Sculpting Spirit Stones

Hey there folks! There's been a few recent inquiries about how to sculpt Spirit Stones. Thing is, there's no "right" way, only whatever works best for you and the current piece. I know three different techniques to get the same effect and I'm sure there's more. (Feel free to share if you have a different method!) Please pardon the photos: I had to use Paint to edit as I recently upgraded to Windows 7 and can't find my Photoshop install disk...

Method 1: "Gem then Casing"
This is a two-step method. To start, you sculpt a protruding ovoid that becomes the gem. Let this dry. Then come back with a rolled out string of putty. Work it around the gem in a "C" shape to create the casing. Clean and smooth as you go until the ends meet. Remove any excess and then go back to clean up and shaping.
I find this method works best when you're sculpting the underlying layer and want to add a gem at the same time. It is mediocre for adding onto an existing layer as there isn't much surface area for the gem to stick to... even sculpting the casing can be enough pressure to break the bond.
Here's a straight shot...and an isometric.

Method 2: "Casing then Gem"
This is also a two-step method. Here you start with a flat circle of putty. Form your casing shape using a rounded tool, such at the top end of a small pin or a circular shaper. Press it into the center of the cicle and then rock the tool up and down to create your dished oval. Clean up as desired and allow this shape to cure. Then roll out a small ball for the gem and squish it in the center. Use a flat buffing tool to smooth the gem into place. If you squish too close to the casing, the blade point can be used to pick that back out.
This method is meant for applying to an existing surface, as it has maximized surface area. It is possible to do at the same time as an underlayer, but can be tricky as you have to press in and can easily mar the whole piece.
The two-step method does mean you have to wait to finish the piece. It is best for when you're creating several stones at the same time.
Here's a straight shot...and an isometric.

Method 3: "All at once!"
This is a single step method. Start with a protruding ovoid slightly larger than you would for Method 1. Then use the tip of a very sharp tool to press in around the edges to create the casing. Start at one side and work in both directions, so that you don't skew the shape when tooling. Once you've shaped the casing, go back to clean and smooth the piece. Be careful during this as it is easy to ruin the piece.
This method is only for applying to an existing surface. You CAN try doing this at the same time as the underlayer, but it will give you headaches.
The main advantage to this method is that it is done in one go. However, it is MUCH more difficult than the other 2 methods. It requires careful tooling and some sculpting experience to pull off.
Here's a straight shot...and an isometric.

Cheers and hope you enjoy!

As a personal note: No, I am not dead. :-p Life has been very busy both normally and at work. My 40k time has been cut drastically and my blogging time even more. I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things, but I expect the rest of the summer will still be slow. I hope to be more prolific after that!

***I'm sure the image is copyright someone, but I'm currently too lazy to hunt the name down... Used without permission, blah, blah, blah...***

Sculpting 202: Layering

Hello fearless readers! The last few weeks I've been finding myself returning to the part of the hobby I enjoy almost as much as playing: Sculpting. Today we're going to look at the concept of Layering.

Layering is comprised of two key concepts:
1. You don't have to do every little detail in a single go.
I consider this THE biggest tip anyone can receive when getting into Sculpting. For any sculpt more complex than a simple fill or small detail, you should build up the piece in small sections or layers. Then allow each stage to fully cure overnight before working on another. (This can be cut to about 2 hours if you use a cooker.)
Why do things in stages? Because there's few things as frustrating as getting a sculpt just right, starting on something else and accidentally obliterating or marring the first sculpt. By allowing each stage to fully solidify, you don't have to worry about an errant thumb squishing your prior work. To quote my grandfather, "If you can't take the time to do it right the first time, how do you have time to do it twice?"
So once you've finished a layer, set the piece off to the side and work on something else until the work is cured. This is a large part of why I typically have 3-6 different sculpting projects on my desk at the same time. As a bonus, doing it in layers also means you're (probably) not staring at the same fig for hours and hours!

