Game of Thrones Bronn [Completed] aka 54 mm Nocturna Models Heroes & Legends, The Crusader

This brief back-and-forth between Bronn and Jaime Lannister in Season Six of Game of Thrones sums up what I had envisioned colour scheme wise for this miniature project. [Dialogue Begins] Bronn: Now that is a sorry attempted siege. Someone needs to teach those thud twats how to dig trenches. Jaime: Someone certainly does. Bronn: No, no. Not me. I'm just an up-jump sellsword. Jaime: You're an anointed knight! There's quite a difference. Bronn: Aye, knights don't get paid. [Dialogue Ends] In essence, I wanted to 'recreate in colours' a knight that's still a sellsword at heart. 

Nocturna Models 54 mm The Crusader resin miniature painted as Bronn the Sellsword

Game of Thrones: Bronn the Sellsword in the colours of House Lannister

Bronn's woeful expression befits his situation of a person caught up in events bigger than himself

Now what does the phrase 'recreate in colours' even mean? To me it's the use of colours to portray a certain mood and to tell a story. For this Nocturna Models proxy figurine for Bronn, the mood is one of longing for simpler days as well as of courage and willpower. The latter two is conveyed by default with the dark red hues; while orange (i.e. representing gold hues of the Lannister Lion) supposedly symbolizes strength and endurance in heraldry - two traits that Bronn possesses. Finally I painted harsh contrasts on Bronn's face to accentuate the haggard and wistful look on his expression. 

Freehand painting of the House Lannister heraldy on Bronn's leather armour

Lower part of Bronn's armour resemble a gambeson while the top half seemingly does not

Detailed scabbard and leather straps adorn the waist area of Bronn's armour

White underclothing, brown boots and green grassy base round up the predominantly red colour scheme

Any attempt to 'recreate in colours' will be for naught if the correct sculpture or miniature isn't utilised. For me, finding the perfect proxy figure was admittedly pure luck. I happened to have in my possession a 54 mm resin miniature called The Crusader from the Nocturna Models Heroes and Legends line. He provided the closest platform (in terms of facial features and period clothing) from which I could paint a proxy figurine of the Game of Thrones character, Bronn the Sellsword.

Game of Thrones, Bronn the Sellsword [Completed]

"I'm just an up-jump sellsword ... knights don't get paid."

Technically Bronn is now an anointed knight of House Lannister and no longer the mercenary he once was

Every part of a miniature's paint job is important and each contributes to the final creative whole. Nevertheless in Bronn's case there were two prominent areas of paint which were more critical than others, partly because of the miniature's relative plainness in design. So to make Bronn stand out I decided to concentrate on these two areas of his paint job. First one is pretty obvious if you think about it, namely Bronn's face comprising his facial skin tone, hair, lips and eyes. In any miniature whose face isn't covered up, it would - more often than not - be the main focus anyway.   

At its core this miniature is rather plain in design, putting the onus on the painter to bring it to life

The reds of House Lannister are dull and dark ...

... brightened up only by the golds of its heraldic design i.e. the Lannister Lion 

Meanwhile, the second area I had to figure out was how to make Bronn's clothing interesting. While Bronn in the television series didn't sport any heraldic design on his armour, he did have on an interestingly designed samurai-inspired armour. Being a proxy figure, the Nocturna Models resin miniature wasn't sculpted with such an elaborate armour. It possessed just a simple medieval armour instead. To liven things up a bit I did a freehand painting of the Lannister sigil which is a golden lion. This was done using artist colour pencils and acrylic paints (check out the process here). 

As an anointed knight of House Lannister, Bronn affords the hobbyist a more interesting colour scheme to paimt

My favourite Bronn line ... Lysa Arryn: "You don't fight with honor!" Bronn: "No... he did."

Bronn the Sellsword aka Nocturna Models 54 mm Crusader resin miniature, scale comparison

360 view of Bronn the Sellsword of House Lannister
For a 360 degree view of Bronn the Sellsword - essentially a 54 mm Nocturna Models resin figurine painted in the colours of House Lannister as seen in the latest season of HBO's Game of Thrones - please see the video below. For other videos, please visit my YouTube channel FourEyedMonster Miniatures. Be sure to choose the high definition (HD) option for the best possible view. 

Scale-wise Bronn was small enough to have made it a significant challenge for me to paint. And whenever a project provides a challenge, it always improves us as a painter. Bronn has allowed me to hone my skills at painting faces, freehand sigils and leather texture. Moreover, completion of Bronn the Sellsword should spark an outburst of miniature figurine-related hobby activity in the near future.

