A new Arena

This Arena Rex figure was the first 'regular' fantasy miniature that I painted with oils.  I did a portion of the painting in a facebook live session using the Mig AMMO OilBrushers:

https://www.facebook.com/james.wappel/videos/vb.1056181987/10209975891047974/?type=2&video_source=user_video_tab

While I had painted this once in acrylics, people wanted to see how I would approach the skin tones, NMM and transparent cloth in oils.  In effect, the principles are all the same, even though the approach works out a little differently.

The advantage of oil paints is that they have an extended drying time, thus allowing you to mix on the surface far longer.  That is also the down side, as you can't so several layers of glazing in rapid fire succession!  I normally do a lot of glazing on my figures, so I have to be very mindful of this.

The base itself was made from a few elements.  The mosaic tile texture was created with the Green Stuff World texture rollers.  As usual, that was rolled out onto some sculpey clay, and then positioned on top of some thick cork.  I sculpted the column top out of sculpey clay as well.

The first version of this figure was based on a 'legal' sized base, but this time around, I wanted to make more of a diorama around it.  It's not very often that I have a chance to make a very large base with the texture rollers!

She's also here:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/222696754149?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

Arena Rex

This Medusa figure from Arena Rex was the first that I have painted from this wonderful line of figures.  She is mounted on a 50mm base, which was created using the Green Stuff World texture rollers.

The transparent cloth effect is always interesting to achieve.  While there are a few basic principles involved in translating the effect, it can be more difficult depending how the figure is sculpted.

If the cloth has a lot of heavy folds, that can make it more difficult to paint the lighter skin colored areas in the 'gaps' where they would show up.  The high points of the folds get the brightest 'cloth' color.  The trickiest part is that darkened zone in the middle, which helps to show those two areas of lighter tones.  One must have dark to show light!

The shield presented a nice opportunity to do some gold NMM.  That was done in my normal way,  including the use of the Vallejo fluorescent yellow to infuse into the burnt sienna and even purples.

Here are a few better images of that mosaic tile base.  Again, the texture was made by rolling a Green Stuff World texture roller into the unbaked Sculpey clay.  This was  broken into shape once it was baked, and placed on a piece of cork.  Sand and gravel were added around the sides to finish off the texture.

One more set of views, which also show the veiled face a little better.  

As a final note, this was entered into the Arena Rex painting contest, winning second prize!  Many thanks to the good folks who create so many fantastic miniatures :-)