Ben Komets on his TMM tutorial.
The most difficult part with true metal is to make it interesting in term of color and not only "metal looking". By the way, mixing pure color to the metal recipe and applying inks you can reach interesting results.

Unfortunatly, my pics are not good enough to catch the color reflections but at least you have an idea of the overall results.

It still in progress because I've planned to paint some damages and weathering to make the skull warrior more credible.     

  

So about the method:
Surface: pure black
The base color has been painted in wet blending mixing Steel (with a touch of blue), black metal and silver following light and shadows of course.
The shades has been increased first with washes of black metal + pure black and then with washes of Black armor (secret weapon).
The higlights has been increased with pure silver I've added to the blue steel I've used for the base color.

For the color variation, I've used very diluted glazes of dark brown ink in the mid shades and blue ink for the mid lights.

Next step: damages and weathering on steel part. If I 've found enough time maybe I will work also on the golden parts. 

[ZOMBICIDE] undead in the mist

I'm having some logistic problem in this period due to some maintenance I'm doing at home. So it's quite complicated to find time and space for my hobby.
As I cannot paint, I play.
This week-end we tried a new Zombicide mission of the saison 1. It was the opportunity to put my painted mini on the table.
Meanwhile I was shooting some pics, the smoke of my friend's electric sigarette had covered the gameboard.
I just wanted to share with you the special effect.
Nothing it's more satisfactory than a game with yours painted miniatures.

   

[DISNEY INFINITY MV CHALLENGE] Repainting MERIDA

Massive Voodoo has launched the MV Challenge 2017.
It's the opportunity for me to partecipate to an other painting contest. I have realized than painting with rules and deadline is a very good way to improve and if the theme of the contest is fun, it's even better.
This year Massive Voodoo proposes two contests:
_ Base with water where you have to build a water-themed based alone.
_ Walt Disney Infinity where you must repaint a Disney Infinity figure. I've choosen to repaint one of this Disney figure. There is a lot of choice in the Infinity range with Pixar, Star War, Marvel and other film of the brand.
At the end I've decided to repaint Merida from the Pixar's Brave. She's a cool character and the difference between the infinity design and the original is also an opportunity to play with the treatment of the different elements as MV let complete freedom in term of creativity.

The deadline is on October the 19th, I suppose it let me enough time to create also a nice base for my princess and maybe do some small conversions. 

[ACHERON ARMY - WINTER IS COMING] LE GRAND CRANE pt 1

After a break away from my pencils, I've finally come back and decided to start painting my Rackham Acheron undead army. Inspired by the new Game of Thrones season, I've choosen to paint my army in a frozen atmosphere. It's also an opportunity for me to try new techniques as I've never created winter and snow base.
Flying on the wave of motivation, I've decided to kick off with the biggest piece of the undead serie: Le Grand Crane ( the Almighty Skull) . It's not only the biggest in term of army point as he's a "living legend" which is, in Confrontation game, the most powerful unit of the army but it also in literary the biggest miniature.
The guy is a massive skull warrior, the skeleton I put on the base give you an idea of the scale. Considering he's a metal miniature, that's also mean he's very heavy. In fact I've struggle a lot to put together and consolidate the different pieces and the base.
The wooden pike I've placed on the base are not only for aesthetic purpose but to maintain the cork under the weight of the mini.
In term of painting, Le Grand Crane is going to be challenging. Not only because he's large but due to the profusion of elements in the sculpture, each of them heavily textured.
Fortunatly the most confusing part of the sculpture is on his back which will be mostly hidden by the huge cloak (which will be itself a challenge in the challenge).
After a black and white priming, I've started to paint to face and the skin parts. Because the colours hue will be mainly cold, I've tried to put some magic effect on his eyes with flashy orange just to create a contrasting focus on his face.
I think it's too soon to understand if the idea is good...

GANGEEK STYLE PAINTING CONTEST 2 - AND THE WINNER IS...

GangeekStyle has published the result of the contest.
I invite you to visit the site and check all the entries, there was a lot of interesting stuff.

On my side, I've placed 6th with my diorama, with the following comments from the judges:

Rintrah: Technically, there is a lot of improvement to do on different aspects (specially the bricks of the wall) but there is a real work on the composition, the light and the environment. A pretty nice scene!

Slave of paint : Nice environment but technically it is not so good. The diorama would work better with a smaller base.

Stéphane Nguyen : A classic diorama staging very realistic and archetypal  characters. It's a bold choice to present monochromatic zombies. Negative aspect: the technic used for the bricks on the wall is perfectable.

Rémy Tremblay thinks that Carkel is the only competitor who's matched the thematic. He's loved his job and think that the processing of the scene is original and cool.

Ivankaiser : The direction is perfect. We can identify the good, the brute and the mad. The choice to paint the zombies in monochromatic hue helps to indentify the main characters. Pity to have missed the the sculpture of the bricks wall, it seems cardboard. I think that the characters should deserve some extra highlights.

First of all, It's fantastic to have feed back from this judges. We are talking about very skilled painters and sculptors,
I'm very satisfied that my choice of direction has been recognized considering the brainstorming behind and the time I've dedicated to the scene. Technically, I'm aware of my limits so I'm not very surprised, it's clearly an aspect I need to improve. Probably I will have to change also my materials for the building of the scene.

