[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 urban base

Let's continue with the Zombie diorama for the GGS contest 2.
For the base painting, I'm using the washes techniques diluting my colors as most as possible to reduce the opacity and let the Black& White priming works alone.
I start with the right side of the wall, painting the bricks in brown orange. Once finished, I increase the shades (in the up right part of the wall) with washes of transparent black (Warcolours)  and then add some lights with drybrush of warm grey on the illuminated part of the wall.

For the left part of the wall, I've worked mainly with succession of washes of Ocre and warm grey.

I've also painted the central pipe with metalics.
The ground has been painted with blue grey and then with glazes of warm grey for the lights and black for the shades. I used a very large brush for this job, of course with an airbrush the job would be easier, nicer and quicker but I had to adapt me.



I've finished the base painting with the door painted with washes of green and Transparent black. I've added some extreme light on the glasses and painted the zombie's arm in monochrome scheme.
Then I've added the details to make eveything more credible. So a lot miniature printables applied with PVA glue. As everything was still too clean, I've designed some graffitis. I've use some google images for the inspiration, nothing too fanzy anyway, the goal was to make the aspect of the wall dirtier not painting super defined design.

Once applied all the details on the wall, I've worked again on the shades and applied large washes of transparent black in coherence with the overall lightning of the scene.
Finally the final touches: some mini mewspaper and flyier on the ground, painting of the garbages, some dark sepia washes (secret weapon) around the garbage to simulate some dirtiness and finally a little bit of artifical water from the pipe to the gutter. And it's done!

I'm very satisfied of the result. Now I have a lot of jobpainting to do with the zombies to finalize the scene.  



[GGS CONTEST 2] Building the urban base

Here some update of the diorama.
As you can see I've finished the base building.
I've spend a lot of time trying different minis position on the base. Actually I wanted to put  more zombies but I was not happy with the results because the horde created a wall between the survivor and the viewer making the diorama difficult to read.
So at the end, I've choosen to reduce the number of undead and open the visual on the three heroes also because they are the main subject of the contest, it's important to create a good focus on them.

Once decided the position, I took away the survivors, fix the zombies and prime the entire diorama in black. Then using white spray I've placed the light at the center of the diorama to create an artificial lightning from above. I'm very satisfied with the result. It's exactly the effect I wanted:
A strong light on the survivor in contrast with the rest of the diorama immersed in the night darkness.

Ok, now I suppose I need to put some colors on it. See you soon.

[GGS CONTEST 2] buidling urban base 1

It's time for the next GanGeekStyle contest. This time the theme is very fun:
The Good, the Brute and the Nut.
As usual, the miniature's scale are limited to 25 and 32 mn  but the environment and the presentation are free.
Because I had a lot of fun painting Hasselfree miniature for Zombicide during this last months, I've decided to make a diorama with the same object: survivors versus zombies.

So I've selected 3 minis from the Hasselfree catalogue.



But before starting with the painting of the three heroes, I must build and paint my base which needs to be accurated and elaborated if I want my diorama works.

Urban environment of course. My idea is to create an alley by night with illumination on the heroes in contrast with an horde of zombie in the darkness.
Here some pics of the WIP. as usual I've used a lot of coating to create the texture. It seems quite simple and empty right now but adding the zombie minis (from Zombicide) and some garbage on the streets, the whole stage should be credible.


[Zombicide] Survivors proxy

Here my complete team of survivors for Zombicide. All the minis comes from Hasslefree and has been very fun to paint.
I can't wait to receive other ones for Hasslefree to add new survivors proxy to my box games.

[Zombicide] Hasslefree Oakley - Ash vs Zombies

Ash: Good. Bad. I'm the guy with the gun

I needed a little break from the painting contest so I've decided to continue with my zombicide survivors. This time I've worked on Oakley from Hasselfree miniature.
A figure clearly inspired by Ash Campbell from Evil Dead movies.
Great sculpture and very good casting as usual with Hasselfree. He was so easy and pleasant to paint that I've finished him in less of 4 hours.
As I want to use him for the character of Troy, I've choosen the axe for the right hand. I coudln't resist to put anyway the chainsaw on the base just to reinforce the badass attitude of the mini.
Usually I don't like to put gore effect on my miniatures but in this case, it was a question of coherence. It was also a way to link the color of the chainsaw with the rest of the mini.
Enjoy.

