Hawkins

[Hawkins]

well i managed to get my hands on a camera, and as luck would have it, its crud* for photos of minis, but what was a plesent surprise is that the minis in the background turned out great, so just ignore the blurry mini and look at the ones in the background till i get the pics edited, as most will be soonish.
well im not going to list all the ´links, just go to my photo bucket link and enjoy:) or not.

as always  constructive critisism is welcome, but not from the fallowing persons: those persons whom have a letter in there nick and those that dont....  na just kidding, fire away, i need to get better, seams im at a happy place in my painting and cant progress beyond this point so any arse kicking
is welcome, oh and do please keep in mind that the lighting is off, and alot of the stuff is blured and at a bad angle.

linkage:

http://s235.photobucket.com/albums/ee172/hawkins_howling/minis%202008/

[gi6ers]

What are you aiming for with your painting? What painter do you want to emulate?

If you can describe how you approach painting I'll give you some pointers on stuff to try if you like?

[Hawkins]

Well id like to get away from the cartoon style im using now, and get a bit more real life out of my work, as you have probably noticed i use extreamly bright colours and i dark line alot on the faces and id like to get away from that too, but when i try the skin contours look flat. basically what im aiming for is smoother less comic style paint jobs.

well i guess i could state some of the big names out there, but more and more id like to paint like Ritual and orc trader over at the FOD.

as for how i approch painting a mini, well i usually choose a brigth colour and 2 secondary colours as the theme and then get the base colours on, then i work on the face, and move on out from there painting  down to the body and then out to the limbs. i usually finish offa section and then move to the next, for my BB minis you have probably seen i start at the feet, (as there is a bit of dry brushung), and go up to the head then arms.
im normally using 3 layers or more on everything like pants, skin etc.

not sure if thats what you were asking for but there it is.

[Bungle]

getting away from the cartoony style?

Shame it really suits some of the figures like



the heavy black lining and well painted areas look better than the areas where you have brown washed over grey or blue.

this one



would look better with a darker green as the shadows on the top, it would have more of that cartoon look of shading.

Don't dis the comic book style, it is great for some figures, you just need to expand on it and make shadows in the same colour but darker tonally, use washes of the same colour to shade rather than brown on grey etc.

For a more realistic style, use more layers with finer highlights of closer related tonal colours, that will give the Steve Dean style working on what you already have, which is very popular when done well.

[gi6ers]

well i guess i could state some of the big names out there, but more and more id like to paint like Ritual and orc trader over at the FOD.

Wouldn't we all, Ritual uses wet blending which is a dark art IMO. 

As Bungle says, you could try adding more and thinner layers, your style is striking and you use a lot of bright colours, why don't you try to shade down more than you do (and again like Bungle said use a darker tone of the same colour for shading).  On the customs inspectors I would have glazed over the trousers with your mid tone then just add another highlight to smooth things out.

I think you are already an accomplished painter, you just need to try new things to take your painting to another level.  You have good brush control and a good sense of colour, the main thing to work on would be the shading and smooothing out the highlights.


I'd be tempted to pick something of Orctrader's/Ritual's and copy it.