After nearly two years since I first started painting miniatures, I finally plucked up enough courage to finish painting the Kingdom Death Pinup White Speaker miniature which also doubles up as a proxy for a Horus Heresy Word Bearers character called Cyrene Valantion. This miniature marks my second attempt at painting a female figure and its a small step towards emulating a painter whose work I really like:
Jen Haley. I am still a long way off from such standards but I am determined to get there.
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| Kingdom Death Pinup White Speaker aka Cyrene Valantion |
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| Didn't really get the belly dancer getup near her loin cloth but oh well |
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| Does her attire qualify as a +5 armour? |
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| Kingdom Death Pinup White Speaker (side view, right) |
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| View of the Pinup White Speaker minus her fur cloak |
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| If you could kindly take your eyes off her rear assets, you will notice that grass is dying along her wake |
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| The devil wears Prada ... would you just look at those high heels! |
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| Kingdom Death Pinup White Speaker (side view, left) |
Bad undercoat means this model wasn't all she could be
This miniature didn't really get off to the best of starts because my lack of experience in using the Citadel Skull White spray resulted in the initial undercoat being powdery and chalky. Sadly enough, the same occurred for the Kingdom Death Pinup Saviour model that I am painting for my diorama. Since then, I have gotten some info on how best to use the Skull White spray so hopefully future minis won't get off to an inauspicious start. An alternative would be to use the Tamiya primer but the only Tamiya shop in the country didn't have any in stock which sucked.
Pinup White Speaker with her fur cloak
The Kingdom Death Pinup White Speaker actually had a fur cloak which attached to her back. But as I am still undecided as to whether to glue it on, I put some blue tack on the collar, stuck it on the miniature and took some pictures to show how she looks with the cloak on her back.
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| Applied some wet blending techniques on the inside of the cloak |
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| Did some dry brushing on the outside of her cloak, a painting technique which for some reason I almost never use |
Getting inspiration to paint her red hair
Now, natural red hair isn't a shocking Blood Red colour, rather it's more of a ginger hue. I checked out some famous Hollywood actresses sporting red hair (whether natural or not) in order to get some inspiration for painting a more natural looking red hair.
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| Clockwise from the upper left hand corner - Amy Adams, Scarlett Johansson, Christina Hendricks and Emma Stone |
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| Close-up of the Pinup White Speaker's hair |
Burning black smoke
Meanwhile for the burning black smoke on the miniature's left hand, I used this beautiful photograph (see below) taken by a photographer and posted on
this site. While I may have overdone the burning part when I should be emphasising the black smoke, I decided to leave it be for now.
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| Black smoke resulting from burning tyres |
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| Close-up of the burning black smoke on the Pinup White Speaker's hand |
Thanks for checking out my finished Kingdom Death mini. Please feel free to comment if you think there are parts of the mini that need improving. Any advice for this noob painter is most welcome.
This is NOT painted as a noob. She is fantastic! When I saw the WIP, I wasn't sure how she would turn out (after all, it was all flesh), but she turned out amazing! I like the fire alot, and the hair, skin, and cloak are a close second. Kinda makes me wish I were a model myself, so I could hit on her. But then she'd probably just set me on fire and walk away...
ReplyDeleteVery nice job! You are far better than you give yourself credit for. :-)
Thanks for your kind words Jay, it will certainly inspire me to paint better. =) This model did not allow me to paint my preferred way of many, many, many (did I say many?) thin layers of paint to slowly build up the skin tone because the undercoat was badly applied. So in that sense it is kinda a noob mistake.
DeleteNice one FEM!
ReplyDeleteThe skin tone looks a bit flat at first glance, but when I enlarge the picture I can see that you've done some shading and layering, could be the camera and lighting not bringing up the details.
I like the mini firestorm at her hand, it looks very nice =D
Overall you've done a great job man!
ps: EMMA STONE!
Thanks limp ... coming from an award winning painter like yourself means a lot man! =)
DeleteEmma Stone rocks in Zombieland!!! She can pull off a sweet and innocent kind of character or the bad-ass character that was in Zombieland. Scarlet Johansson also did the Black Widow character justice with the cool interrogation scene in Avengers.
Meh~~ I'm only enjoy painting and not really a very good painter meself, still have alot to learn and experiment =)
DeleteYou coming to Legio Birthday bash coming Saturday?
That's the plan unless something comes up. Will go to the bash to support you and Hakim for the K4 as well as bring a mini or two to enter for the Golden Kris to support at least one of the events being organised by Legio Msia since I can't game.
DeleteLOL..something came up, Hakim have exam on coming saturday, I'll sit k4 out, we can catch up during k4 event =)
DeleteDude, you should have entered this model for Golden Kris!
ReplyDeleteIt did cross my mind but I couldn't start work on a proper base for her so I decided not to.
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