My ultimate aim is to paint figures with ultra realistic skin tones, facial features (e.g. eyes and lips) as well as accessories/clothing textures. That's still far from being achieved but this project has been one step closer to making my aim become a reality. Now for another step ...

Game of Thrones Bronn [WIP - Facial Skin Tone & Lips Revisited]

A while back ago I had stopped working on Bronn - a Game of Thrones character that I'm portraying using a Nocturna Models resin figurine - because I had reached a point whereby each attempt at correcting a mistake was resulting in yet more mistakes. I needed to take a step back. Time off, if you will, to work on other projects before coming back to this avaricious Westerosi sellsword. 

Bronn the Sellsword with his facial skin tones reworked for smoother transitions

Corrective work was also carried out on his upper and lower lips

Unfortunately, there was a price to pay for this long hiatus. Because I had painted Bronn during a period in-real-life when many things were going wrong, I was distracted to the point that I forgot to jot down his skin tone paint recipe. Previously I contemplated up to three skin tone colour schemes, one of which I had actually posted online. But for the life of me I couldn't remember which colour scheme I eventually used. So I tried the best I could to match the existing skin tones, the results of which you see here in this post. All things considered, I think his face turned out pretty okay.   

Bronn's blade was mildly weathered with Vallejo Engine Grime and Citadel Agrax Earthshade

Greenish hues are inherent in the paints used for his skin tone

There were two key issues I had to resolve. Firstly, the shadowed areas of his forehead creases were too wide and transitions were too abrupt. Apart from the forehead, the other issue involved Bronn's upper lip which was indistinguishable from his mustache. Both mistakes only came to my attention when I took macro photographs of Bronn's face (before pictures can be seen here) as they were not really visible to the naked eye. But the mistakes still rankled so I went back in with a Kolinksy Sable brush to touch up his forehead creases as well as paint his upper lip back on to the face.

I have seen dwarfs and dragons but it's the lioness that scares me

So Bronn is about done. All that's left to do is give him a once over and touch up any spots I may have missed. Hopefully it won't be anything major so I can post completed photos soon. Reworking Bronn's skin tone has made me realize how much I miss painting miniatures. As such I'll try to work in some figurine painting sessions in between time spent on my Star Wars and AFV scale model kits. Looks like I've some juggling to do with this triad of hobby projects. At the very least, it should challenge me to improve on a wider spectrum of skills. More importantly though, it'll be three times the fun. Until next time, thanks for reading and have yourself a great weekend.

Game of Thrones Bronn (WIP - Facial Skin Tone and Eyes) aka 54 mm Nocturna Models The Crusader

It has been quite a long time since I missed a posting at least once a week. Last week was that kind of week. But I had a real good reason. With the washing machine still down almost all available free time were spent washing family clothes by hand - something I haven't done in a long time. So then something else had to give and of course it had to be my hobby time. So I had to sneak in a precious few minutes there, a half-hour here, and at least get some painting done over a space of two weeks. Unfortunately, this stop-start nature had affected my painting of Bronn's face to a certain extent.    

Game of Thrones Bronn: work-in-progress on his facial skin tone and eyes

First though, a bit of good news in weeks (and boy could I use some). My Tamron lens has been fixed thus allowing me to take closeups of Bronn's facial skin tones. And at the extreme closeups afforded by a dedicated macro lens, any painting error I make gets magnified exponentially. While that's hard on the ego, the magnifications more than make up for it by helping me spot errors to fix later. In this case, Bronn's forehead creases are too prominent and transitions between the shadowed creases and lighter areas of the forehead will need to be reworked with additional half-tone blending.

From the closeups, it became painfully obvious that I was too heavy-handed with the forehead lines

On the flip-side, I'm generally happy with the facial skin tones so far

Apart from his forehead, Bronn has other issues that need to be dealt with. Among them are his less than adequately defined ears; an uncertainty as to where the boundary between his mustache and upper lips may lie; and a rather monotonous skin tone surrounding the forehead creases. As for his hair, beard and mustache - I haven't really got started on them yet with only the basecoat and first midtones done up. More contrast is needed to give Bronn's facial and head of hair sufficient depth. 

Viewed from further out, any issues plaguing Bronn's face became less noticeable

Alternating time spent between work on scale model kits and miniature figurines has been a key factor in keeping things fresh for me in this hobby. Both hobby sub-groups require the miniature painter/scale modeller to bring a slightly different skill set to table. I strongly recommend trying your hands at both as you can't help learning stuff from one that you can use on the other, and vice versa. 

