Next, I added more Black Red to the mix and airbrushed a shadow from below to get an initial idea of the volumes.

Then I applied an additional shadow with pure Black Red and a final one mixing it with a bit of Dark Sea Blue 70.898 to get the final tonal depth. I insisted a bit more on the lower right side of the face with this final shadow, as the head is slightly tilted.

Now it was the turn of the highlights. First, I worked in the overall surface with pure Beige Red 70.804 and then I added Sunny Skintone 70.845 to get more intensity, concentrating the final applications in the upper left side of the face. The result is a nice tonality that goes bright and sunny on the upper left and dark and cold in the lower right. The airbrush is the perfect tool for this kind of intentional work

With all the previous tones, I started working on the left side of the face, now with the brush. As the blending is already done, most of the work consists of detailing and enhancing the saturation of the different tones in particular points.

A bit more of work, adding some Light Flesh 70.928 to the highlights and pure Dark Sea Blue to the shadows to enhance the contrast a bit further.

After I was more or less satisfied, I moved to the right side, keeping in mind the subtle change in tonality so I didn’t overwork it and obscure the effect.

In order to frame all the work already done, I basecoated the hair with a mix of US Olive Drab 70.887 and Sunny Skintone. Everything started to take shape. Sometimes it is important to take a small detour and go a few steps ahead in order to see the global result.

Ok, now, all that was left was to add the finishing touches to the face, painting the eyes and the hair. The colors used were, from left to right and up to down: Flat Red 70.957, Dark Sea Blue 70.898, Light Flesh 70.928, US Olive Drab 70.887, Sunny Skintone 70.845, Ice Yellow 70.858, Black Red 70.859, and Model Wash Light Rust 76.505.

First of all, I glazed Flat Red 70.957, mixed with the basecoat color of the flesh, over all the fleshy mid-tone areas of the face. It just needed a bit, not too much. With a mix of Flat Red and Dark Sea Blue 70.898, I glazed the shadow areas to get a bit more of depth. Adding these new tonalities to the previous flesh palette, I added the final details and texture to the face.

The eyes were painted in the usual way (we’ll do a really detailed SBS or video on this in the future, I promise) First, I painted first the eyeball with Light Flesh70.928. After that, I painted the iris in Dark Sea Blue, drawing also an outline with that tone between the upper eyelid and the eyeball. Finally, I did some highlights towards the lower part of the iris, adding small amounts of Light Flesh, adding a black dot to simulate the pupil and the reflection of the light with pure Light Flesh. The most important thing to mention is that you have to be sure that you align the look exactly to the point you need, in this case, I wanted him to look eye-to-eye to the viewer.

The final part was the hair. I did first a test on a section to see if what I had in mind was going to work nicely. Over the previous base of US Olive Drab 70.887 and Sunny Skintone 70.845, I added highlights with Sunny Skintone and small amounts of Ice Yellow 70.858. For the shadows, I added Black Red 70.859 and finally small amounts of Dark Sea blue to the base color.

Seeing that the result was what I wanted, I worked on the other side of the head and also the beard and eyebrows. To enhance a bit the color I added some controlled glazes with Model Wash Light Rust 76.505 in selected spots

The hair might require some adjustment later, to add more intensity in the highlights depending on the result on the rest of the elements. I also painted the lower part of it in a simple way, as I planned to finish it when the rest of the surrounding elements were done.

Let’s show some more work. Now it is the time of the gambeson and the decorated sleeves, central elements of the bust that I needed to sort before going for the outer parts. First, I did the gambeson, the central element and also the most hidden one. For it, I used the following tones: US Olive Drab 70.887, Dark Sea Blue 70.898, Black 70.950, Brown Sand 70.876, Chocolate Brown 70.872, and Orange Brown 70.981.

Initially, I was going to paint the gambeson in a light worn tone but, in the last moment, I changed my mind and decided to make it black. That way, as it is the core part of the bust, it would be very easy to make the rest of elements stand out by comparison. First of all, I made a mix of US Olive Drab 70.887, Dark Sea Blue 70.898 and a bit of Black 70.950 for the basecoat. I normally use solid colors and simple mixes, but this time I wanted a bit of each tonality to be present in the mix from the beginning. It looks as black, but it isn’t black, trust me

Then I applied an overall wash with pure Black over the whole thing and insisted in the lines were the gambeson sections are stitched forming a rhomboid pattern.

Using the already applied shadows as an anchor, I added Brown Sand 70.876 to the basecoat mix and created two or three different tones of highlights. With these, I made a rough sketch of highlights, aiming always for the upper edges of the volumes, and intensifying the application towards the upper parts, logically more exposed to the light of the sun. Brown Sand is a good tone for highlighting black if you are aiming for a worn and a bit discolored look.

Also, I faked some small tension wrinkles on the edges of the rhomboid patches to add more interest to the area

Working on one patch at a time, I finished every one of them, blending just a bit the tones to maintain that rough appearance, adding small details like additional wrinkles, imperfections and holes and intensifying the final highlights and shadows with pure Brown Sand and Black. To finish, I added some subtle glazing with Dark Sea Blue towards the lower parts and shadows, enhancing that way the tonal variation between the upper and lower areas

The leather trimming of the gambeson was very simple, I started with a basecoat of Chocolate Brown 70.872, added Dark Sea Blue for the shadows and added Orange Brown 70.981 and Brown Sand for the highlights. I decided to keep it simple as it would be perceived as a background under later more prominent details.

