Celt Part 2

I'm a bit slow in posting the update here, sorry!  I've made some decent progress on the Celt.  Since last time I've been working on the body, mostly the front of his torso and one of the arms.  Haven't had many long painting sessions due the family obligations and the holidays, so easier to work in small chunks I can actually finish in a short sitting.  The back and other arm still need work, but I'll get there.  As with the face, I'm placing spot highlights in places to try to give him a satin-like finish.  One of the keys to these that I've found are making sure you are consistent with how you're placing them.  In this case, I imagine the light is above but slightly to his left.  So the reflection point on each shape has to match that location for the light.  Easy to forget if you're not careful and I've had to make a few corrections as I go where things aren't quite matching up.

I thought I'd show a side by side progression on the face.  The first image is the work from last time.  The middle image has the hair added in and details like the lips (skin shadow + red, then skin highlight added in).  The final image looks similar, but has subtle variations added with glazes.  There's red in the cheeks, on the tip of the nose, and bottom of the ears.  I did a very subtle blue glaze on the chin and jaw to hint at stubble (but didn't want to overdo that).  It takes more layers for the glazes to show up against this darker skin (as opposed the light skin I normally paint), but that can be addressed.  In the end, I was happy keeping it subtle because that felt right for this subject (rather than exaggerated red on the nose/cheeks).  But more layers of glaze would have increased the color had I wanted to.

Celt Part 1

I'm still hopping from project to project.  A while back I agreed to do a figure exchange with a friend.  I didn't want to take forever to finish (or even start) this, so I'm putting my personal projects on hold for a bit to make some progress on this guy.

The figure we chose was a 70mm Celt from Art Girona.  It's a neat sculpt, though the casting leaves something to be desired.  A bunch of pitting that I had to fix.  I've got a couple figures from Art Girona and they've all had one issue or another.  I like some of their sculpts, but the quality of the casting on the ones I've received means I probably won't buy from them again.

Anyway, this is a cool sculpt of a barbarian holding a severed head, presumably a Roman's head.  I gave the figure a quick base coat and then started shading and highlighting the face.  I wanted to try a different skin mix than I typically use.  I thought this would work better for a barbarian.  Instead of my normal base of Rosy Shadow, I used a 50/50 mix of Rosy Shadow and Bronzed Shadow.  For the shadows I used a 60/40 mix of Chestnut Brown and Basic Dirt along with maybe 10% of the base color.  For the deepest shadows I added some Walnut Brown.  The highlights were a 50/50 mix of Fair Skin and Bronzed Highlight, then some Pure White for the final shine on the skin.

Here's a close up of the face.  I included another face I did with my old skin mix for comparison.  I'm not done with this new face yet, will probably make a few tweaks and then apply a number of glazes.  But I like how the new mix looks.  I'll definitely keep it as an option for future projects.