Last day!
Thanks for the compliments. Conan turned out to be a much more complicated build than I had anticipated. As I was fussing around with parts, there came a point when I had to decide good enough was good enough and start moving toward the finish.
For me, happy chance plays as much a role in finishing a fig and coming up with the right color as planning. I'm not a visual artist as such -- I don't have any formal training, nor natural talent. I can't draw to save my life, and my understanding of color ends with yellow + blue = green. So, everything I'm able to do comes from years of doing it and just working with what I have until it looks right.
Figure painting is the type of modeling I enjoy most, but it is also the one that leaves me equally gratified and disappointed. I always believe I could have done better, but, at the same time, I know I've finished a model to the best I could at the time.
Of course, this time around, I decided to do the bulk of my work with an airbrush -- the first fig I've painted this way. I think I'm sold. However, there's much that I can't do with the airbrush and had to revert back to the brushes. I finished Conan entirely with acrylics and eschewed oils -- mostly because of time constraints and because I set myself the challenge of using the airbrush.
For what it's worth, here are the notes I kept while formulating paint colors. You can see my doodle for Conan's teeth after our discussion on the Forum. I used the same tooth technique on Belit.
I borrowed Jack's idea for the sword's frog and stole a length of chain from Aaron. It's not the first color I'd have chosen, but after seeing it on the fig, it works. As a nod to FSM and our next group build, the sword's pommel is a 1/72 road wheel from a Panzer III.
I weathered the chest with burnt umber and light rust pastels from PanPastel.
So, here are the color-corrected photos!
Aaron and I are going to do a closing vlog this week before he heads off to AMPS. Good luck to you guys who are still working at it. We'll see you at the finish line!
And thanks to everyone who participated. You've made the second FSM group build a memorable one. Also, we're happy that we were joined by a number of modelers who hadn't built and finished large-scale figures before. We hope you'll continue to enjoy figure modeling.
Thanks!
Tim