Little Girl's Hero?

So a while back I finally got a bit of inspiration to start on a topic that I have been lambasting about for a while now. Something that I know I should do, but was waiting for a muse to touch me in order to get it moving forward.

Seems I got smacked with it after the Euro Militaire event.. and so started to get down to it over the past few weeks.

This will become a miniature that I will give to Roman in exchange for the piece that he gave me already!

Col. Straken from Games Workshop. Quite the piece that he "speed" painted.. always hate when he says that and then has something like this popping out. But that is ok.. just means it give me something to aim for!

So with his basing class under my belt as well.. and some pieces kicking around the house.. I figured it was time to get to work on my piece for him!

This is what I got after tossing the pieces together, and slapping on some primer to it. I moved away from the normal bricks and tried to make some out of corkboard instead. Especially after seeing an article with them from MIG a while back. I like the texture on them, but am not 100% sold on it. But I want to press on with it.

I began to add some colors with the airbrush to get things moving as well.

I also started a bit more on the weathering on the metal sections here as it can be seen. I was liking it before I put the greenery on to the base..

Still decent here.. but then I guess I began to go too far... and added too many techniques and styles on top of it.. with weathering powders, and inks, and washes...

Now I am not as sold on it as I was in the past.. argh... but that is what happens when you experiment.. sometimes it works.. sometimes .. not so much!

At this point I began to work on the main model for the piece..

Going for green cargos, brown boots.. and just primer for the skin. But it was with this primer that I thought why not make him more of a darker skinned model instead of the traditional pink/lighter skin tone that most GW models get stuck with.

I did have a ton of fun painting this up though. Using the technique that Fernando taught us in Blumberg and how to use the retarder for the paints to help with the wet blends.

Thankfully I have been quite ill lately, so have quite a stock of these pill cases to fill with the paints!

It was not as easy on a 28mm model, especially the face, as it was on the crusader bust. But it got me to a point that I was happy with much faster than if I had gone a more traditional route!

From here, I began to then look at adding some inks and washes to it to smooth out the transitions further, and bring some more life into it.

I did play around with the pants in the same manner, and the weapon as well. Once this was all done, it had one heck of a shine to the model due to the retarder medium. So a quick shot of matte varnish from the airbrush brought it all back down.

I really focused on that cause it was a major point that I got from the Euro judges that some of my textures did not have the right feel to them compared to what they were.

Of course I had to go back over the metals to reapply some shine in specific places to them, and will do the same to parts of the skin soon enough. But this was as far as I got last night before the Mrs came down to ask if I was going to bed! Seems I had painted over the midnight mark which is uncommon!

Key thing now is to see how the model and the base fit together and see if I can make them work. I think I might end up redoing some of the work on it though as I am not super happy with the difference in colors and styles that is so evident there now. Perhaps a restart on the colors now that I have a better idea on how it sits, and also can tone it down into the model more also?

Will see how it goes.. still have the weekend to go and paint.. and if I can get it finished for SMC.. great.. if not.. well.. Roman is ok with painting a bit longer I think ;) What's another month till Monte to wait for such a piece :D There is still the little girl that requires some paint. But i did do a small little conversion to her.. very small :D Will see..

Enjoy the weekend all!