[Zombicide] Hasslefree Franck Cisco - Dirty Brad

Uh uh. I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well to tell you the truth in all this excitement I kinda lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow your head clean off, you've gotta ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?

I have a confession to make: I love Clint Eastwood. I've growth with his film, specially the westerns. But my favorite character remains Dirty Harry. The old good 70's badass cop who distribute justice with his gun. Useless to specify that I am enthusiastic to play with his zombicide version, Brad... and of course paint the Kev's version Franck Cisco.

About the hasselfree mini: very nice sculpting and casting as usual. Maybe Franck is a little more massive than the Young Clint but the lineaments of the face are very accurate.

In fact, my aim is to focus on the paintjob of the face because it's the feature of the miniature which allows to identify the character (excluding the 44 magnum of course).
I've used this image of Clint as reference:

Analysing the Clint's face, the main lineage are:
Long and narrow front
Deep orbit with strong eyebrow and smal eyes.
Narrow nose with strong lines near the cheekbones
Straigh lips
deep cheek.

So basically, in term of paintjob I've simply tried to increase the shades where the lineages are deeper (the sides of the front, the eyes,  around the nose and under the cheekbones, the lips). I didn't paint the eyes because it was useless for this scale and the shades already gives a good idea of the lineage.


Here the step by step of the face painting all the references are Warcolours:

Step 1: base layer with Flesh 3 applied very diluated in 3 different layers. (on the image below the color is darker than irl,  you have a better idea of the color on the step 2)

 Step 2: first shading with Flesh 4 to create a sketch of the face. Mainly on the side of the front, under the cheeks and and around the nose.

Step 3: first highlights with Flesh 2.

Step 4: Emphasize the lines of the face with Brown 4. I'm focus on the eyes, the mouth and around the nose.I've also started to painted the hair and the eyebrow to have a better idea of the overall aspect.



Step 4: Last touches with glazes of blue 4 + black on the low part of the face and glazes of red 1+ flesh 2 on the check, the nose and the lips.

Here the result at tabletop distance:



 Nothing special with the rest of the paintjob, the clothes have been painted with the usual base/shades/higlights techniques. I've mixed a little bit of Brown 4 with Warm grey 4 for the color of the suit.

 



[Zombicide] Hasslefree Cobra - Smith the Snake.

This week-end I had some fun with Cobra from Hasslefree miniature.
I've bough this mini as proxy for zombicide survivor Smith. Now, if you've growth during the 80's and you're a kind of nerd as I am, I'm pretty sure that you've catched the inspiration from Carpenter's Escape from New York. 



So my goal was clearly to reproduce the best as possible Snake Plissken. To be honnest, the mini gave me some troubles:
_ the scuplture is very nice but the mini is sold in three differents parts (the body, the left arm and the right arm holding the machine gun).

In fact, it's impossible to paint the mini once assembled because the machine gun covers the chest and part of the face. That's mean if you want to do a decent paintjob you have to paint the right arm separately... I hate to work like that because you cannot fix the gap with green stuff and so have the risk to find some imperfection once your paintjob is done. Actually, I've found a gap on the right shoulder when I've assembled the two parts. Dammit!

_ I've struggled a lot also with the color scheme. Because excepting the 80's zebra trousers, everything on the mini should be black, gun, belt, shirt, gloves, boots, knee protection...a hell of black!.
If you paint yourself you've understood the issue. Not only black is difficult to paint but it's also a pain to create contrast between the different elements of the same color.
So I had to use different techniques for each black parts to simulate different type of textures.
Black metal for the gun and the protection on tibias.
Extreme white highlights with black armor washes for the leather on the boots, the gloves and the belt.
Soft grey highlights for the quilted knee protection and the fabric of the shirt.
It's not very visible on the final pics but I've achieved to obtain a different rendering of black for each part. ouf!

No, Cobra wasn't a so easy painting as I though, but the I'm happy with the result. He looks like Snake, good point.   


Bob Hauk: We'd make one hell of a team, Snake!
Snake Plissken: The name's Plissken!