Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

In a blink of an eye, a new year is upon us. As we wind down in preparation for 2014, I would like to take this opportunity to wish one and all a Merry Christmas as well as Happy Holidays for those of you fortunate enough to get time off to spend with your family. May you and your loved ones enjoy good health, peace and happiness during the seasonal holidays.

Many thanks too for reading my blog and for your encouraging comments. Stay safe and take care!

Game of Thrones - Shae [Completed]

On my first attempt at painting sheer fabric, I resisted a strong urge to overdo it a la the "wet t-shirt effect" and instead went for a more subtle effect. So the end result was more of a hint of flesh through diaphanous material. A less subtler effect would have made the miniature's paint job look too sleazy.

Shae with a hint of skin showing through the fabric

While admittedly her skin could have been smoother, Shae actually looks nice under normal eyesight. But under a closeup shot with a macro lens, the chalkiness is unfortunately very noticeable. It's ironic that I got a smoother texture for the whitish cloth than her skin since white is so much more difficult to paint. Since Shae was completed, I have had more practice on other miniatures and managed to reduce chalkiness by adding more flow improver/enhancer to paints. A drawback to this is a glossier finish to the skin, so more experimenting is needed to find a technique that works for me.

Game of Thrones - Shae

Painting cloth to stimulate a diaphanous material

Game of Thrones - Shae, side view (right)

For the base, I went with a dark brown wooden flooring which provided contrast to Shae's lighter skin tone and the cloth she is holding. For touch ups, I painted additional highlights on her hair. 

Game of Thrones - Shae, back view

At first glance, Shae seems to be a very simple miniature to paint. While it is true there are only two things of note to the miniature, namely the skin tone and cloth, this makes it all the more important that they are painted well, a feat that I did not truly achieve. Shae is certainly one miniature I would not mind revisiting after a period of time spent further improving my painting techniques.   

Game of Thrones - Shae, side view (left)

Well, Shae has gotten my Game of Thrones miniature painting project off to a reasonable start. Although I am not entirely happy with what I have done with Shae, she did allow me to try out new things and achieve a few firsts like painting sheer fabric. With Shae done and dusted, it's time to look towards the next project ... Jotnar's Bane from Ax Faction. More on the Troll Hunter on the next post. Till then, I leave you with a photo of Nocturna Models Freya next to Dark Sword Miniature's Shae.  

Size comparison between Shae (Dark Sword's heroic scale) versus Freya, Nocturna Models 54 mm scale

Nocturna Models Freya [Completed]

Woo hoo! Work on Freya of Nocturna Models is done after less than two weeks of consistent painting comprising about 1-3 hour long sessions per day. While not perfect, Freya is by far the best work I have done to date although the Black Legion Forgefiend that I painted a while back could perhaps give Freya a run for her money. Freya is a small step towards more ambitious projects, which hopefully can improve my painting skills along the way. Below are the final pictures of Freya.  

Nocturna Models Freya

Freya's expression shows she means business

Side view (right) of Nocturna Models Freya

Freya's beautifully sculpted cloak never ceases to amaze me

Freya's blond hair went well with her purple / lavender cloak

Another angle showing off how well sculpted the cloak is

Side view (left) of Nocturna Models Freya

Freya's pauldron was dulled by a wash of Citadel Devlan Mud

Freya's base was surprisingly difficult to paint. I struggled in giving the ground some depth. It would have been great if I had some replica moss to place on the base but dead grass was the best I could get a hold of. For the broken axe, I tried to convey a damaged and rusted look.

Base of Nocturna Models Freya

Thanks for following my painting journey with Freya. It has been a real blast painting her and I have enjoyed every single minute of it. Happy, happy, happy!

Nocturna Models Freya [WIP - Armour & Shiny Stuff]

While painting Freya's armour, I realised I had the opportunity to try applying a gloss varnish on some parts of the armour, specifically on the precious stone on her leg armour and the plating on her gauntlet. I chose to paint both in turquoise as it went well with her green clothing and purple cloak. 