2. It is much easier to make the outer layer look "right" when you are building onto a correctly shaped underlayer.
In the same way that armature becomes the miniature's skeleton, the underlayer is their flesh. These layers don't have to be perfectly detailed and 100% anatomically correct. After all, you're just going to be covering it up. But it is good to have the general shape and size of the muscles and flesh defined. This will greatly assist you in keeping the miniature's overall proportions and mass correct. It also makes it much easier to gauge the correct shaping for covering layer(s). This is particularly critical for clothing, but also applies to armour, jewelry, decorations and even bare flesh.
For a great example of layering and underlayers, I again recommend checking out Klaus' Ogyrn. It's an excellent example of generally defining the basic musculature and bulk before adding the final layers of clothing and armour.
Another good example is Colonel Corbane's recent Sergeant Harker conversion. For the shirt, he's used the original bare-chested sculpt for his underlayer. The cloak is also built up in several layers to achieve the correct shape and look.

To show you how a project breaks down for me, I've dusted off my photo library from when I'd first planned this article 8 months or so ago. This part of the project was specifically done to show the concept of layering in stages. Originally I meant to just put a pickelhaube helmet on an Assault on Black Reach Ork, but my muse struck and it developed into a little bit more...

Here's what the ugly little blighter looked like to start. This was just after I'd modified his neck for the "Simple Fills" article. Note that I've stuck a length of pin into his skull to act as a basic armature and mounting point for the eventual helmet spike.Then I added my first layer of Green Stuff. I took care to get the right thickness for the dome of the helmet and smoothed the layer, but didn't bother making the edges all neat and proper.On the next application I cleaned up the edges and added the basic temple guards. There's a few tool marks here as I knew I'd be adding some more layers later. I could just as easily left them as he's just an Ork... they're not exactly known for their studious maintenance protocols.It was about this point that I realized he really needed an iron gob! So the next layer spent some time on that. Note that I only did the right side on this step; the left was added in a later step. I also added a small line of putty around the front of the helmet to start defining the brim. It didn't seem like this helmet should be "pretty", so I made sure there were some dents and scratches on the final brim.It looks like I skipped a session or two between this picture and the last. Those saw the sculpting of the left side of the gob, defining of the brim, and the addition of a rivet hinge for the gob. This shot was right after rolling out the putty for creating the helmet's crest.Once the crest was sculpted and cured, I finished him off with a spike stolen from somewhere. I think it was a Fantasy skeleton's spearhead or something...
Anyways, that's it for today. Hopefully you've gleaned something useful and/or inspiring! Cheers!

***Starter image borrowed from this site on CSS tables and randomly found via Google. As usual, it will be removed on request. The rest of the pics are mine.***

Off-topic note: Due to life, distractions and other whatnot, I promised this article "next week"... something like 8 months ago. :-p I find much more enjoyment from blogging when I write about what's on my mind at the time rather than trying to force an article. I hope you guys don't mind, but the quality seems much better when my muse is present.

Sculpting 105: Fine Line Shaping

The fine Colonel Corbane has compiled and posted an excellent set of links on Sculpting and kindly included some of my posts. This drove some traffic to my Farseer on a Jetbike post where JRV stepped up with a question. (Stop reading this right now and go check out his kit bash Leviathan. It's okay, I'll wait...) He wanted to know "How you are getting those fine detail lines? Is that a press mold or something?"

The answer is no, that's not a press mold. Those lines are all hand sculpted. However, the process is really quite easy once you get the hang of it. Spinning out a thread of putty and trying to adhere it to your fig is going to be a study in frustration. You'll smoosh the detail, break the thread and generally want to give up in frustration or throw things at the wall. (Trust me, I speak from first-hand experience...) The trick is to do majority of your shaping through the REMOVAL of putty.

