Assembling and painting The Raven Priest pt. 7

Sorry it's been a while since the last part of this series - we got really busy with the release of Broga and have only just managed to get back to The Raven Priest. Here's two parts in one go though - the loin cloth and the hair, both painted by Ali.

Loin cloth - Quite a simple process this one. The base coat was a linen colour - which is basically a sandy buff colour, but with just a spot of green in it. I believe the one she actually used was a Wargames Foundry colour called Moss. This was shaded down by adding a tiny dot of blue to the base colour to give cooler shadows. As normal, the shade colour is applied to the insides of the creases - but on this miniature the bottom part of the loin cloth is over-hanging so gets quite a lot more of the shade colour - and even darker in the creases in that area.

The highlight tones are a mix of the base colour and off-white. You don't really want to use a straight white here - it's just a little too bright and harsh to mix well with the softer tones. The highlights are applied in gradual stages - getting lighter on the areas that would naturally catch light falling from above.

Hair - The base colour for this was a dark grey, with just a hint of blue added to give a cooler tone. The next step was to pick out whole areas of the hair by adding a highlight tone - it's pretty obvious which areas you should pick out - just look at the miniature and the way the hair has been sculpted. Breaking it down into smaller areas in this way gives a far more natural 'layered' effect than trying to highlight individual hairs... The base colour was highlighted with an off-white to get the highlight colour.

The white streak at the front was treated in exactly the same way - but the colour was taken quite a bit lighter.

That's it for this stage - just the sword and birds to go really (and some smaller detail areas to complete). I hope to get the whole miniature finished off as soon as I'm done with painting Broga... He's coming on really well, in fact I haven't had so much fun painting a miniature for a while - he's definitely suits my painting style more than The Raven Priest.

cheers!

mike

Broga Hourigsen Concept art

Here's the original concept art for Broga, it's by Bertrand Benoit, who has done so much amazing work on the Helldorado range. As you can see, it's by no means identical to the finished miniature - Kev White brought some great touches to the sculpt that really brought it to life. There's some beautiful detail he added to the inside of the shield that was a surprise even to me until I saw it!

I working on my painted version of Broga at the moment, and hope to have it posted here in the next few days - I have to say that it's really enjoyable to paint.

mike

Base insert

Just a quick post to show the base insert. We do plan to do more of these for future miniatures - it just depends on what we think is suitable for a certain release. It fits exactly into a 40mm base.

I should be posting some more today - I have the original concept art to share, so check back later.

mike

Dragon Hunter!

Very exciting post today - the second Studio McVey Miniature is now available in the Studio Store over at the main website! The Raven Priest was a pretty hard act to follow - but I think that Broga is every bit as good. It's a beautiful Kev White sculpt - with amazingly sharp detail and lots of character. When we were making this one, we couldn't decide if we wanted him with out without helmet - so in the end we went for both! He also comes complete with a little scenic insert that fits neatly into the top of a plastic base. The production costs on this one were a little higher, but we decided to keep the price the same as The Raven Priest.

As with the Raven Priest, he's a multi-part resin miniature, and the quality of the casting is just great - we really couldn't be happier with it. The pieces go together very well, and you can't see the join once they are glued. I'll be posting a step by step on the assembly in the next day or so, but there really isn't a great deal of preparation work to do.

The above example was painted by Ali - and I will be adding my version (hopefully) soon. As with The Raven Priest we will be giving one of them away in a random draw! Once the production run is sold out we will randomly pick a number between 1 and 750, and the holder of that certificate will win the miniature of their choice. The more certificates you hold - the better chance you have of winning.

Hope you like him!

mike

Logan Grimnar

Just a quick post to share some pictures of Logan Grimnar. I thought I had him finished a couple of weeks ago - but when I looked at him again there were quite a few things I was unhappy with, so I ended up re-painting some key elements. It's amazing what a fresh perspective you get on something after you haven't looked at it for a while...

I think the paint scheme came out okay - I made a conscious decision to keep the whole thing quite muted, so I used quite a lot of brown tones in the shading. It's a good way of taking the clean look out of the Space Wolf greys - which can look quite clinical and lifeless if kept plain.