Tamiya Gloss Varnish provided a perfect finish to the turquoise gem and plating

With most of Freya's clothing been predominantly green in colour, the most obvious choices for the precious stone in her leg armour were emerald, jade or turquoise. For the most contrast, turquoise seemed to be the best choice among the three, results of which you can see in the pictures below. 

Nocturna Models Freya with about 85% of her paint job completed

Turquoise on Freya's gauntlet went well with her green clothing

Freya's boots have been repainted in a lighter shade (see last picture)

With Freya's cloak on, the advantage of using turquoise is more evident. Much like how mayo binds all the ingredients of a burger together, in Freya's case, the turquoise colour serves to link the purple / lavender-coloured cloak with her green clothes. A dark green cloak could also have worked but it ran the risk of making the overall colour scheme too dull and dreary.     

Nocturna Models Freya with her purple-turquoise-green-brown colour scheme

Turquoise on Freya's gauntlet also combined well with her purple cloak

Freya's pauldron may need a wash to tone things down, but then again ...

As has been the case so far, detailed errors showed up in the macro shots of Freya which I hadn't really noticed while painting her. For example I got a lump of dark paint on her vest and the lining between flesh and clothing is still too reddish. Freya pauldron also seems a tad too shiny and may need a wash to tone things down a bit - something I may or may not do.

Errors in all their glory thanks to a dedicated macro lens

Just as I was in the midst of finishing this blog post, I actually completed Freya's base but didn't have the time to do proper shots so I just took a quick snapshot using a Samsung Galaxy S4 camera phone. Lighting was a bit harsh for the camera phone shot but the photo still came out ok. I should have better closeup pictures of the base in the upcoming Freya post. For me, Freya's base was slightly difficult to get right in terms of colour scheme. It would have been better if I had some replica moss to put on the base but all I had was static dead grass so final results were not ideal.

Nocturna Models Freya - paint job nearly done

So with the base done, only Freya's hair remain to be painted. In view of the existing colour scheme of her cloak, clothes and armour, I am planning to paint her hair blonde as it would go well with purple and green. Might still go for a brunette or redhead but most probably Freya will be a blonde. After painting her hair and the final touch ups, Freya should be completed by the next post.

Nocturna Models Freya [WIP - Clothes]

From the very beginning, I had envisioned Freya clothed in varying shades of green. With her skirt likely to be made from flimsier materials, it made sense to paint that in the lightest shade of green. That left her vest and left arm covering which I painted in a darker shade of green to both stimulate a tougher material as well as to provide some colour contrast vis-à-vis the skirt.

Nocturna Models Freya with most of her clothes painted

Freya's skirt was extremely fun (and easy) to paint due largely to the wonderfully detailed sculpture of the skirt, not unlike her cloak. Freya's vest and arm covering also had enough folds and creases sculpted in to make painting the highlights a rather easy task. 

Right side of Freya's vest did not have much highlights as it will be covered by her arm

Much more highlights on the left side of Freya's vest and arm covering

If you have been following my work-in-progress (WIP) posts on Freya, you would have noticed her cloak was painted in a purple/lavender colour. Although I had considered painting Freya's cloak in yet another shade of green to complement her clothes, I was worried it would turn out to be a boring colour scheme. So to stir things up a bit, I went for the purple/lavender cloak. As mother nature has an abundance of purple/green combos, especially in flora, there isn't much risk of a colour clash.  

Mother nature's purple and green combo

More of nature's purple/green combo

Freya's cloak is of a darker shade which played off her light green skirt well, but not so much against her dark green vest and arm covering.  But all in all, I was still happy with the end result. For want of a better description, her purple/lavender cloak gives her some class while her green clothes provides some 'freshness' to her look ... to me at least.

Freya's purple/lavender and green combo

Work continues on Freya and more WIP shots will be coming soon, so stay tuned. Hope you have a good start to the week and as always stay well and happy!

