PoW's WIP: 6/16/2022 Khazad Guard

PowerofWill · **Posted:** Sun Nov 26, 2017 11:33 pm

As usual, I did not get it painted when I wanted to. In fact, I still haven't finished the dragon knight. Whenever I have time to paint I'm usually too tired. I am close to finishing though, here are some wip shots.
[url=https://flic.kr/p/DLSXkC]

For wip pics, they turned out way better than I thought they would lol.
There's not a lot left to do, just the skin, some details, the base, and a bit of cleanup. I ran into a bit of an issue with the red on the back of the cloak. I did some experimenting with glazes, which went well I think, but after a layers the glazes made all the red bits shiny. So to counter the shininess I applied some matte varnish to all the red. Long story short, I think I applied it a bit too thick to the back of the cloak because when it dried it was pretty cloudy. That's why it looks duller than the rest of the red and has those random grey specks on it. I'm not sure if there's a way to fix this, but at this point I think I'm stuck with it

Thanks for looking!

-PoW

Son of Fundin · **Joined:** Thu Sep 26, 2013 7:04 pm **Posts:** 258

Wow, the Dragon Knight looks superb! I think it really shows off all the different techniques which you have worked on over the past years, the NMM is spot on! (Although on seeing your previous Easterling I am not sure whether it is, otherwise it is splendid true metallic metal.)
I also love the contrast on the red, although the specks are a real shame (not that I could see them :-D

).
The brown as a contrast colour on the inside I also really like, it makes the model a bit more grounded I believe. I am just not too keen on the green dragon on the back, it just seems a bit random (although I presume it's for contrast).

I also just discovered the troll, that's a super cool and gritty paintjob as well!

Cheers,
Bennet

Feanorthenoldor · **Joined:** Wed Sep 02, 2009 6:44 pm **Posts:** 879

I can't even see the mistake you described above on the red. Looks great!

PowerofWill · **Posted:** Fri Dec 22, 2017 10:55 pm

Thanks guys! @Son of Fundin, the green dragon is supposed to be kind of like a jade dragon. It is kind of random, I was just having a hard time thinking of a good color for it, and thought a jade dragon would be cool.

Here is the finished thing. I thought it would be cool to have him galloping across a shallow stream, and I tried some red and yellow to the base to make it look like it was reflecting the colors of the dragon knight. I thought the colors would come out a lot more subdued, but they ended up being brighter than I wanted. It still looks pretty cool though.

I'm hoping to get started on the second Gundabad troll while I'm on break, so we'll see how much of it I can get done.

-PoW

GreatKhanArtist · **Posted:** Sat Dec 23, 2017 2:57 pm

He turned out really great. The NMM is beautifully done and the green and whites are a great contrast. The base contrasts with the mini extremely well. He'd be worthy of an entry in the local GW painting/army contest.

Feanorthenoldor · **Joined:** Wed Sep 02, 2009 6:44 pm **Posts:** 879

He looks great overall, all the colors match nicely.

Looking at the mini, one thing does stick out, which the contrast!

Perhaps it may be the picture (I have had trouble w/ that myself), but you can definitely add a few more highlights on the knight's robes, as you did on the horses red skirt. The same w/ the NMM Gold, just adding more shadows and highlights in the right places will really make it pop even more!

Here's a really good video explaining where to place highlights and shadows for NMM, it really helped me break down specific areas to make NMM armor look more realistic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zux0HAS8pAw&t=305s

PowerofWill · **Posted:** Sat Dec 23, 2017 5:12 pm

Thanks guys! I forgot it to mention this earlier, but this was actually painted using true metallics, not nmm. I think it's the way I took the pictures, I basically covered the mini with a piece of paper so I wouldn't get those harsh unnatural highlights from the light source. It also took away some of the shininess of the armor which is why it looks like nmm. That being said, there are still some spots where I definately could add some more contrast.
As for the cloak, it did look a lot brighter, but because of the issue I had with my varnish and all the stuff I did to try and fix it, it ended basically just dulling the color. I left it that way because I simply wasn't sure what to do, but it's really bugging me so I may have to go back over it and brighten it up some.
As always, thanks for the comments, I appreciate them!

-PoW

Lothíriel · **Posted:** Sat Dec 23, 2017 5:57 pm

Great stuff and I'm impressed by the water basing, too.

