Building a Messiah, Part 4: Messiahs are like Onions
By Bobb Beauchamp– February 2, 2012
Not parfaits….layers! At least, that’s how I’m painting mine up. Today’s blog is going to look at how layers help build depth and shading.
Here’s a repeat shot of Thagrosh showing his base colors. I use a light primer, sort of a faded off-white, with a hint of brown. You can see it on the plates, claws, and Rapture blade parts. I’ve used PPs line of P3 paints for the basecoats, and for most other paints I use right now. His skin is Midlund Flesh, the leather is Bootstrap Leather, the armor is based in a thinned Khador Red Highlight, and the fire areas are based with Hearthfire.
Flash washes the colors out some, but here’s a shot with flesh wash run over the flesh areas. This is a traditional detail step…putting darker colors into recesses.
My plan with Thagrosh, at least so far as his skin goes, is to do a reverse layer…I’ll build up darker layers over the lighter base at first. I want to give his skin a cracked and scorched look. I’ll use the lava effects on him, but I want him to look like he’s not quite as immune to the effects as the beasts, since he’s still or was recently part Ogrun still.
Now Thagrosh is getting some detail. I’ve run two new layers on the skin…the first is an even mix of Midlund Flesh a and Bloodstone, a dark red/brown color. Once that’s dried, I added another thin layer of Bloodstone and Sanguine Highlight, mixed about 2:1. By putting the lighter shades in the recesses of Thagrosh’s skin, it creates a scorched impression. This is the overall effect I want to use for my entire Legion’s skin tones, but especially on the ogrun. I plan to use it to a lesser degree on those figures that show less effect of the blight. I’ve also run a Red Wash over the armor layer. After the wash of Khador Red Highlight, I ran a full layer of the same, as I didn’t like the cover that the wash alone gave. With the Red Wash run over it, it’s starting to get some depth added to it. I’ll run a couple of layers of Khador Red Highlight again, mixing in some lighter colors like Hearthfire and eventually a white in super small amounts to touch up the higher areas. I plan to finish it with a gold or silver trim…haven’t decided yet.
If you put acrylic medium/retarder in your ink washes they will come out much smoother. I know you’ve got some, use it!
I did it for the first orange wash…not for the red one…and not for the flesh wash. I’ve got some more hearthfire work coming up soon, I’ll use it for that!
Looking great man! Can’t wait to see it finished (and can’t wait to see it in person).
I’ve taken all these pics with my wife’s iPhone, and the flash is washing everything out. I’ll have to play with a lightbox and better camera at some point to get some better images.