Meg Maples Montreal Masterclass, Day 2

Day two of the Montreal Masterclass was yesterday, and I'll both done in, and wanting more. I'm super motivated to keep on going with the techniques I learned there, and to finish the models I started.
Another full day of learning, concentrating and soaking in all I can about painting techniques wiped me out, but there was so much information passed on by the wonderful Meg Maples that I'm still mentally digesting it this evening.

Using the same two brush blending, with a bit of glazing added in, we looked at skin tones hair and fur (with a side serving of feathers, but that tutorial can be found here) and OSL (Object source lighting), which, with the two brush blending and the right choice of paint, was made to look extremely easy. the other thing we worked on were eyes. The bane of my painting life these last 20 years or more, finally I have a technique that works, and works very well. I must admit I had seen tutorials for this way of doing eyes before, but it makes a huge difference to see it being done on front of you. She also spoke of doing freehand and water effects using UHU glue. Like I said, there was a lot of information to take in!

Here is the final condition of the minis I did some painting on over the weekend. As you can see, none are actually finished.

 

Now for some better pictures of the work I did over the weekend.

Elf King

This is a Reaper mini that I picked up for a WFB Wood Elf army. He had a little bit of everything we were practising at the weekend, so he has had a fair bit of work done on him. I'm not so happy with the metallics, but I do like his cloak. His hair was not painted by me, but by Meg, as an example of what to do (the hair on all the minis she brought was already done), so I can claim no credit for that. It was not painted to completion by her, she would continue it if it were her mini, but I didn't have the mojo to finish it. I did get into the right way of doing hair on the pink hair of the KoS below. I will be using his hawk to try painting feathers soon.

Alexia

 

I'm very happy with the metallics on Alexia's sword. The deepest shade on there is coal Black with Umbral Umber, which looks almost black in the recesses. I have yet to have a go at using glazes on metals as was also suggested in the class.

Her eyes were a different matter. I restarted them 3 times. In the end I gave up (for now?) and painted her eyes in an inverse of the taught technique. Giving her a somewhat soulless look, which is fitting for her, if not exactly of Masterclass level.

VASA Knight(s) of the void.

I had two of these exceptional miniatures on the go at the weekend. This one I managed to do the eye and the hair to my satisfaction. I started on the body, but that may have to wait. I will be using her to do OSL on the cybernetic eye as well. Meg used the second of these minis to show how to do the OSL (she was running out of minis to show things on by the end of the session, so borrowed ours), and that is shown below.

As a shout out to those who I spoke to at the event that have a blog,  may I point you towards The Amazing Captain Spud, (his words, not mine) and to Yaum la Machine. Both great guys and exceptional painters whom I learned from too (as well as the many others I spoke to who either have no blog, or I am unaware of their blogs)

I had a great time over the weekend, and I learned a lot! I also broke out the sable brushes on the second day (for the eyes) and oh my, how they make a difference.  I'm a little bit in love with these little darlings now!

Finally: note to self, buy more Sanguine Base and Coal Black. They work on everything!

Meg Maples Montreal Masterclass, Day 1

This weekend in Montreal saw the last Masterclass to be held by Meg Maples in North America before she moves over to Australia. As a Christmas gift to me from my family, I went along. This was my first painting class of any kind, and I didn't know what to expect in terms of how many minis I would need, how many minis I would get through.

We were given a list of things we would need to bring, and a list of techniques we would try to get through. The first day started off with two brush blending. Before the class, I was aware of the existence of this technique, but that was about all. After a day of doing pretty much nothing bu that (the techniques was explained first for the very good reason that it was the basis of the other parts of the class) I think I'm staring to get the hang of it.

The minis I put on the table at the start of the day. There was no way I would get through that many, but it was good to have a selection to work from.

Cloak on a Reaper Wood Elf King, my first attempt at two brush blending.

Black Wolf Raiding Party Leader, an attempt at the same technique on smaller areas.

Alexia. I love this mini, and I have had her for years, but have not had the courage to paint her, as I didn't have the skill to do so to the level I though she required. No time like the present!

This mini was one where I was using the two brush blending technique to work on the metalllics. Hence all the work on the sword. I am happy with the way it turned out,  but the pictures do not do it justice, I promise better pictures after the second par of the course tomorrow.

