Thursday, April 4, 2013

Fladnag the Beige (I finally finished something)

Well, here he is in all his glory, perhaps the first figure I've ever considered finished.

Fladnag the Beige.

Excuse the slightly off camera angle.
Not to be confused with his cousins, Gandalf the Groovy or Gandalf the Grey. Fladnag is a very unassuming wizard who likes long dungeon delves and casting the Icy Finger of Death in large battles. He prefers Dwarven Ales to pipeweed and collects the excreta of large sea mammals for use in his potions.

Here is how he progressed.




Colors used
As you can see, I had primed him grey and then color blocked him. Okay but boring. Lets try a wash to get some shading, shall we?

Now we know he's not a king.


Brown Wash all over, Flesh wash on flesh, Burnt Umber ink in hair.
 Wow, that sucks. It looked like I had literally dipped him in shit. To me all the color difference was obliterated. But I figured I needed to add back highlights and it would look better. Or so I consoled myself.



Now I was ready to break stuff. At first I had tried dry brushing the Camel paint on the front of the robe. Absolutely terrible. I then used my 10/0 to paint on the tops of the folds in their original base color. Looks pretty bad to me.

So I decided I had to do another wash before I gave up in despair and just stripped the figure.

That I can live with.


I mixed a drop of this with a drop of water.

I think the ink didn't do all that much and that the water diluted and spread out the GW Brown wash some more. In any event it was now acceptable to me. Whew!

So then on to the basing.


The shine is from the Liquitex Matte Varnish I brushed on. before basing.


The base was dry brushed with Anita's "Earth Brown", Delta Ceramcoat "Territorial Beige", and Americana "Khaki Tan". Then PVA diluted 50% with water and some Woodland Scenics fine flock, followed by straight Alene's tacky glue and some Heki #3360 Static Grass.

So he is done. Hooray! And I just read that I am the winner of the Zvezda Samurai from Anne's blog giveaway, yipee!

Although I did not end up gaming on March 30th we did play two games on Easter Sunday. Munchkin Conan and Life. This was with the whole family so the four of us sat down at the table and spent a couple of hours together, it was fun. My wife even admitted that Munchkin Conan was fun, although I was accused of selectively remembering the rules to enable my win.

Welcome to Michael Awdry of 28mm Victorian Warfare, excellently painted colonial stuff.

18 comments:

  1. Nice figure and congrats on the win at Anne's place Sean.

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  2. The first wash was a little heavy, was the ink diluted or straight from the bottle?

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    1. Yes it was. Basically undiluted Brown Wash from GW. Looks like he fell in the business end of Fran's most recent project. So if I use it again it will be diluted for sure. This may be the impetus I need to mix up my own wash from ink and medium.

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  3. It feels good to get one done doesn't it. You did well on bringing those highlights up, those robes can be difficult.

    Come by my place as you won in the prize draw!

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    1. Yes it does, thanks Anne. I sent you a email, then had to go and came back to a crashed computer. I'll head over in a minute.

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  4. It is not easy, I believe, to render well a figure that will be from head to toe, pretty much the same colour. But I reckon you have pulled it off with this one. I doubt if I could, which is why my wizards tend to be called something like Mudrock the Multi-hued, Tsagadar the Many-coloured, Imboden the Eye-watering or Dan Gerwood the Deafening.
    Well done, Sean.
    Cheers,
    Ion

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    1. Thanks Ion. I think I was influenced by Tim's (not the enchanter) Avatar from Fidus et Audax. That and the color palette used by Samwise on his Lewis and Clark figures.

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  5. Nicely done. The effects of the washes and multiple layers of paint worked wonderfully.

    LLC aka Ron

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    1. Thanks very much Ron. It was touch and go but I'm satisfied with the end result.

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  6. Looks good, Sean! I don't envy you the pressure of getting it right first time. It usually takes me half the way through a unit before I get the washes and dry brushes down pat (and even that could be debated!). Nice job!

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    1. Thanks Prufrock. I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself to the point of being almost fearful to paint. But I muddled through and finished it and that's what I'm most proud of, that I can call it done.

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    2. Know what you mean. Often get daunted when starting a new unit or army, worrying myself about colours, shield patterns, army lists so on. But once you can make a little progress momentum builds and before you know it you're getting somewhere! Keep picking up that paintbrush :)

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  7. Hats off to you for sticking with Fladnag, I think I would be digging him out of hole in the wall after the first dip. I've always been vary of this process, but at the same time I've seen some stunning results and it certainly speeds the whole thing up. The final wash really nailed him, with all the hard work you put in earlier coming to the fore.

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  8. Thank you Michael. While it was not my intention to dip, that is essentially what I did I guess. I'm working with a very dated and uncertain recollection of the whole process so I'm just glad that I stuck with it. The wash and re-highlight were real low points.

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  9. Great job on the layering, washing and the overall colour tone! Nice one!

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    1. Thanks Jiaqi. In the end it came out fine, but there were times I thought I was going to have to strip it and start over.

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    2. I always hate when my paint job becomes so disastrous that I have to resort to stripping it down and starting over. That is always a very sore process for me.

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