Mini No 16

I got this mini at the Reaper Booth at Pax East 2016 from a gum ball machine type of thing. What a lucky draw, this is a pretty cool and fun mini. I like that the post he has is super dynamic. Firstly I decided to cut off the base that the mini was standing on. I think its supposed to be a bunch of rocks, but its not very detailed. So I cut it off and instead added some small rocks on the base for him to stand on.

This is a mini for a friends D&D game, his character is a Human, male Paladin of the silver flame. I looked up some inspiration from art of the world and RPG so that I could decide on what colours to use. I chose to go with the colours that the robot has in the below image. Gray blues, silvers and cream.

Since this Paladin will be mainly clad in silver I decided to prime him in gray.

Firstly I decided to do the Paladins face, since its so hidden behind the shield and would otherwise be difficult to get at. Im surprised at how good this sculpt is for this mini. Reaper Bones have always been a little hit or miss.

At this point I am mainly just blocking in colours, but next up was adding the silver of his plate mail, since that is one of the largest areas on the model.

Once I coloured in the armor it was time to wash it with nuln oil to give it some depth. I also added a sepia wash to the face, a nuln oil wash to the hair. I added detail like the eyes and home highlighting on his nose and cheekbones. Finally I blocked in his skirt.

Some more details, coloured and washed the sword, washed the skirt and added details to the belt and waist fabric. I also made sure to dry brush his hair, armor, sword and skirt.

Final details, I painted his shield blue and added the flame detail to it. I think that this was my first attempt at freehand and I think it went just fine. I also finalized the base my washing it with nuln oil and then dry brushing it back with a lighter gray.

I think in the end the mini finally came together super well. I do struggle a lot with highlighting and shading and making it look seamless. I really want to get good at that. I ordered a DVD series from a professional painted and hope that I can learn from it.

Hope you liked this one,

Nelly