Step 1: Roll out a thin tube of putty and stick it to the fig. Just go for the general shape you want and make sure there's excess putty. The big thing is to have the putty where you want with a good contact surface to the model. Having the correct general thickness is nice too, but the specifics can be fixed later.In cross-section, it should look a bit like this:Step 2: Use the blade of your sculpting tool to cut away the excess putty. Be careful to cut all the way through, pull away slowly and work in sections. You don't want to pull up your contact surface.Step 3: Now that you have the correct amount of putty where you want it and a good contact surface, you can sharpen the edges and top of your line with the sculpting tool.It takes a little care and practice, but the technique itself is not that difficult. Cheers and hope this helps!

***Inset image from a biomedical site that had the look I wanted...***

Sculpting 104: Silicon Shaping Tools

Way back when I started this blog as a regular thing, I posted an article "Sculpting 101: Tools". In there I gave a brief overview of the general tools you will find on my desk during a project. Well, mchmr6677 recently dropped me an e-mail asking:
"I've read articles on BoLS and other sites about using clay shapers with greenstuff. Do you use them? And, if you do, which ones do you use? They seem a little expensive (around $8 each) and come in a myriad of sizes."

Okay, I have to sidetrack into a bit of history for a sec. Technically, almost every "sculpting tool" out there pitched for use with miniature sculpting is actually a rededicated wax/clay carving or shaping tool. Yet the term "clay shaper" has become nigh synonymous with silicon tipped tools. This is largely thanks to Royal Sovereign's "Colour Shapers", of which a sub set is specifically billed as "Clay Shapers". This is like Kleenex, Xerox, Green Stuff and several other brand/product names that have slipped into the vernacular due to great marketing and a nigh monopolistic dominance of a niche audience. You can now find several off-brand copycats marketing their silicon or rubber tip tools as "clay shapers" too. Gotta love it.

So is a silicon tipped shaping tool better than a metal? Yes and no.
Pros:
1. Extremely slick surface. Probably the best thing about these is how smooth they are. You can work with the sculpting epoxy sooner and will require less lubricant. They're also ideal for buffing out large smooth surfaces due to the reduced sliding drag.
2. Shape. Silicon and rubber tips have to be of a heavier and thicker material to resist bending, deformation, and tearing. So they have thicker head shapes than you would normally find in a metal tool. I've often found the difficulty level of a project can drastically change when you have the "right" shaped tool for the job.
3. Cleaning. Because of the ultra-smooth surface, many materials won't bond to the surface and will easily peel away. Cleaning is often little more than a water rinse and toweling.
4. Purpose of design. These are excellent tools specifically designed for artists working in this type of medium. They have decent thickness handles, good ergonomics for grip and just feel "right" for this kind of work. In comparison, most metal shaping tools are actually re-purposed dental tools. They often have a minimum thickness to the shaft to save on material and many sets have tool shapes we're unlikely to need.

Cons:
1. Flexible tips. I strongly recommend getting the "Extra Firm" model. The pliability of the softer versions seems perfect for a light medium such as fondant, marzipan or even oil paint. Combine a pliable tool and the finickiness of epoxy and you have an exercise in frustration, especially if you aren't familiar with how the sculpting epoxy handles. These tools are not "beginner friendly".
2. Shape. Again, because of the material involved, silicon tip shapers tend to be heavier and thicker than their metal counterparts. Certain shapes just aren't plausible, especially sharp points and edges. Everything on them is just a little rounded. So where they might be the perfect tool for one job, they'll be horrible for another.
3. Cleaning. Those few materials that do manage to bond to the surface can mar your tip to remove. Metal offers a small advantage in that anything that really bonds can simply be sliced away and/or buffed off with fine-grit sandpaper.
4. Tip Degradation. Not only is there the above, but many forms of silicone lubricant (such as KY Jelly) and caustic chemicals can rot your tip. Even worse is if you leave your tools out and have a cat that likes to chew on things...
5. Price. Silicon tipped shapers are cheaper than good brushes, but still kinda expensive. For the same price as one or two silicone tipped shapers, a little bit of hunting around can get you a complete 12-piece set of metal dental tools.