Nocturna Models Freya [WIP - Skin Tone and Eyes]

After a lot of thought into how I wanted to approach the paint job for Freya's skin tone, I finally settled on keeping things simple and used just four colours namely Reaper Ashen Brown and Citadel Scab Red, Tallarn Flesh and Elf Flesh. I felt it was more important to do the simple things well rather than botch up a complicated paint colour scheme. I might still do some touch up work on the skin tone after I have finished painting the rest of Freya but for now I am happy with how she looks.

Nocturna Models Freya with skin tones and face completed

Because I might have been too 'trigger-happy' when applying the shadows, Freya came out looking a bit older than I expected. So that kinda tags her as a seasoned warrior whose beauty still holds up after many years out in the open fields of battle. A 'Xena Warrior Princess' if you will. 

Lucy Lawless as Xena (left) and Lucretia (right)

Speaking of Lucy Lawless (the actress playing Xena as pictured above), I had thought Lucretia, the character in Spartacus looked very familiar but it took me a whole season before I could remember she was previously Xena. Pardon me but I digress ... back to Freya now.

Shadows for skin tone comprised a cool colour

Highlights were placed selectively for a more subtle effect

For Freya's eyes, I went for the K-Pop star look. It seems many Korean pop stars put on special contacts to make their pupils look bigger. Now I don't know how true this is but perhaps you can gauge the truthfulness of it but checking out the eyes of Girls Generation, a popular K-Pop group.

Eyes of Girls Generation, a popular all-girls K-Pop group

Freya with her K-Pop eyes look

Even at 54-mm scale, Freya's eyes were difficult to paint. For a reason I can't seem to recall, I did not use any form of magnification when painting her eyes and at times I could barely see where my brush point was touching (on the eyes). I placed a hint of green irises on her eyes to balance out her large pupils. But additional work is needed on the lower part of her right eye which needs more shadow.

Macro shot of her eyes helps me to see where touch ups are needed

One cool thing about taking photos using a dedicated macro lens is that it clearly shows up any mistakes which sometimes are hard to detect with the human eye. One might argue as to the point of repainting something the human eye can easily miss out. But if you are planning to post closeup pictures of your miniatures, it doesn't hurt to repaint where needed. Thanks for checking out my progress on Freya. It has been fun painting her so far. Till the next Freya update, stay safe.  

Nocturna Models Freya [WIP - Cloak]

To get my up-sized miniatures project off the ground, I started working on Freya, the Nocturna Models 54-mm resin miniature. Painting a figure with so much detail can be daunting for a painter of my limited experience, so I decided to take things slow (think baby steps) and start by painting Freya's cloak. Early on, I noticed that the highly detailed cloak made painting it easier. The well sculpted folds and ripples in the cloak made determining the shadow and highlight areas a breeze.

Nocturna Models Freya Cloak (back view)

Nocturna Models Freya Cloak (front view)

Stuck between a green and purple colour scheme, I finally chose the latter as it seemed to provide Freya with a more sophisticated and classy look to her. It truly suits the way she is depicted in the sculpture i.e. sauntering in a deadly manner. To complement her cloak, I will most likely paint her skirt and top in various shades of green while going bronze/brown for her armour. 

These heels were made for walking all over you ...

Shadows consisted of a mixture of black and the basecoat colour

Cloak was highly reflective from this angle

Top view of the back of Freya's cloak

Next up for Freya is her skin and face. I am really loving the 54 mm format (1:32 scale). Details details details is what a miniature painter dreams of, and Freya has plenty of those.

As I was painting Freya's cloak, the song that kept going on and on in my head was Matchbox 20's 'She's So Mean'. One particular line in the lyrics seems rather apt ... 'She'll turn the knife into your back and then she's calling you baby'. Loved the music video although it's a bit predictable.

Well, I have got off to a good start with Freya as this is the best result I have ever achieved with cloth. Here's to getting another 'improved paint job' milestone when I paint Freya's skin tone, face and eyes.