Kingdom Death Miniature Aya - Before the Wall: Improving on My Painting (Painted Mid Dec, 18)
Like many, I took advantage of the Kingdom Death Black Friday half off sale last year. I was fortunate to get a lot of stuff that I had been eyeing for some time. Included in my purchases were the Aya the Survivor Series: Before The Wall and Beyond The Wall. So my next project was to paint Aya as she stood - Before The Wall.
Like normal, I wanted to honor the direction of the artist, so I used the same color palette that came with the miniature's art card. However, since I began painting this miniature in mid December, I wanted to keep things simple. The reason was simple: to me, December sucks. It's too damned stressful, I've had a history of working too damned much, and I just wanted to be able to escape while I painted. Therefore, my focus was just to enjoy myself and not worry overly much over the miniature. The end result - I ended up doing a better job on the details while trying out a painting technique I read online.
For this miniature, I took the skills that I had learned and honed, and just painted. A lot of techniques and lessons I've discussed in previous posts are encompassed in Aya. For instance, my shading through darker washes improved with this miniature relative to past ones. I was also able to refine my dry-brush highlighting to blend in with the shadows and make them blend more naturally. This is perhaps my happiest accomplishment for this miniature.
Once again, I tried taking a stab at painting realistic(ish) hair. This miniature came out better than past ones, but it still is far from perfect. I've read that working with various red hues can be some of the hardest, but I don't take this as an excuse; I still think I have a lot of work to do to really nail down hair. If you are reading this and have recommendations, or know of good sites to reference regarding this, then I'm all ears.
There was one technique that I read about that I wanted to try out with this miniature, and it involved painting skin on the miniature. Courtesy of Doctor Faust of Doctor Faust's Painting Clinic on YouTube, I watched a technique involving using layering of different paint hues to create a more realistic shading process. The link focuses on doing skin layering, but I imagine this technique could be used for any surface. Still, I wanted to try it out on Aya (apologies for not having better pictures focusing on the skin). All in all, I learned quite a bit from the video, but I don't think I executed too well with this miniature. Firstly, I really couldn't stop myself from totally covering the surface with each layer (i.e. if I covered a whole leg with a skin tone, the next layer basically covered the entire surface, instead of most of the surface). Secondly, not executing it well the first time discouraged me, so I began to stop caring. The end result, the skin tone is a bit monochromatic, and I'm not too happy with it despite the detailed brushwork.
This miniature, like the past, had a shield. And I did the same techniques with the shield. And the shield came out well, at least in my opinion. After showing some pictures to friends and colleagues, I've gotten the most compliments about the shield. I think they are being polite. It was way too easy to paint in the end, and that always worries me a bit.
Finally, like the last few miniatures that I've posted, I had a custom base that I wanted to add to this miniature so I chose one of the more simplistic ones offered by ordoshelican on eBay. Relative to the previous custom bases that I've showcased on this blog, this one was perhaps the simplest and also the best. I love the details, and I'm really happy with the choice of color palette that I went with. If you're unable to create your own custom bases (like myself) I recommend checking out this vendor, honestly. I'm not even making any money when I make that recommendation.
All in all, I had a very relaxing and good time painting this version of Aya the Survivor. I learned that I still need to work on my hair painting skills and that I need to practice more on layering techniques. Also, I've been using metallic paints for a while now and I really would like to learn more about creating depth to these paints. Again, advice, suggestions, recommendations regarding this are appreciated! Still, if you're reading this, I hope you enjoy and if you've been following at all, I do hope that my skill improvement is apparent in my pictures.
Also, I should have said this earlier - a special thank you to my better half for helping out with the pictures! I did an OK job but you did a much better OK job! Your support is rock solid! I ❤ You!
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| Aya fighting the deadly Monster: Sugary Snow Man (Xmas Special) |
Like normal, I wanted to honor the direction of the artist, so I used the same color palette that came with the miniature's art card. However, since I began painting this miniature in mid December, I wanted to keep things simple. The reason was simple: to me, December sucks. It's too damned stressful, I've had a history of working too damned much, and I just wanted to be able to escape while I painted. Therefore, my focus was just to enjoy myself and not worry overly much over the miniature. The end result - I ended up doing a better job on the details while trying out a painting technique I read online.
For this miniature, I took the skills that I had learned and honed, and just painted. A lot of techniques and lessons I've discussed in previous posts are encompassed in Aya. For instance, my shading through darker washes improved with this miniature relative to past ones. I was also able to refine my dry-brush highlighting to blend in with the shadows and make them blend more naturally. This is perhaps my happiest accomplishment for this miniature.
Once again, I tried taking a stab at painting realistic(ish) hair. This miniature came out better than past ones, but it still is far from perfect. I've read that working with various red hues can be some of the hardest, but I don't take this as an excuse; I still think I have a lot of work to do to really nail down hair. If you are reading this and have recommendations, or know of good sites to reference regarding this, then I'm all ears.
There was one technique that I read about that I wanted to try out with this miniature, and it involved painting skin on the miniature. Courtesy of Doctor Faust of Doctor Faust's Painting Clinic on YouTube, I watched a technique involving using layering of different paint hues to create a more realistic shading process. The link focuses on doing skin layering, but I imagine this technique could be used for any surface. Still, I wanted to try it out on Aya (apologies for not having better pictures focusing on the skin). All in all, I learned quite a bit from the video, but I don't think I executed too well with this miniature. Firstly, I really couldn't stop myself from totally covering the surface with each layer (i.e. if I covered a whole leg with a skin tone, the next layer basically covered the entire surface, instead of most of the surface). Secondly, not executing it well the first time discouraged me, so I began to stop caring. The end result, the skin tone is a bit monochromatic, and I'm not too happy with it despite the detailed brushwork.
This miniature, like the past, had a shield. And I did the same techniques with the shield. And the shield came out well, at least in my opinion. After showing some pictures to friends and colleagues, I've gotten the most compliments about the shield. I think they are being polite. It was way too easy to paint in the end, and that always worries me a bit.
Finally, like the last few miniatures that I've posted, I had a custom base that I wanted to add to this miniature so I chose one of the more simplistic ones offered by ordoshelican on eBay. Relative to the previous custom bases that I've showcased on this blog, this one was perhaps the simplest and also the best. I love the details, and I'm really happy with the choice of color palette that I went with. If you're unable to create your own custom bases (like myself) I recommend checking out this vendor, honestly. I'm not even making any money when I make that recommendation.
All in all, I had a very relaxing and good time painting this version of Aya the Survivor. I learned that I still need to work on my hair painting skills and that I need to practice more on layering techniques. Also, I've been using metallic paints for a while now and I really would like to learn more about creating depth to these paints. Again, advice, suggestions, recommendations regarding this are appreciated! Still, if you're reading this, I hope you enjoy and if you've been following at all, I do hope that my skill improvement is apparent in my pictures.
Also, I should have said this earlier - a special thank you to my better half for helping out with the pictures! I did an OK job but you did a much better OK job! Your support is rock solid! I ❤ You!
So as always, I hope that this showcase is enjoyed by all whom read it. Please, please feel free share any comments or critiques. If you find my blog enjoyable, be sure to follow and subscribe. Not sure what either do but should be fun either way.
Thanks much!
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