This guy was the second part of a commission for me and was a little out of my normal repertoire being non Warhammer. While I was a little unsure of it at first, I ended up really enjoying it. I got to try a few colors and techniques I don't normally do, which is always a plus as a painter.
This mini is part two of a rather asian centric commission, which was rather fun to tackle. The first part was my Wizard of the Far East I painted a few weeks ago. The client sent me a reference picture to work off of, but in the end all of his clothes ended up being different colors. I started with his robe, which I was asked to make a light purple. I didn't want to do something super pastel, or super bright so I leaned more towards the grey side of things. Luckily I still had a completely unused pot of the Genestealer Purple foundation paint from the old range which was a perfect starting point. I mixed it with Screaming Skull to lighten it a bit and base coated the whole robe. This was shaded by mixing in black and highlighted by mixing in more Screaming Skull. This ended up being a particularly difficult color to blend smoothly. I think this was something that most foundation paints suffered from. The trim to it was painted with Gorthor Brown, shaded with Agrax Earthshade and highlighted by mixing in, you guessed it, Screaming Skull.
The area I was the most unsure about was the skin. Unfortunately most of the time I paint caucasian skin tones, so when I paint something else I really have to think about how I am going to do it. Part of the problem is that the flesh tones that Citadel makes are all caucasian or african. Luckily for me I had the reference photo the client provided and looking at it I settled on using a mix of Cadian Fleshtone and Tau Light Ochre as the basis for the skin. There was definitely more Ochre in the skin. This was then shaded with Reikland Fleshshade and highlighted by mixing in Screaming Skull. I'm really happy with how it came out and I think it definitely has an asian feel to it. This guy has a pretty strong tan going on too, so maybe next time I will try something a little paler. This guy's face was a particular challenge since it had almost no detail on it. I'm not joking, almost nothing at all. I had to paint on and exaggerate a lot of what was there to make it noticeable. This was a real shame since the rest of the mini was really nice with fairly crisp detail.
The pants were painted a neutral beige color, with gold accents for the ribbons hanging off of him. The staff was painted to look like wood with green paint on top. I painted the browns first, and then mixed some of the brown into the green to tie the colors together before painting those parts. They also both got a wash of Agrax at the same time and were both highlighted by mixing in Screaming Skull. I really wanted to make sure that the green didn't stand out too much, so I tried everything I could to make it mesh with the brown.
This mini ended up teaching me a few color techniques that I can hopefully put to use in future projects, so that's the best kind of commission. I hope to expand my skin tone color palette. Unfortunately my current army projects of Tomb Kings and Stormcasts aren't good candidates for that. Considering that I primarily paint GW models, and armies, it's fun and refreshing to get to work on these smaller one off commissions which have tended to lean more towards the D&D side of things. I almost forgot to mention that I did a little bit of conversion work on this mini, removing a sword from his outstretched hand and re-sculpting the fingers.
For those of you who are curious, this miniature comes from a wargame called Bushido. A few of the other minis in it look pretty fun to paint, so hopefully I will get a few more commissions for it. You can see a 360 degree video of the miniature below.
Until next time,
Tyler M.
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