So if you're just starting to sculpt and want something a little more precise than your fingers, I'd suggest getting a metal tool set. But if you've got a few sculpts under your belt, these won't replace your normal tools but are an excellent item to pick up to expand your toolbox. I would particularly recommend Royal Sovereign's Size 0 Angle Chisel and Size 2 Taper Point as my "best buys" and the ones I personally use. Cheers!

***Images are undoubtedly copyright of Royal Sovereign, FOX and Universal Studios and will be removed if asked.***

Chaos Daemons

In the continued quest to upload pics of more of my work, I thought I'd show you some Chaos Daemons I have floating around... Plus, it makes for a fast post to throw out while I'm on vacation... :-p

First up is one of two dozen girls converted up to be my "counts as" Furies. These were done up before the Codex: Chaos Daemons had even come out. I'm generally happy with the conversion and final colors, though I hate the big mold line down her face. The entire batch had that problem, but it isn't like I could replace them now...


And then there are my Bloodletters. I've never really liked the GW Daemon models for Bloodletters as they never look like they're packing the right weapons or armour. I wanted something that looked a little more brutal and less cheesy fantasy daemon. So I used Khornegors as the base. The result looks a little like this:
Please ignore the ugly wart on his left axe. That was removed after seeing it in these pics.
How old are these pics? Well, enough so that I didn't use a lightbox, backdrop, had the flash on and was using green grass on the bases... It's been a while.
Wow, my red work has really come a long way...
Though you only see these 6, there's 16 total done. This allowed me to field them in 2 squads of 8, as that gave some sort of bonus.
Yeah, twist and shout!

So these days, most of these figs only hit the table as Summoned Lesser Daemons. When the Codex: Chaos Daemons hit the shelves, I thought about working these and some other figs up as a cohesive force. There's enough in my spares to field 2K and change, but I've never cared enough to actually field them. Maybe there is such a thing as too many armies... Nah, heresy talk! I'm sure I'll get around to them "someday".

Also, if you've read this far... there's still over FIVE days left to enter my "Design me a banner contest"! Get cracking!

Eldar: More Jetbiker Sculpts

Continuing my quest to upload some more of my stuff, here's a Jetbike Farseer and three Jetlocks I did up several years ago. These were done shortly after I completed early sword-wielding version of my Farseer. So these were some of my early forays into larger sculpts. This was also prior to my getting a second lamp, so the source lighting is a little painful. Still, maybe they'll inspire anyways. Plus, I think it's good for people to see that everyone starts somewhere...

This first was a Farseer I've not ever put on the web. Again, I wanted a more dynamic pose than the slouched normal Jetbike look. Still, he's not quite as daring and only rising up enough to cast his spell.
Here's the initial fit test. Most of the basic pieces are in place but there's little to no glue and no sculpting yet.And BAM!, here's the nearly completed model! Sorry, I didn't have much "in progress" on this guy. Most everything was single run sculpts anyways.
The right "casting" hand was taken from an old Guardian arm. Two of the fingers were CAREFULLY cut with a very sharp X-acto knife and then bent to give shape. The middle snapped anyways and was repositioned with some glue and filler putty.
The left arm was also a Guardian arm. (I think...) The upper arm just wasn't converting right, so I just sculpted the whole thing. The legs were also converted from a Guardian's. I don't like the "feel" on that foot position, but it wasn't enough to redo everything.
And here's another view. The right foot was later bent to fully touch the footrest. He also got some other clean-up on the neck and back of his jacket, but otherwise was done.


Then there's Warlock 1...
Here's the basic wire-fit version as usual. There's hidden heavy pins running through most of the model, but concealed by other parts at this point. I promise I'll show more on that sort of thing sometime.Here a basic spirit stone was added to his chest and other filler sculpt done. His head was from a miscast Ranger I had around and the sword from a Howling Banshee.
And here he is with the simple vest/jacket done. The main torso used was a Guardian. Legs and right arm were from a normal Jetbiker.


