Red's doing in my head!

And Pink stinks!

I've posted a couple of "completed" blog entries recetnly, but I'm going to start adding WIP blogs as and when I think there's a point. As in the old days on my blog, it'll be as much about formulating and documenting my process and experiments for myself as much as for anyone else to view (cuz hey, who's reading this but me anyway?!).

For the first WIP post, I'm currently working on Belthir, one of the lieutenants from Descent 2nd Edition. Nicely detailed model, reasonable scale (though a bit smaller than my usual GW space marines), and once I removed his wings he's reasonably easy to access with a paintbrush.

So the box art for Belthir has a frustrating amount of shadow over it, but it's pretty clear that he has a deep red hide and complimentary-coloured blue\green armour. I decided heading into painting him that I wanted to try my hand at NMM for the armour, so I figured I'd quickly paint the red hide so I didn't have to try to access his neck with a paintbrush later and get red paint on my finished armour. I also assumed the red would be relatively quick, and I'd spend most of my time on the armour. Boy was I wrong!

Painting a deep red and highlighting up without it appearing way too pink has proven to be a nightmare! I started with a VGA Scarlet Red basecoat, and a thin mix of Scarlet Red and Charred Brown for shading, then moved onto highlights. After experimenting with Bonewhite and finding it too pink, I settled on a Scarlet Red + Dwarf Flesh mix as it seemed to increase brightness without too much pinkness to it (on my test paper at least).

So, I've applied progressively smaller treatments of 2:1, 1:1 and 1:2 Scarlet Red to Dwarf Flesh, and as you can see from the pics below, there's quite a bit of not-cool going on:

Firstly, I'm struggling to get smooth transitions. If I add a single drop of water to thin the mixed pain, I end up with something more like a wash - it fills recesses and pools on flat surfaces. If I don't add water, I'm finding it goes on way too thick to show the underlying layer and I don't get the blend I'm looking for.

Secondly, each successive colour is vastly different from the last, meaning I need to use much better blending techniques than I have so far.

Finally, it's freaking pink!!!

My plan at this stage is to bring the tone back down with several thin layers of a very dark brown (Black + Charred Brown + Glaze Medium) - this should restore the shadows and smooth out some of the layering. I may also apply a glaze of Scarlet Red if I find it ends up too desaturated. From there, I'll have to reassess next steps. 

The figure only costs $10, so if I have to start again from basecoat I will, but I could just re-buy the whole miniature if I have to (though obviously I'd prefer not to). Hopefully I won't end up wet-blending the hide as well, as it's just further delaying this mini, and I have literally 160-odd left to do for Descent. Grrr....

Anyway, onwards and upwards :) Until next time - Darchangel