Finally, Remy Tremblay's comment is so rewarding! I love his work, and of course considering I've painted the mini he's created for Zombicide, I was a little bit anxious knowing he was part of the judges.
So happy my scene has pleased you Remy.

and now?
I have different project in mind:

A Rackham Confrontation undead army. I've always dreamed to paint a complete army even if I will probably never play with. I have a nice collection of Acheron undead at home waiting to be painted, I would like to use them for this project. (also because I love the way Rackham did the undead)
  

 A Fantasy diorama in historical style. I have a box of major state templar from Rackham, I'me quite inspired my some documentary about templar and cruisader and i would like to paint them in some realistic scheme.

Kingdom Death Monster. I've pledged for the version 1.5 and very anxious to received my box. Can't wait to put my pencils on this mini!

In the short time, I think I'm going to relax mysef with some tabletop painting for zombicide. There is some survivors from Hasselfree waiting to be painted. Pulp time.

[GGS CONTEST 2] The final result

And so, after 6 months of paintjob, I've finally finished my diorama Zed Is Dead for the Gangeekstyle contest.

It's the most elaborate and complete work I've ever done, and I'm quite sure that it would never finish such a big project without a contest to motivate myself.
I'm very satisfied with the result, it's exactly what I had in mind when I've started it 6 months ago. Of course, some details are not perfect, the ground and the shadows would be more neat. There is also some mistake on the characters painting.
I'm very curious and anxious to read the opinion of the judges.

Now, enjoy.  

[GGS CONTEST 2] Painting the survivors - Leonard the brute.

The due date for the GGS contest 2 is very near. I've just finished to paint the second character of my trio: Leonard the brute.
I've taken inspiration of Marcellus Wallace from Pulp Fiction, so the idea is to paint an afro american drug dealer with suspicious taste for clothes.
For the painting of the skin, I've worked with a base of chocolate, shaded with addiction of black and highlighted with cream.  

For the clothes I've chosen a mix of orange and blue (it's the idea of the complementary color for each character, the last one will be paint with Purple + yellow).
The base of the suit has been based with a blue grey and washed with blue. Then I've added the stripes with pure blue and finally work the shades and the light. 

The brute done.

the next and final one will be the good. 

3 weeks remained to the end of contest. 

[GGS CONTEST 2] Painting the survivors - Frank the nut.

I have less than three months to finish my diorama for the contest, it's time to paint the three heroes.
For them, I've decided to use an opposite method than for the zombies. The idea is to paint them with very saturated colors, choosing a limited palette and limiting the use of white and black.
To create cohesion, I'm going to select 2 main colors for each of them playing with the chromatic circle.
I've started with Franck, the mad of the group. I really like the sculpture. He's very original and fun to paint. The colors selected are Green and red (complementary colors).
As I wanted to make him look scruffy, I've get inspiration to Kurt Kobain because I was listening Nirvana when I've started to paint him and though that the grunge style should suit him very well.
I've spent a lot of time on the face to increase as most as possible his expression using glazes of red and blue to create contrast.
Instead the painting of the hairs was most complicated than I though,
Blonde hair has not so complicated, the secret is: Not use yellow!
Instead it's trickier to keep a balance between natural light reflection and "Loreal" super shiny effect which is very nice for a good looking female character less for a grunge style dude.      

For the shirt, I've choosen the red green stripped pattern used by Kobain. It's the same than Freddy Krugger's which is perfect to give a little bit of insanity to the mini. He's the nut of the group right?
The blue jean has been paint with the same method I used for my zombicide survivor. It's a base a blue grey with shades of dark grey and drybrush of white to create the texture of wear. A touch of glazes of orange brown to make it dirtier and it's done.    

For the jerkin, I've painted it like a german military parka. Actually it's not correct because I could not afford to find the right colors and instead painted it with in olive with glazes of blue to correct as most as possible the final hue.
As for the jean, I've used drybrush of yellowish olive to create wear textures even if it's not very visible on the pics.
The beer can has been painted in metalic with a little pattern inspirated on Budweiser in red and white just to give the idea. 

I finalyse the painting with a layer of matt varnish only on the clothes to fuse the colors and increase the contrast with the face.
Franck was fun to paint and I'm very satisfied with the result.
The next hero will be Leonard, the "well-suited brute".

[GGS CONTEST 2] Painting the zombies

Even if I've already painted hundred of this zombie from Zombicide, I admit I'm really enjoying this phase of my diorama because actually it's the first time I'm really painting them. I mean, this time it's not a matter of speed and mass painting, it's finest miniature painting and I have to say this zombies deserve it because the Remy Tremblay'sculpture are great and it's a pleasure to put some colors on this undeads.
To tell the true, I'd already started to paint some of them before starting the base but I had to cancel the paintjob and do it again....because they were too nice.
I know, it sounds strange but I must keep in mind that this Z are not the main characters of my diorama, so it's important to not overdue with contrast and saturation in order to fuse the zombies with the base and create a visual gap with the three survivors.
So I'm using a limited palette of cold and desaturated colors. several type of grey, white, black, purple, blue. I also avoid the extreme higlight, trying to focus more on the shades.
It works quite well to create a night atmosphere.

I've started to glue them on the base, It helps me to see if the lights are corrects and if the overall visual works. I have three other Zombies (for a total of 8 Zombies) to paint for the base but I'm seriously thinking it's not enough to create a good "horde" effect.

Maybe, I would plain to add other two or three to the total to fill the spaces on the base.