And Warlock 2...
Another guy sourced from the same basic kit as Warlock 1. Again, dry fit and nothing spectacular here...
And here's the raw sculpt of the runes on his chest. I hadn't really learned fine line control and I didn't shave his chest down, so they REALLY bulked his armor out. Hah. I hadn't realized that bottom line was off-center either. :-p
And here's the final. The coat/vest thingy reduces the bulk of the Rune Armour, but it's still a little off. It was a great learning experience.


And then my favorite of them all, Warlock 3...
Here's the raw wire fit. Note the pin visible at left elbow and how her head is "floating".
Finished version from the front, and a cameo of some of my noble Dwarves! (I still miss them every now and then, but would never have finally quit Fantasy if I'd kept them...)
An over-exposed view from her right. The head was taken from an old Wood Elf Wardancer. I still consider it one of the best female elf sculpts I've ever seen. Has the right touch of "otherworldliness".
Sadly, I screwed up on an alignment cut when removing the head from the original fig. In the process I managed to whack off the bottom 1/2 of her jaw. I tried resculpting the piece but couldn't get the GS to work for me. Every attempt just looked off. So I sculpted over the entire flaw and just gave her a rebreather mask.
My first attempt at blending hair. Wow, it was much easier than expected. It was literally just "stipple with a bit of flick down and in when removing the blade".
And a close-up of the final.


Cheers and hope you've enjoyed this rattle around my images folder!

My Farseer on a Jetbike

So a recent inquiry got me thinking about my blog content and things I've been meaning to do, but for whatever reasons not yet done. One of those things "to-do" is moving over some posts I pseudo-blogged on my Flickr a few years back. So to start, here's the big one: my Eldar Farseer on a Jetbike "Reboot". I've shown the final product in my Sculpting 101 (and to the right), but some of you might enjoy seeing the process of how I got there too. I could probably stretch this out to several posts, but that seems like cheating...

This fig started back in 3rd edition when I decided I needed a JetSeer. I had a few extra jetbikes but my only "spare" Psyker was an Eldrad model. I also knew I didn't wanted the lounging pose typical of the current jetbike riders. I wanted something more active, upright, dynamic... and thus an Idea was born. I sat down and chopped Eldrad into pieces for his head and torso. As a side effect of repositioning his head, I had to reculpt the left side of his face. Then I replaced his arms and legs with Guardian bitz and some repositioning. There was a fair bit of drilling and pinning to make sure the armature could support the metal upper pieces too. Then I sculpted some details such as a loin cloth, fills, runes, a couple spirit stones and other such. I ended up with something that looked a little like this:
Notably, this was my first (and last) experiment sculpting with White Stuff. It's been relegated to gap filler. I was still fairly happy with the final product, excepting the hilt and how he was gripping it. I considered it good, gave him a basic paintjob and used him for several years.

Then along came this new idea of blogging about your 40k hobby. There was this up and coming new site I'd been reading called "Way of Saim-Hann". Fritz decided to promote by having a little contest. The only rule was that it had to be a Jetbike Mounted Eldar HQ. I figured I'd just take my Farseer, do some more paint detailing and then throw it into the mix. But as I was considering this, I came across the blog of some guy named Ron at From the Warp who was also doing up a fig to enter. He didn't even play Eldar! He was doing the fig for the competition and a friend's new army. (And oh did it show in his initial choice of wargear... a bike Autarch with a powerweapon? Sheesh. :-P Thankfully, he welcomed suggestions.) But the kicker was that he had some pretty solid concept sketches... We went back and forth raising the bar, commenting and critiquing along with a group of like-minded bloggers. Ron ended up taking first with his solid conversion and excellent paintjob on this Autarch. But I've realized I don't care about having won or not... The prize was more Eldar, something I didn't need but Ron's newbie friend did. But even more so? The blog community banter continually pushed things to that next level. There result was a number of truly excellent entries. My final product was of a much higher scope and quality than I would have attempted on my own. I ended up with the only model I've been happy enough to actually pit into CoolMiniOrNot. The glory of such a great competition, my final fig, and the skills I acquired along the way were worth more than any mere prize. (Yeah, I would have been happy to win, but it wasn't... necessary. Hopefully you understand.)

