Gargram Finished

Gargram is just about finished.

Progress: Gargram Heavyhand

Coming along with the dwarven sergeant. I’m using new Vallejo Game Color paint for the silver metallic colors on the axehead (gunmetal metal) and the silver plate (chainmail silver). The gold is still Delta Ceramcoat 14k gold metallic that I used on my previous minis. The Vallejo metallic is much nicer (love the gunmetal color and pigment), but I’m not sure of my overall color scheme here. I may need to do a black ink/wash over the mail, it’s too bright (though I do want it bright and shiny – after all, this is an epic dwarven hero, with the best armor dwarven craftsmen can make!).

Basic Mini Painting Techniques: Alex Castro

Found this great post over at Alex Castro’s site. I’ve not heard of him before, but looking at his work, he is a very experienced painter (though not a gaming miniature guy). Some great thoughts and tips from a master.

Separator: 
I use a combination of flat black and red brown in equal proportions. I call this mixture soot. Soot blends in well and I use it to separate flesh from clothing and armor, or a hand holding an item or separating the fingers in a closed fist, etc. This color blends in nicely yet provides a subtle separating.

…

Back Stroke: 
The best line is made by moving the brush backwards, not forward, and using the sides of the brush, not the point. When you use the point you are basically detailing things and you are in the writing mode. A good technique for the back stroke is pulling backwards on the brush at the same time using the side of the brush to get the straight line as you are painting.

Next Project: Gargram Heavyhand, Dwarf Sergeant

After getting a bunch of sparkly gunk all over my dwarf warrior when trying to seal it with Matte Finisher spray, I ordered some Vallejo brush on varnish. While I wait for that (and some Vallejo Chainmail Silver and Gunmetal paint) to arrive to officially complete the dwarf warrior, I washed the next guy, Gargram Heavyhand, Dwarf Sergeant, in a black ink to get some nice black lining going when I start doing his armor chainmail silver. He’s also in 2 pieces; his missing arm has a shield strapped on it. He’s mostly armored in heavy plate armor, so I think I am going to do him in a combination of chainmail silver with gold accent/trim pieces. For the beard I want to do something that will stand out more than the white/gray of the last guy, but don’t want to do another red head so soon after Sir Theo, so I may go for a nice chestnut brown, maybe a reddish-brown, to stand out from the silver and gold armor a bit.

How to use Glaze

I decided to buy some Vallejo paints and supplies online, and while I was at it, I threw in some Glaze Medium since I had seen it pop up in several well-written tutorials. Kinda silly to buy something I wasn’t really sure how to use, so I set out to find more about it. Found this good article at Brush Thrallls that is entirely on this topic:

Zealot #8 receives a mix of 1:12 VMC 150 : GM. This is my favorite ratio for glazing. If it turns out too light, a second application in selected spots will almost always give me the results I’m after. I premix most of my glazes using this 1:12 ratio.

Getting Better with the Camera

So I tried my normal lighting setup with the manual settings on the camera, and I am pretty pleased with the results. You sure do find a lot of errors when you see good photos of your painted minis!

 

Settings on the camera were, in the Manual mode:

• Manual Focus, set to closest setting
• Flash off
• 2-second timed shot
• ISO 80
• Custom white balance, set on paper backdrop
• Aperture: F8.0
• Shutter Speed: 1/5

In the GIMP, I used the following on each photo:

• Set Color Levels using Curves to a setting that looked good to me (auto looked too dark) and saved it
• Cropped
• Scaled image to 600 pixels wide
• Flattened the image
• Saved as an 85% quality JPEG

Dwarf Warrior: Completed

Well I think I’m done with Dwarf Warrior… It didn’t turn out like I had envisioned, but I learned a lot painting him. Some parts turned out better, some worse than I hoped. Overall I think its ok for a 2nd miniature, but next to the first one it looks kind of drab.

I tried the advice from the photo tutorial, and I was very happy with the output from the camera using manual focus, etc, but I experimented with new lights and the results are a tad on the dark side. When I have more time I’ll use my other lights and the same camera settings, and see what i can get out of it. I also used the Gimp to touch up the images, though I obviously used slightly different settings on each photo, since they look completely different colors, etc

Post-processing Photos

Now that you’ve got pics of your minis, you need to process them using photo manipulation software. Here’s a good article on how to use the GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program) to get your pics ready for the web. The GIMP is a freeware Photoshop-like application (it’s not an exact clone) you can get here.

Tip: Shading Metallics

Found this helpful hint on a forum:

A little tip for doing Metallics in general is to shade them with paints instead of inks, just make sure you add Glaze Medium to the paint!

More Great Photography Advice

Found this article that has some detailed but easy to understand information on how to take good mini photos. It goes into good detail on how to use Aperture Priority mode to set the correct f-stop to get the best depth of field to get your whole mini in focus. Will try tonight, along with suggestions on lighting setup, to see if I can’t get better shots of my 2 minis.

Edit: Not 5 minutes after I came across that article, I found another, very good guide by FineScale Modeler magazine.

Edit2: More goodness:

With the camera set on Manual, adjust the settings so that it reads TWO STOPS over exposed. Read your manual to find out how to do this. Most cameras have three things to adjust : ISO, Aperture, and Shutter. Set the ISO at the lowest possible number, normally 100. This will make your images clean and noisefree. Set aperture at the highest you can, like 16 or 22. This will make your image sharp thru-out. We’ve all seen those pix where the guys sword is in focus, but the rest of the mini is blurred, high aperture will prevent that. With most of the digicams out there, you might not even need to go that high. Experiment to see what you get. Finally, adjust your shutter speed up or down to get the exposure to read 2 stops over. Some cameras will only let you set it so high, like say 5 seconds, and not any longer. If that’s the case, add more lights, or try lowering the aperture.