Saturday, October 11, 2014

Zom(b)orctober 1

Well, I'm either a day early for the second week of Zom(b)tober or 6 days late for the first week.



Perhaps I used too much blue on the figures to use a blue background. I also reverted to no EV compensation, as I wanted a darker look to the photo.

I base coated these Burnt Umber using Liquitex Spray Artist Acrylic. I had actually started these with some Krylon and hated it. As you may recall I dislike spray primer as I feel like I almost never achieve full coverage while also end up covering detail. The liquitex had none of those issues and I would recommend it to anyone. It is expensive $11.99 per can, but if I can speed up my prep time it's worth it to me. Note to self - Don't spray prime at dusk. It is really hard to tell if you missed a spot.

I then wanted to work with a modified grayscale technique. The idea was to build up highlights in gray and then glaze colors over that. I feel like the drybrush was not wholly successful as it got that powdery look, associated with overworked drybrushing over surfaces without much detail. I then was hit and miss with thinning the the paints. I also used two different blues on the male zombies that didn't look that different. The flesh was glazed with Italian sage, which is a light green grey. The female had a green skirt and yellow shirt. For the skin I did a modified grunge wash of 4:2:1 Green: Burnt Umber: Black wash. The rest was my standard Grunge was 4:2:1 Raw Umber: Burnt Umber: Black. I tried to be subdued with the gore. First I used a little Tamiya Clear Red mixed into some sepia ink wash. It was too brown and lifeless. I then reapplied the clear red over those areas and that helped it pop a little more. The matte varnish may have taken the shine off the clear red too much.

They came out okay but I think I will mix greys into my color palette to achieve the look instead of painting in grey and glazing. I was working on a survivor at the same time but the techniques weren't doing it for me.

Next are the Orcs.



I drybrushed up the skin on these guys and I don't think I will do that again at this scale. These guys are 1/72 scale from the Dark Alliance. Set 1 I think. As usual I played with Bronze, Copper, Gold and Silver on them, just to make them more interesting. The eye motif on the shields is my fall back. On the Bronze shield I did it backed by Burnt Umber, the steel shield is backed by black.

I also felt like trying out a little vignette with these Orcs:

Fladnag and De La Warre lead their men to fight off the green menace.

I bumped up the EV to +1 to make it brighter and adjusted the aperture to f16 to try and get the forward figures in better focus. I used digicamcontrol 1.2 to help take all the photos. I must admit to rushing this shot. I should have played with lighting and position more.

I'd also like to welcome the two latest followers:

Tiny Basement of Tiny Basement Wars and pw, who does not have a blog listed in his Friend Connect profile. TB is doing some fun Oldhammer gaming with his kids and has a great Comic style report of his Space Hulk Dungeon Bash mash up. And if pw reads this and has a link just let me know.

Hope y'all like the latest. More to come, I hope.

14 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks Chico, I thought I saw mention of your scabbies over on facebook. I'll try to pop over and have a proper look.

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  2. I really like the orcs even though I don't actually game with any.
    Your zombies hare a very unique style about them, one I really like too - very effective.

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  3. Hi Joe, thanks. The dark alliance orcs are fun. The one with the sword overhead has a slightly leonine face. I suppose his mother loves it. The zombie technique gave me the grubby, faded look I was going for, but I think it can be improved.

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  4. Nicely done Sean, I especially love the palette you have used for the zeds - very cool.

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    1. Hi Michael. The fact that they ended up so similar in color wasn't fully intentional. I may try to retake the picture with a different background to see what that does. I do like the skin, eyes and gore though.

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  5. Love the Zombies, great looking minis!

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    1. Thanks Stephen. They're just plastic "army men" but they are fun. I hope I can do the repeat poses in an interesting way.

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  6. Sean, I agree with all those who have commented before me. I really like the style you've gone for on both the Zombies and the Orcs. Very nice!
    Roy

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    1. Thanks Roy. I like the overall look of both sets, I just need to fiddle with the techniques. As I mentioned, I got drybrush happy and it starts to have diminishing returns.

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  7. I do like the zombies - very effective. 15mm, right?

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    1. Thanks Hugh, the zombies are 40mm or there abouts.

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  8. Zombies and orcs, yeah !!!! Smells real bad but looks real good Sean !

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    1. Hi JB, thanks. Hoping to get some more done this week.

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