Next bit were going to be the sleeves, which I had decided to paint in some light blue with a nice trimming I had seen on a Viking reenactor shirt. These are the colors used in this step: GC Electric Blue 72.023, GC Sombre Grey 72.048, Sunny Skintone 70.845, Dark Sea Blue 70.898, Black Red 70.859, Stone Grey 70.884, Chocolate Brown 70.872 and Black 70.950

Sometimes, when you have a very particular tone in mind, you need to mix a bit to get it. In this case, GC Electric Blue 72.023 was very similar to my idea, but a bit too intense, so I mixed it a bit with GC Sombre Grey 72.048. When trying to obtain a certain tone, it is always important to keep in mind how the highlights and shadows are going to affect it, as sometimes that particular final look you are thinking on will be easier to replicate in later stages, in example making it paler, or warmer, or more worn out depending on the color used in the highlights, or modulating the shadows to add an extra shade that would affect the whole thing. I used that mix for the basecoat.

After that, I added Sunny Skintone 70.845 and Dark Sea Blue 70.898 for the highlights and shadows respectively and sketched them over the surface. The Game Color range is a bit shinny sometimes, but nothing that cannot be mended with some matt varnish after the job is done.

I blended the whole thing together and varnished matt the sleeves with the airbrush. As I explained above, you can see how the highlights and shadows have affected the basecoat, getting it warmer towards the highlights and colder towards the shadows

As in any other freehand painted detail, planning and order is key to success! For the trimming of the sleeves I started with some thin lines in Dark Sea Blue to define the area where the trimming would be.

Inside those lines, I painted lines with Stone Grey 70.884

Again, I painted more lines inside those, this time with Black Red 70.859. When doing it, I reduce the width of the previous ones as desired

Another set of lines with Stone Grey

And another set of lines, this time with Dark Sea Blue

I covered the remaining space with Stone Grey

And finally did the inner detailing bit by bit with Dark Sea Blue. First some perpendicular double lines, then some triangles on each side of the square that would form a thin diagonal cross, and finally some small applications to finish the pattern

Of course, it needed highlights and shadows. For the first, I added Sunny Skintone (as in the light blue tone) to all the previously used colors and highlighted carefully every detail. For the shadows, I applied controlled washes of a mix of Dark Sea Blue, Chocolate Brown and Black towards the lower parts and shadow areas, to mute it down as a whole

I repeated the whole process in the other sleeve. This is the result so far, more advances soon!

Here are some fresh updates on this SBS to help you get through the week ;)I’m going to show now how I finished all the remaining bits on the torso. Keep in mind that the logic sequence when painting miniatures area by area is to go from inside to outside and from up to down to make things easier. The colors I used in this step: GC Charred Brown 72.045, Orange Brown 70.981, Sunny Skintone 70.845, Dark Sea Blue 70.898, Saddle Brown 70.940, GC Violet Ink 72.087, English Uniform 70.921, GC Glorious Gold 72.056, MC Gold 77.725, and GC Green Ink 72.089

The first thing I did was to paint the Shield’s belt, that I had imagined as new orange toned leather that would be quite detached from the background. I started with a basecoat of GC Charred Brown 72.045 and Orange Brown 70.981 and worked mainly on highlighting it without too much texture adding Orange Brown and some Sunny Skintone 70.845 for the final touches. The few shadow points and outlining were done simply adding pure Charred Brown.

As you might realize in the picture, the tone was a bit too similar to the leather I had done in the gambeson’s trimming, so I toned down that one a bit to enhance further the new belt

For the sword belt, I wanted a dark reddish leather finish with some violet hue. I applied a really dark basecoat with a mix of Charred Brown and Dark Sea Blue 70.898 that I highlighted adding Saddle Brown 70.940 and some Sunny Skintone 70.845 for the final touches. That way I got a colder tone, which I enhanced with shadows in pure Dark Sea Blue and some precise washes of GC Violet Ink 72.087

I had painted the non-metallic parts of the sword with the previous tones used in other areas. For the brass pommel and hilt, I applied a basecoat with a mix of English Uniform 70.921 and GC Glorious Gold 72.056. That way I took advantage of the rich tonality of the Game Color tone but reducing its grainy look a bit. For the shadows, I simply added some Charred Brown and enhanced the highlights adding Metal Color Gold 77.725, which has a superfine pigment and works really nice for these final touches. I also added some green tonalities with controlled washes of GC Green Ink 72.089. As you might have noticed, when you try to incorporate the same tones with just some variations in each area of the project, the whole thing gains a lot of coherence.

Now it was time to finish the piece of the axe with the hands, as I really wanted to see how it looked once finished. For this step I used: Glossy Black 70.861, GC Charred Brown 72.045, Dark Sea Blue 70.898, Orange Brown 70.981, Black Red 70.859, MC Jet Exhaust 77.713, MC Silver 77.724, Sunny Skintone 70.845, Ice Yellow 70.858, and English Uniform 70.921

I started with a couple of coats of Glossy Black 70.861 in the head of the axe

Next, I applied some random touches of GC Charred Brown 72.045, applied with a sponge over the whole surface.

And I repeated that step again but using Dark Sea Blue 70.898 this time.

After that, I carefully enhanced a rusty effect in some points, using Orange Brown 70.981 and Black Red 70.859. The effect I was looking for the main body of the axe’s head was rough iron, not cared for, but not really rusted either.

I painted the sharpened edge and the edges of the whole head with MC Jet Exhaust 77.713

And I added the last touch with some MC Silver 77.724 highlights and precise edges.

For the shaft, I wanted a new natural wood look. First I painted it with Sunny Skintone 70.845

And next, I covered it completely adding thin lines of Ice Yellow 70.858 to get a nice wooden pattern

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