Bust out the rage...

I realised in all the excitement of doing nothing in particular that I never got around to writing up a post about the Rage bust I had the pleasure of painting.

This very cool bust was a gift from my D&D group (I say gift, they say bribe to not drop a dozen angry dragons on them). He's an offical Guild Ball bust produced by BrokenToad who I'm a huge fan of. The bust did take a bit of work to prep, there was a few tabs that needed removing, mould lines and flash to clean but nothing too bad.

Due to the terrible weather i then had to wait patiently (not my strong point) to get the angry fella primed. I kept the hand separate so that I could still get to the areas behind easily.

Hatter, hatters are cool...

Finally getting around to some hobby, which along with everything else seems to have taken a bit of a slump lately.
I had an urge to paint a bust which is fast becoming one of my favourite types of painting to do, and I just so happened to have a box of busts from Salute crying out for some paint.

The set is based on Wonderland but slightly more twisted ( or more openly twisted as Alice in wonderland is already pretty dark) they’re advertised as transition busts meaning the scale is a bit more friendly towards painters used to working on minis (I believe?) Check our Broken toads website for a better look and an actual explanation.

First up was the Hatter, who has a face that is really screaming to be the focus of the piece.

Busted!

A while ago I wrote a post about my attempt at painting a bust. It was something I'd wanted to try for a while and as it turned out something that I really enjoyed too.

With my first busts finished I now I'm keen to carry on and do more, (unfortunately this is at the expense of the rest of my painting queue)

While I'm pleased with these busts they did help me pick out a few (many) gap in my skills. As with most things the key to improvement is research and practice.

The research I could do, the only benefit of going to work is time and access to trawl the web for tutorials, videos, diagrams, and inspiration. This is also a time where social media is brilliant. Various painting groups on facebook plus following other painters on twitter and instagram is a gold mine of information. I've also found figure painter magazine to be really good for all things painting.

Practice was looking to me a bit more difficult, unlike painting models for gaming where I seem to have a never ending supply, bust feel like a bit more of a luxury purchase. Thankfully Salute is a thing that exists. While at the show along side my many other (much needed) model purchases I treated myself to a selection of busts.


Firstly there was the Wonderland set from Broken Toad which my daughter insisted I buy. ( she's also insisting that she gets to paint one of them but I'm skimming over that).

These other than just being gorgeous sculpts are also aimed at painters looking to make the jump from models to bust. The scale is big enough to try out new skills without completely rethinking how you paint. Which was an issue I found with the flower girl bust.

I'm hoping to really push myself on this set, which while its a great goal does restrict the practice element slightly. So my final purchase at Salute was ideal, spotted completely by chance on a stall that sold random boardgame bits and bobs. (If anyone remembers the name please let me know). Here I found a box of loose bust which looked like pieces from a game. They were ideal, bold simple sculpts with enough character to really have fun with. And at £1 each (If I had had any cash left I would have got the whole box for that price).

So now I have a selection of busts to try techniques and ideas on. The first of which I grabbed out of the pile of shame the other night and started on.

This happy fella was the first out the bag, And the things to try were bolder colours, dappling to blend skintones and also better shading of hair.

I decided to go a bit random with the colours, as I usually have a predecided scheme for gaming minis this would make a nice change.

I started off with the skin, I've wanted to try something greenskin for a while so that seemed like a good excuse. I painted all the shadows in first with a purple, most of it ended up covered but it helped with the tone. I then built up from dark to light green in layers which I then tried to blend together by building up multiple areas of spots in various shades all overlapping. I also added in spots of browns and yellow to help.

I then moved onto the hair using something closer to NMM gold than the highlighting I'd do on a 32mm models hair. I think the idea was right but seeing it finished I probably should have increased the contrast between the light and dark areas (similar issue I have with NMM)

The glasses where next and it was another excuse to try something I'd been wanting to for a while. Reflective surface. I think the term is Sky Earth Non Metallic Metal or SENMM (or shiny).
This took quite a light touch as too heavy or bold on the colours and it would look closer to just mutlicoloured glasses not a reflection. I think it worked but it'll definatly take a few more tries before I'm happy with the theory of it.

The clothes were a bit simpler, bold colours and attempt some texture. The shirts is supposed to be slightly silky which will need a rethink to get right (but the colour is great) The tie has a more woven texture used by criss crossing lines along the length.

I'm rather pleased with the results and it has given me some new things to go away and read up on before I start my next project.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully there won't be such a wait before the next post.

Bust out the paints

So anyone who follows me on any type of social media, or even anyone I passed in the street will probably know what I've been working on lately, but for the couple of you that don't I thought I'd give you a quick run down on my current project / obsession.

Inspired by all the amazing work I'd seen on various sites along with reading Figure Painter Magazine (well worth checking out for painting type stuff). I've been itching to paint a bust for a while, and I must of made this clear as my amazing and long suffering wife surprised me with a a couple for my birthday recently.

The two I got were both from Model Display Products and produced by War Griffon Miniatures. Now as I know nothing about busts she couldn't ask me for advice so instead just chose sculpts that she liked (always the best way to choose).

The busts I got were the "evil warrior" and "flower princess" both looked really fun to paint and amazing quality so they jumped straight to the top of my painting queue.

Minimal clean up was needed out side of a quick wash and brush, then they were primed and ready to go.

I started with the warrior as he seemed the simpler of the two and being around 30mm high he was closer to what I'd normally paint. The first thing that struck me was that despite be small for a bust the amount of space I had to work with was amazing compared to the miniatures that I'm used to. While I was planning out what I wanted to with him I put a thin wash of red over the flesh and black over the armour, this was just to help pick out the detail and help me decide what to do.

I decided to keep him simple when it came to colours and try to focus more on my light and shade to add character. Starting on the skin I tried to work from very dark in low left up to light in high right. I tried to take my time and really map out how I wanted the shades as I wanted a clear transition between the sides of his face as the light would fall.
The plan was to have four or five shades of the skin with the darkest being to left shadow, the lightest colour from the left would then be the darkest from the right and up to lightest for right highlights.

This process to a fair amount of trial and error to make it look natural but I'm please with the final result. I found it helpful to refer back to a photo of the bust right next to my light to help me see how the shadows sat.

Next step was the armour. I'd be practising NMM for a while and while I can get it passable on a small area larger surfaces need a lot more thought to get right. As with the skin I tried to uses four or five shades of one colour to get the effect. The blending on the armour should be neater and also some clearer highlight would have help define areas more but I'm happy that I think it looks like metal enough to work.

Overall I have to say that my first trial at painting a bust was really fun and it's defiantly something that will become a regular part of my hobby time (Wyrd if you want to start selling Malifaux busts so I can combined my hobby project that would be appreciated). I learnt loads about painting faces from having so much detail to work with and would recommend to everyone to give it a try.

The finish work is now sitting on my bookshelf looking cross with all who pass.
 

I've also started the Flower princess, wife and sprog have "helped" me decide on a colour scheme for her and she's coming along well I'll do a follow up post in a few years when the hair is finally finished...