20 February 2016

Frog Demon (WIP)


One other item I recently picked up, along with the goblins in the previous update, and the soon-to-be-former-orcs, was the Reaper Bones "Frog Demon." I thought it would make a good summoned or bound critter for the Fomorians.

For a very, very long time I have stuck with painting techniques that I'm comfortable with, and that have usually worked well with me. Generally speaking, I work from dark to light, and build up a lot of layers, use some feathering, wet blending, and some vague mix of all three at once. When I was (much) younger I experimented more with translucent techniques, washes and what I know understand as glazing. But for the most part, it never caught on with me, other than some limited use of washes. (And some experimenting with dip/wash a few years back, that never really went anywhere.)

Since I've started painting again recently, and since I've been painting a lot of undead and trying to paint them quickly, I've started using washes quite a bit more and it's worked out well. SO I've been doing a little bit of reading (and watching a few YouTube videos) on washes and particularly glazes the past couple of weeks.

I thought the Frog Demon (or Bog Demon, as I think I prefer) would be a good test subject for an all translucent painting experiment. Right from my initial wash it didn't go as planned. Then the first glaze on the body was just as bad... until I decided it was good. So I went with it. I did some more, and more... It's more like a sloppy wash, and looks more like I've painted a three dimensional watercolor. As I was painting, I just let that sort of drive my technique -- very fast, free and fluid brushwork with thin & translucent color. And that's completely OK with me. In fact, I'm really fond of the way it looks, especially on this figure. So I think I might try this "watercolor on miniatures" thing again.







1 comment:

  1. That has a very naturalistic look, particularly on the back. I can certainly see this guy squelching his way through some muddy bog.

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