So, I am back home with sore shoulders from hunching over under my lamp all day, and a sore head from concentrating so hard. I have never spent such a long time in one sitting painting before, and it was hard work, but the time flew past very quickly indeed. I have learned a lot, including that I need to learn more about colour theory. In addition to the technique of two brush blending, which I will not go into here, as that's what youtube is for, I learned that to get proper shading, you need to go darker than you think. For example, with the elf king's cloak in the first image, I initially went with a darker green, as per normal colour triads, but it just didn't show up at all. I soon plumped for Coal Black (P3), a dark purple/green black, which turned out to be perfect. I used this as a means of darkening pretty much all the shadows from then on. Mixing the Coal Black with an Umbral Umber (P3) gave the darkest shading on the metals too, looking like a proper black at the deepest parts of the shadows, whilst still maintaining an natural looks. I think I'll be using much more of this colour.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow, as there is a whole lot more to learn, and I'm really excited to get these minis finished.

Warhammer Fantasy: Wood Elf Archers

The last of my painted minis from way back for the moment, and the last of the Wood Elves. This time, from the first boxed set of plastic minis from GW (maybe some of the first plastic minis? I'm sure someone will correct me there). Three of these have since been painted (see here for details), and I have started to add some inks to the others, to get some definition.

The elf on the far right of the front rank was one of my first conversions. From archer to standard bearer.

The flag is of course, freehand, and the pole is a spare plastic lance from a set of early Wood Elf cavalry, which are languishing unpainted in a box, but will be seeing the front of the paint queue shortly, as they are proper Oldhammer Ols Skool minis, pre 3rd ed. The pole has been fixed and pinned to the bearer now (something that was not in my tool kit of skills back in the day).

Warhammer Fantasy: Wood Elf Wardancers

Continuing this week's theme of showing off my early works, I stay with the Wood Elves again, but thsi time we have some Wardancers. The Wood Elf Wardancers were without a doubt my favourite unit for any Warhammer Army. Maybe of any army of any system, well at least back in the 90s they were. I was also a big fan of their incarnation in WFRP, and had a couple of Elven characters I wanted to advance to this career, but unfortunately that never transpired.
These particular Wardancers were painted to go more with a High Elf Army, as a Sea Elf allied contingent. The Wardancers in this case were the first over the side in a landing party or boarding action. The marines of the Warhammer world.

Three of these guys have shields, all done with freehand. Something which I rarely attempt these days, but I think I should start looking at again, as some of these are alright. I especially like the eye.

Compare these to my more recent attempt at painting a wardancer, and you can see how my painting has evolved over time.

There's at least one more post of Wood Elves to follow, at least of my painted minis from back in the 90s. There are a bunch more Oldhammer minis that I brought back, but none are painted. Some will be though, as these old minis are really working as an inspiration to me to get me going on them.

As to the old painted minis, I don't know yet if I want to repaint them, but they will certainly be rebased. Maybe I'll just go over them with the odd ink or two, just to help them pop a little more.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle: Wood Elf Beast Handler

Some more good old fashioned Warhammer Fantasy Battle minis, this time some wood Elves. I bought two blisters for animal handlers, one of the boar-handler and his boar, and another of the dog handler and his dogs. There were two others in the set, one with a bear, and I think another with three large cats. The only one to have been painted was the boar handler. I am still very proud of the way the boars came out, and of the tattoos on the elf. There are some touch ups needed to make up for the 20 odd years of neglect and handling, but that shouldn't take too much effort. The only think I want to change is the bases for the boar, as they're just too big. These guys wouldn't look too out of place on some simple 25mm bases, as these cavalry bases just swamp them.

Paint Table Saturday

I have never yet participated in this spot as yet, as Saturdays are not a day I get to do much painting. However, this afternoon was a family painting session, as the girls and I sat down together.

First off, we did some painting on paper, then, once I waited to see if everyone was actually in the mood to paint, and not to wander off and do other stuff, we each took one of these old WFB Wood Elf archers each and got stuck in.

Man, these things are old. The first plastic minis I bought, and I think some of the first plastics GW made. The detail on these is impressively minimal, but they were perfect for today's exercise.

The big'un was having trouble with the paint coming off the mini when she was holding it (we were using other craft paints as well as my acrylics, but they were doing the job), so I had to get each of them a cork to hold the mini with.

Here are the final results:

As you can see, only the lil'un finished hers off, what a speed painter! I loved the colour the big'un used for the cloak, so I copied her, no need for more green in my archer unit. She in turn liked the green hair her sister had painted and copied that.

I have more of these guys, some of which I painted about 20 years ago or so. Look out for them in the near future.