Bronn's skin tone was painted to resemble a weather-beaten Anglo-Saxon 

In profile, the 54 mm Nocturna Models Crusader figurine looks positively aquiline

At the time of writing my washer is still busted. I certainly wouldn't have spend a severely limited budget on fixing my camera lens if I knew the washer was going kaput a week later. Truth be told, things are actually worse than I let on previously i.e. the sole family car had more problems than just the clutch assembly - suspension, brakes and tyres all need to be replaced asap. An Evo! An Evo! My kingdom for a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X. Okay, that's enough paraphrasing passages of Shakespeare for today. Okay maybe just one more straight from the bard's mouth ... I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. There are lots of project to do so it's time I get cracking.

Going skin tone crazy in more mediums than one

Westworld has become my favourite ongoing science fiction series and is now tied with fantasy series Game of Thrones as still-in-progress television series that I most like. As with any inspirational shows, I tend to either draw or paint the main characters which in this case are Dolores Abernathy (played by Evan Rachel Wood) and Daenerys Targaryen (by Emilia Clarke). These two actresses are going to make excellent subject matters for my coloured pencil (and probably graphite too) portrait practice sessions. While watching Westworld through a semi-hatchet job by local television censors isn't ideal, it'll have to do until HBO releases the Bluray version of this awesome series.            

Skin Tone Study 01: Evan Rachel Wood under warm lighting (left) and daylight (right)

Skin Tone Study 02: Emilia Clarke under overcast lighting (left) and daylight (right)

For my coloured pencil portrait drawings, I'm doing skin tone studies to find out the right mix of hues to achieve the fairly light skin tones that both actresses have. It involves the use of both oil-based and wax-based artist grade coloured pencils namely Faber-Castell Polychromos, Derwent Coloursoft and Prismacolor Premier. For these studies, I've started incorporating green hues into the mix as strong green undertones can be visibly seen in both actresses' facial skin tones. Whether this natural green undertone is more prominent due to specific makeup and set lighting I can't really say. But it's worth noting green foundation has always been used by the old masters to depict realistic skin tones.

Derwent Coloursoft wax-based coloured pencils and Faber-Castell Polychromos oil-based ones

Light skin tone swatches with Coloursoft and Polychromos pencils

Prismacolor Premier wax-based coloured pencils - 24 pieces portrait set

A skin tone bar using Prismacolor Premier pencils (based on a tutorial by artist Ann Kullberg)

For the time being most of my coloured pencil portraits will be drawn on the Strathmore Colored Pencil paper and perhaps the Daler Rowney Fine Grain Heavyweight paper if I decide to use solvents with the oil- and wax-based pencils. Eventually I would want to switch to the Strathmore 400 series Bristol Smooth and Rising Stonehenge papers respectively. Not yet though as both are too expensive for the initial practice sessions. But future graphite portraits will likely be on smooth Bristol paper from now on as I feel I have put enough practice in to earn the right to use higher quality papers.  

For now most of my colour portraits will be drawn on Strathmore's Colored Pencil paper

The close study of skin tones in portrait drawing has re-opened my eyes on how varied the human skin tone actually is. However, it remains to be seen if seeing skin tones from a different perspective will also translate into better skin tones for my miniature painting projects. Based on my experience so far, coloured pencils are a more translucent medium than acrylic paints although similar effects can be gained in the later through glazing. I haven't painted a large enough scale miniature - at least in the amount of surface area dedicated to skin tones ... and the Hulk doesn't count - to warrant doing green acrylic glazes on the skin tones. That remains the case for my two ongoing projects below.  

Skin Tone Study 03: Karen Fukuhara (left) and Jerome Flynn (right)

Nocturna Models resin figurines: Soum 13 Moons (left) and The Crusader (right)

If you've ever wondered why I take so long to finish my miniature painting projects, well, here's one reason amongst the many. I tend to do lots of skin tone swatches to determine the most appropriate skin colour for the miniature project in question. Granted such swatches don't account for the wet blending, feathering and layering effects of acrylic paint on primer but it does provide a fairly accurate guideline on hues that closely resemble the painting's subject matter.

Vallejo Model Color acrylic paints under consideration for a female Japanese skin tone

Skin tone swatches of possible hues to be used as a female Japanese skin tone

Vallejo Model Color acrylic paints under consideration for a male Caucasian/Mediterranean skin tone

Skin tone swatches of possible hues to be used as a male Caucasian/Mediterranean skin tone

Complicating matters is the use of cool or warm shadows which depends on the predominant skin tone hue. At this stage of my research. it's highly likely I'll use cool shadows for both Katana and Bronn (see above) to counter their fairly warm skin tone in general. Regardless on the hues used, one thing for certain is that I will be using Vallejo Model Color paints exclusively to paint their skin.

