Conan the Barbarian

Very nice work, great skin tones. In this scale, dry brushing highlights doesn't give as nice an effect as actually highliting (pants and boots) the colors look muddied (not muddy). Go to http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com, choose model color from the drop down menu and scroll to the bottom for a really good tutorial on a better technique than drybrushing. It takes longer, but the results are worth it.

Thanks ajlafleche, I really appreciate your comment!

The skin is painted with the technique described in Vallejo's guide (except that I tried to preshade). Personally I think that dry brushing is good for ground, hair and fur.
The only place I "cheated" are the trousers, since black (more than white to me) is a bit a pain in the @§§ to me. So I dry brushed them with a very dark grey.

As for the mud you're right probably I should give it a wash of burnt umber or similar.

Crom!  That's really good work.  I think you did well on the face.

Wow! Avus! You nailed it. Never mind the rest, I think this is frikkin' brilliant! It even looks like Arnie. Great job. I am really impressed.

Cheers, Arthur

I guess you misunderstood the muddied comment. I wasn't refering to mud. per se, but to the collors being muddied or blurred rather than blended like you did with skin tones. Yeah, careful dry is about the only same way to highlight fur. I did that on my versio of Latorre's 5th Century Celt (Another Arnold based figure).

For black, have you tried starting out with very dark gray as the base color, using true black only for the shadows and adding blue (cool) or flesh (warm)  to the black for highlights?

Thanks for your appretiation MortarMagnet and Panzerjaeger!

ajlafleche, indeed I misunderstood you. Now I see your point. Actually by dry brushing I was trying to simulate dry mud and dust which is kind of blurry, but you're right I probably should have blended at least on the boots.
Thanks for the hint on black I'll give it a try on my next black figure. Is there a reason why you suggest to add blue or flesh to the base color and not grey or white? As far as I've noticed black tends to grey when worn out.

It's one of those things I've learned from my mentors. Adding white creates too stark a contrast and grey might not show as well. Using a light blue will give the black a cooler value, which you'd want if you were depicting a figure in winter. Flesh gives it a warmer value, a figure in summer. Alternating these in a figure with several black items will give you a nice variety of shades on a mochromatic figure.

Thanks for the insight ajlafleche. I'll keep that in mind next time I'll be working on a black figure (Pegaso's Ninja?!).