I also originally had him marked down for a snow scene on the base - but decided to be different and went for a dusty, dry battlefield look.

mike

Skarsnik and Gobbla

Just finished this for a commission. I really enjoyed painting Gobbla - it was fun to experiment with some colours you wouldn't usually think of for this miniature. I decided early on I didn't want to paint him red, then I saw this squig by Sebastian Archer (definitely one of my favourite painters) and thought a pale colour scheme would create a strong contrast with the darker main figure. I'm happy with the way he came out - I think he looks quite striking. I would have liked to do something a little more inventive with the base - but he comes on a pre-cast base and the client wanted him for gaming, so my hands were a little tied.

Assembling and painting The Raven Priest pt. 6

Just a really quick update on the Raven Priest stage by stage. I'm doing the next stage as Ali's busy painting something else. I just painted the belt and head-piece this time - they are both the same colour so it made sense to combine the painting. As with a lot of areas on this miniature - a little painting goes a long way, and the trick is to use the detail that's on the miniature to your advantage. I wanted the belt to have an ancient, antique feel so I painted is quite a faded gold with greenish shading.

1 - The base coat was a mix of Shining Gold, deep (warm) brown and a spot of silver. This was applied very sparingly to avoid filling the detail at all. You have to be especially careful of this when using metallic paint - the metal flakes can easily fill fine lines.

2 - The next step was to apply a wash to bring out the detail. This was a mix of dark green paint and a spot of turquoise ink. I added a little matte medium to get rid of any shine from the ink, and make it stick better in the details.

3 - I used the base colour to bring out the definition again. When picking out fine work like the raised design, it can be best to use the side of a brush rather than the tip.

4-5 - These two stages show the highlights being applied. I added silver to the base coat for each successive layer. The lightest highlights are applied to the very top of the sculpted design and the upper edge of the belt.

6 - The final step was to use a little brown ink to give deep shading at the bottom of the belt and all the way round it. This really helps to give some depth and bring out the shape.

That's it for this stage!

mike

Raven Priest at GenCon 2009

The Raven Priest miniature will be available at GenCon! The first Studio McVey miniature will be exclusively available at the Cool Mini or Not store at GenCon 2009. Their booth is number 1524 - right next to the Dark Age booth and across from Reaper.

My painted version of The Raven Priest will also be on display at the booth.

mike

Assembling and painting The Raven Priest pt. 5

Here's the next stage with the Raven Priest - it's my turn this time and I have painted the legs. This was quite a simple area, but the main thing to take into consideration is the fineness of the sculpt - the detail is so small and sharp that it really needs the minimum of painting - it would be quite easy to 'over-paint' and make them look messy. For this reason I kept the paint pretty thin and built the shading and highlighting up with a few simple layers.

1 - The base coat was a sandy brown colour that was slightly dulled down with a spot of black. I didn't want it to be too warm, and close in colour to the feathers - so I just knocked the edge off it.

2 - I applied a thin wash of a mix of the base colour with quite a bit of dark brown added. I used a flat brown to darken it - again I didn't want a warm tone. I also added a little matte medium to help it adhere to the surface better.

3 - The next step was to use the base colour for the first highlight layer. This was applied to the tops of all the prominent small creases. The areas you are covering are a little small for effective blending, but it's good to soften the edges where you can.

4 - Further highlights are built up by adding off-white to the base colour and applying to smaller areas. Remember the light is coming from above, so the tops of the creases will be the lightest. Photo 5 shows another, lighter shade added after the first highlight. I just added these two levels.

5 - The final stage with the leggings themselves was to blend in a little shade tone to give some depth. This was the wash colour with a little brown ink added. I applied this very thin (in a controlled way), and blended it in with a second brush. I mainly applied it round the edges of the bracelets and bangles, but also between the legs and in some of the areas of most obvious shadow.

6 - Here I have picked out all the small details. The metal bangles were painted bronze and highlighted with silver. I added a little turquoise colour to the shading to give an antique feel.

That's it for this stage! Just few areas to go now - the loin cloth, belt and hair on the main figure - then the sword and birds.

mike