Enough background, back to the fig: I knew I wanted to redo several things about this guy. I had seen this stellar work by Scibor and thought "I could do something like that..." As I'm not one for direct copying, his was an inspiration but I wanted the final to be something all mine. So the first thing to do was sketch. I ran up a dozen little sketches before I had my basic concept. I kinda wish I still had those... it would be amusing to show you how many things did or didn't make the final. So then I broke apart the original fig, cleaned off the nasty White Stuff, got a fresh jetbike canopy and worked up the start for a decorative (and magnetic!) base. After the initial layer of putty we had this:
The above is after my first session of basic sculptwork. In addition to the other changes, I decided he needed a Singing Spear. So I grabbed the sword from that blind High Elf (Eltharion) and stuck it on a bit of wire as a place to start. (I'm sure there's a tasteless joke there, but I'll refrain... this time.) This was also the point of my first revelation with sculpting: "You don't have to do every detail on a piece in one go." It's simple in retrospect that you can add other details later and smooth them in, but prior to this I was trying to do all GS work on an area in one step. Oh, the hours of frustration I could have saved...
Next, I decided to bring the canopy back even farther than the initial plan. To support this, I inserted some lengths of sewing pins to make a basic armature.
Along the way I like to dry fit things together to check the pose and get a little "is this worth it" check in. I'd also finished the sculpt of the face and started canopy details.
Yet more canopy trim. The spear got a butt-cap from the 2007 Farseer's staff and some basic shaping on the shaft.
Here I decided I hated the GS on the shaft and redid it along with some pieces from a DA Exarch power weapon. I also added the spaulders (upper arm armour) that I'd been thinking about from the initial sculpt. This main lines of the spaulder were made with the same technique as the edge of the canopy. The pattern in the recesses was done by placing a thin layer of GS inside the edging and then stippling with the point of a pin.
Added the first rune! It's a combination of the runes for Farseer and Jetbike. Yeah, I'm just that nerdy. (Okay, I'll admit that I had no idea where I was going at this point... I'd been considering doing runes like this across the whole canopy area, but my test pieces just didn't look "right".)
Finished up the Singing Spear using some wrapped copper wire from an old circuit board. I also started the GS on his cloak and doodled my initial idea for the top of the canopy using a fine tip marker. Note the repeat of the Farseer/Jetbike rune. I tried this out when I got to the sculpt phase but I didn't like the the off-set look of the lightning bolt after trying it. So I scrapped that idea for something different...
And here's how the jetbike canopy decided it wanted to come out... I also added a bit from the plastic Wraithlord to the end of the wing.
Same session, different angle. I think I was fishing for commentary on the wing bit. At some point I realized it killed the lines and just removed it.
Ah, the example of what the trim/edging looked like when first applied but before sculpt. I had a couple inquries into how I did it. So I took this pic as an example of the intial putty application. The sculpting was basically pulling out and down from the center of the line to trim down to the amount of putty and basic shape wanted. Then the point of the sculpting tool was pushed in along the bottom to sharpen the line/canopy edge. Then I would lightly run the flat buffing side of the sculpting tool along the tip of the line to flatten. Repeat in sections until finished. (If anyone is interested in the technique but can't make sense of the above, just ask and I can try explaining with graphics.)
A rather blurry pic of the Spear, having been permanently attached to the arm and given a basic hand sculpt. I was actually kinda put out by my sculpt on the hand... the old plastic right hand looked clunky and mis-shapen compared to how nicely this one ended up.
Here I added the detailing to the back of his hand. I also took my wife's advice and enlarged the gemstones on the canopy... she was right too.
And a shot of the center...
Added detailing and a gem to the triangle at the top of the canopy. I also dropped in a spirit stone and some ribbons at the wrist.