PowerofWill · **Posted:** Sun Jan 21, 2018 11:56 pm

Happy new year! Unfortunately I have not started on the troll yet, I still need a break before tackling a big mini. So instead, I did some work on this guy. The pic is terrible, but you get the idea.

This one is nmm. I want to try and push my skills a bit and go for something basically as high quality as I can produce. I have to pause for now because my brushes are all kind of worn down and I need something that will keep its shape to do some detail work. As for the gold armor, I wanted to go for max contrast, and to do that I skipped a few layers when highlighting and went straight to my two lightest highlights. I think it turned out well, but I still need to clean it up a bit. The silver is still very meh, but it's getting there.

-PoW

Feanorthenoldor · **Joined:** Wed Sep 02, 2009 6:44 pm **Posts:** 879

Gold looks good. For the silver, darken the shadows, and use white as a reflecting point to make it stand out even more. I'm assuming you were already going to do this haha.

PowerofWill · **Posted:** Wed Jan 24, 2018 4:01 pm

Thanks! I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with the silver honestly, but I was thinking along the same line as you. I think I'm going to darken the silver overall to really make the highlights stand out, or at least try.
I also got the dwarf commander set for Christmas, so be on the look out for some dwarves in the near future!

-PoW

Frodo Baggins · **Joined:** Mon Apr 24, 2017 7:19 pm **Posts:** 12

I'd try glazing a bit of green into the midtones and shadows of the silver. Also, the gold is excellent, but I think you could go a bit darker on the shadows to be honest, maybe some purple in there? Fantastic job so far though.

PowerofWill · **Posted:** Sun Feb 04, 2018 5:26 am

Thanks! I'll be messing around with it for sure.
A week ago I played my first few rounds of Battle Companies! I always liked the idea behind it, and I figured with it being revamped, I should give it a go. I don't have the official book yet, I've just been using the one here on the forum. It was a lot of fun though, and I look forward to my next battle! I also want to paint some themed companies, so that may be my goal for this year.
For now though, here is some progress of done on my dwarf captain.

I originally was going to paint the cloak with a purple blended up to a light blue, but ended up not liking it. I think I could get it to look good, but I am also a big fan of the traditional green/gold so that's why I went with that. I also remembered I have some new brushes that I've had for ages, so I can finally do some decent detail work. I'm not sure if I want to do any freehand on this guy though, I kinda like the solid green look. Let me know what you guys think!

-PoW

PowerofWill · **Posted:** Sun Feb 04, 2018 5:30 am

I keep forgetting to mention this, but I've also started updating all my old pictures. I've only done a few, but I'll add more as I have time.

-PoW

Feanorthenoldor · **Joined:** Wed Sep 02, 2009 6:44 pm **Posts:** 879

Nice color combination here. The cloak looks good, but to make it look even better, glaze a darker mixture up and glaze it into the deepest recesses to increase the contrast. Maybe even go another highlight up too.

Looks great overall.

PowerofWill · **Posted:** Thu Feb 08, 2018 7:37 pm

Thank you! I did take your advice and deepened the shadows a bit, and went with one more highlight on the green. I'm almost done with it now, I just have the base left.

I wanted to try something different and added some orc blood being flung off the axe. It's a little hard to see in the picture, but I'll get some better pictures posted when it's finished.

-PoW

Feanorthenoldor · **Joined:** Wed Sep 02, 2009 6:44 pm **Posts:** 879

Much better on the contrast. Looking forward to some more pics.

PowerofWill · **Posted:** Mon Feb 19, 2018 7:39 pm

Here is the finished result. I ran into some trouble with the shield and ended up basically having to redo it. It looks kinda splotchy in the pic, but it's smoother in real life.

These last two are taken without any light diffusion so you can see the orc blood better.

I will admit that the blood being flung off the axe is a bit excessive, but I thought it'd be fun to try, and I'm quite happy with how it turned out.
I'm really in the mood to paint more dwarves, so expect to see a few more in the near future

-PoW

Danasdfgh · **Joined:** Sun May 15, 2016 9:23 pm **Posts:** 69

Absolutely fantastic Dwarf Captain, very impressed by the blood splatter!

Can thoroughly recommend the new Battle Companies - Great fun and easy to access now with a single, well done book.

garmenhord · **Posted:** Tue Feb 20, 2018 7:40 am

Nice job on the blood. Could also work as some guts hanging on his axe!

PoW's WIP: 6/16/2022 Khazad Guard

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