And in case you were wondering just what is Westworld all about, do check out the trailer above. I leave you with my two favourite lines/phrases from the Westworld series so far, both incidentally uttered by another character Bernard Lowe to Dolores Abernathy i.e. "Step into analysis, please" and "Limit your emotional affect, please". Simple yet meaningful words in globally trying times.

Game of Thrones Bronn (WIP - House Lannister Heraldry) aka 54 mm Nocturna Models The Crusader

Bronn - not unlike the Nocturna Models 54 mm The Crusader figurine itself - can be pretty plain. What gives Bronn character is not fancy clothing but his semi-weather-beaten facial features. And this puts a lot of pressure on a painter to do a good job on the face or see the whole piece fail. To hedge my bets, so to speak, I decided to spread the 'wow factor' of this miniature to include a fairly detailed freehand painting of the House Lannister heraldry on Bronn's armour. As far as I know Bronn never wore armour with the lion symbol on it so this was a bit of artistic license on my part.

Game of Thrones - Bronn the Sellsword with House Lannister's heraldry on his armour

My search for a suitable tool to sketch initial outlines of freehand paintings is finally over. And the solution was right under my nose too. As part of my new journey into coloured pencil portraits, I had bought Faber Castell Polychromos as well as Primacolor Premiere professional artist grade coloured pencils. Polychromos pencils are highly pigmented with a hard oil-based core - a combination which makes it easier to sketch outlines on painted figurines. While Prismacolor pencils are also highly pigmented, they are wax based with a softer core. So I used a cream coloured Polychromos pencil to sketch the initial outline. Any excess pencil residue was carefully removed using a kneaded eraser.

Polychromos oil-based colour pencil (cream) and a kneaded eraser

Freehand Painting - Stage One: Initial outlines drawn using the Polychoromos colour pencil

A more detailed symbol was then drawn with any excess pencil residue removed using a kneaded eraser

My previous attempt at painting the House Lannister heraldry had ended up being too yellowish. So for this effort, I used less yellow and more of the dark orange hues. Any yellows used were mixed with light orange to effectively tone down the overall brightness of the freehand symbol.  

Freehand Painting - Stage Two: Basecoat with Amarantha Red

Dark basecoat colour makes it easier for the subsequent lighter colours to be layered on

I started with a basecoat of Vallejo Model Color Amarantha Red followed by a midtone comprising a mixture of Amarantha Red and Light Orange. The darker basecoat made layering on the lighter hue easier and allowed for a more consistently smooth coverage of the lighter hue.

Freehand Painting - Stage Three: Midtones with a mixture of Amarantha Red and Light Orange

Lion symbol begins to take shape as lighter hue contrasts better against the armour

From there on out, every subsequent layer of a lighter hue were painted with some of the earlier darker hue showing through. This was so that the symbol had more depth to it. In this case, it meant the Amrantha Red showing through the Amarantha Red/Light Orange layer which itself showed through the pure Light Orange layer. Effects were subtle to prevent a too 3D'ish looking symbol.

Freehand Painting - Stage Four: General highlights with pure Light Orange

Light orange was layered in thin layers with the midtone colour showing through

Then, I lightly layered the final highlight at the very edges of the lion symbol using a Light Orange/Flat Yellow mix. Again, the effects were kept subtle to prevent a too 3D'ish symbol that looks like an ironed on patch. Lastly, an eye was painted using the Amarantha Red/Light Orange mix.

Freehand Painting - Stage Five: Extreme highlights on edges with a Light Orange/Flat Yellow mix

Lastly, an eye was painted in with a darker hue - Amarantha Red/Light Orange mix

Dark creases on the armour were left untouched as a stylistic choice. Moreover, I felt that it avoided the patched on look the symbol would have took if I painted over the creases. An alternative would be to paint darker hues on the creases - perhaps a mix of Amarantha Red and either an orangey red or reddish brown. This is something I might still do, if only to reduce the width of the dark creases. 

Nocturna Models The Crusader 54 mm figurine aka Bronn proxy [work-in-progress back view]

My efforts at painting male skin tones still lags far behind female ones as I tend to paint more of the latter. As such I've decided to put any further progress on hold until I've sufficiently researched and experimented with a suitable skin tone for Bronn. I can only hope that this temporary halt will not drag on for an eternity as it seemingly has for my other Game of Thrones project i.e. House Martell Knight/Warhorse proxy using Games Workshop minis. Speaking of which, using the Polychromos pencil to outline a design for freehand painting has unstoppered the creative block that has been hindering the Martell proxy's progress. Just like that ... after so long! I'm excited to have finally found the inspiration to finish this long delayed project and hope to share the results with you ... soon.