Model Armour

Actually looking quite nice John....

I like the face, not sure what clour it is actually... But you can judge for yourself!

as for the uniform, I really like the colour of that one.
I read the highlight is because of the white basecoat... I was going to say it was a bit rough and harsh before I read that.
I'd use it as a base WHERE to put my highlights.... soften them and tone down a little... sometimes less means more!

Keep practising.... oh and....
Yes we all had the Panzer man.. but painting is so much easier and improves exponentially when using well cast and sculpted figures!

There's always Muscle if those go wrong!~

Frerik

John-
good to see you posting some of your projects! I give you credit for posting something that you are still on the learning curve with.

That is what is great about MA- you'll get nothing but good advice on what to try next!
I can't do figures- I'll be learning from this.

What do you think of the Vallejo's?

Steve

Steve,

The Vallejo paint has really good coverage, even better than the Tamiya. It also dries absolutely dead flat. I can best compare it to the coverage and opacity provided by artist's tube oils. The big thing with the acrylic is in learning how, when and where to thin it and deposit it in a fashion which prevents the work you did a minute ago from bleeding into what you're doing now.

I've just sprayed primer on two more spare figures for some additional practice. The first is in a grey primer and the second is flat black. The black is supposed to change the appearance of translucent paint layers, but it's kind of one of those things you have to see for yourself rather than look at other people's work.

In the meantime I'll do some more work on Panzer Man with highlights and shadows to his uniform. It also wanted to try outlining the details using both a dark wash and also fine outlines.

Does anybody have advice on how to do eyes? I've tried Shepard Paine's method as described in H.T.B.Diorams but somehow, I'm not as good as he is.

Johnny,

I know I am coming very late to this party, especially considering your other thread about face painting with oils, but... I will mention a couple of things.

First, the problem you describe with the thinned paint migrating to other parts of the face sounds to me like you may have too much paint on the brush. What I do, and what the "experts" recommend, is after loading the brush with paint, I remove the excess paint by placing the tip of the brush against a cloth. Capillary action takes out the excess and leaves you with a good amount of paint on the brush. I do this when highlighting and shading uniforms so I thought it worth mentioning.

For eyes, I use a modified method to what Shep describes. I place an eye shaped portion of a lightened skin tone on the eye, then go back and add the pupil with either a small brush or a cat's whisker. For cat lovers out there, I do NOT pull them out, I find them around the house where the cats sleep. When using them for painting the "root" end works well, it is very small and holds just enough paint for a 1/35 pupil. After those two steps are done, I typically have to go back and paint over portions where I placed too much paint, getting the shape of the eye the way I want it. Of course, I often miss and paint over the whole dang thing which means, back to step 1. I do all of this with Vallejo acrylics and once dry, I paint the rest of the face with oils.

The last thing I would say about doing eyes, if you are anything like me, be ready to do them over and over and over.

I hope some of this helps.

Matt

Thanks Matt.

The eyes are something I've yet to figure out with oil. I'll give the Vallejos a try first. No cats at our place but broken toothpick splinters are mention in the Bannerman article.

Johnny, the really nice thing about doing the eyes in acrylics at the same time as the acrylic basecoat is that once you have them right, and are working on the rest of the face with oils, if you misplace some of the oils over the eye, it is very easy to wipe the oils away without losing the work you did on the eye.

Matt