Hobbits wip - Merry


Here's a wip shoot of Merry, one of the eight hobbits I'm currently painting. The three other fellowship hobbits are undecorated and four hobbit Militia are also on the way. I'll be taking my time with these as some of them are among my favourites sculpts.

9 comments:

  1. Werner KellensNovember 28, 2011 at 7:02 AM

    Great paintjob!
    I'm also currently painting 3 hobbits.
    How did you do the highlighting, it's amazing?

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  2. BizzareWarstarNovember 28, 2011 at 9:53 AM

    Werner:

    Which ones are you painting?

    The highlights are automatic in a way. I dry brushed the miniature grey and white until it looked as if it was painted black and white then I washed and glazed with colour. The white dry brush just shows through the washes and does most of the work. I used a little Bleached Bone or sometimes Skull White on highlights that don't come out.
    I'll post some wip shots along with the next hobbit.

    Some wargs I painted using the same technique, just shows the different stages;
    http://bizzarewarstar.blogspot.com/2011/08/painting-wargs.html

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  3. Werner KellensNovember 29, 2011 at 7:22 AM

    @ the moment I'm paiting Pippin, Sam and Frodo.

    That's a different technique. Mayby I'm going to try it on Gildor. What exactly is glazing?
    How did you for example did the jacket?

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  4. BizzareWarstarNovember 29, 2011 at 11:33 PM

    Glazing is where you mix a small bit of paint with a lot of water. Its very much like a wash except it has less paint and you don't apply is as liberally as a wash. It's usually used to tint colours or to smooth colour transitions.

    For his jacket I mixed about 1 part Catachan green with 3 or 4 parts water and applied the mix evenly all over. As all mixes differ you kind of determine how many is actually needed as you paint. I don't load up the brush either; I take up some of the mix on the brush, tip the brush against some paper towel to absorb excess water and then paint onto a surface (i use my thumb) until there's barley anything on the brush then paint on the miniature. Too much paint or water will ruin the brushing underneath. I finished the edge highlights of his jacket with some bleached bone. you could also use white to further the contrast.

    Basically I'm using the the sculpt itself to pick out mid tones (grey) and highlights (white) through progressive light brushing and then tinting individual parts with colour glazes which also help blend the different tones from black to white.

    I've started on Pippin and should have some wip shots of the brushing and glazing up soon

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  5. Werner KellensDecember 1, 2011 at 8:16 AM

    Thanks for the info!

    I'm going to try this method on Gildor.

    So I first do the dry brushing:

    1 Chaos Black undercoat.
    2 Brush Codex Grey. (letting each step dry before going to the next)
    3 Brush mix of Codex and White (fortress greyish mix).
    4 Brush Skull White.

    Then glazing, for example:

    I wanted to use the following painting steps for the Cloak:
    1 Chaos Black/Scorched Brown
    2 Devlan Mud
    3 Fortress Grey
    So now I'm going to glaze it with a 'Chaos Black/Scorched Brown' glaze. I needed I can give it some 'Fortress Grey' highlight

    Is this correct?

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  6. botwtDecember 4, 2011 at 1:44 AM

    Wow, great highlights!!

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  7. BizzareWarstarDecember 4, 2011 at 4:46 AM

    That's right Werner. Don't know if you'll need the Delvan Mud for shading though.

    Cheers Bilbo.

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  8. Werner KellensDecember 4, 2011 at 6:44 AM

    I'm not going to use devlan mud. When Sam and Pippin are finished I'm going to try it out on Gildor.

    My Frodo Baggins is finished:

    http://wernershobbyblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/frodo-baggins-finished-play-through.html

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  9. Werner KellensJanuary 5, 2012 at 6:22 PM

    Here's my first attemp of this paint method:

    http://wernershobbyblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/gildor-play-through-fotr-journey-book.html

    Thanks again!

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