This run I'd originally added a kind of growing sine wave pattern to the front part of the canopy left... I was thinking a flame or flamberge or something. But I was only "doodling" in GS and not set on any one thing. I gave up for the night and came back to it the next day, only to see an Astral Serpent staring back at me. A little more putty and he was realized in the flesh, so to speak. Though this became a comedy of frustration... It took me several tries to get the head to satisfaction. Once there, I took this photograph. Then, thinking to work on some other canopy details, I picked it up... and managed to squish the head. So I redid it several times, only to mar it again by fumbling the canopy as I was setting it down to cure. I ended up resculpting that damn head probably 2 dozen times total before I was happy with it again. This was my second big revelation of sculpt: "If you're happy with a detail, set the piece aside and let it cure." Otherwise, you're liable to screw it up and have to redo it.
More on the canopy and sand added to the base.
The canopy was still getting sculpt, but I gesso primed everything else to black. Again my wife came to the rescue and pointed out that an Egyptian stylized eye would really finish out the canopy nicely... curse her for being right again! The sand got a base coat of Scorched Brown and then a drybrush up with Beastial Brown, Snakebite Leather and Bleached Bone.
Codex grey edging/highlights on the base and finished the sculpt on the eye.
And here we skip ahead a couple days... The canopy has been finished and primed. The tan "wraithbone armour" areas have been based Scorched Brown and the red with Red Gore.
Here some color appears on the canopy. Several bone pieces have been lightened up using Vallejo USA Tan Earth. Several gemstones were also done in the "GW style" using Midnight Blue, Ultramarine Blue, and Ice Blue for the main and a single dot of Skull White for the "gleam".
Here the wraithbone of the canopy was blended up using Vallejo USA Tan Earth in way more coats than the final effect seems to show. I also did up the canopy gems and basecoated his cloak in Red Gore.
This was the same session as above, but I was playing with the camera angle to see what I wanted for the final composition.
Light bone from a black base is a pain in the ass. I've since switched this to a white basecoat and have found that MUCH easier. So here the canopy is done and the body of the bike taken to Scorched Brown.
More bone... I spent about 4 aggravating hours between this step and the last. I'd hit the "ugly phase"... where things aren't coming together quite as you planned, everything takes too long and you generally just want to drop the project into a dark place and never look at it again. I was frustrated with how his upper shoulder pads were sticking into the air and annoyed with how much time the bone was taking compared to the results I was getting. Still, I pushed on...
and started having things come together. I blended up the main body pieces to Blood Red and did the "reverse glow" on the spear tip using the same blues as on the gems. The effects really made something "click" in my brain. I found myself much happier with the fig... to the point that I got so into painting that I forgot to stop and take progress pics.
Here I went back and touched up my little errors. As I did this, I managed to somehow get wet gesso on my thumb and obliterate the big gem on the canopy. So I got to repaint that too...
The "final". I took a couple dozen photos of the final presentation from different angles and lighting styles... I had to compensate for a crappy camera and all. The best one went into Photoshop and had the colors trued as best I could. Then I erased the white background and dropped in a dropping gradient. I chose blue to compliment the gems and give a ground/sky effect.

Whew... did you actually read all of this? Cheers for getting through that wall of pics and text! (I think I tripled my current pic load with this one post.) Hopefully this write-up was interesting or even a little inspiring. If you have any questions about tools, technique, or otherwise, please feel free to ask.

Irony. Looking back at the details of this project, I'm realizing that rehosting the post isn't the only stuff I've put off regarding this fig. There's several bits of highlight, freehand and other details that I wanted to do on this guy. But I haven't put a lick of paint on him since the competition. I get the feeling I'll be showing this guy again but with some new details.

***Images are all mine, baby!***