Haley3 Commission Part 4: Bases Redux

After another bunch of painting today, the Haley girls are beginning to reach the stages where I simply need to fix areas, touch up little things and they will be done. The main Haley was only partially done, and the client suggested the spear might look cool with a marble handle.  Its actually not the first time I've done marble, although I did the opposite version last time, the black with green lining.  This time I tried to do white marble, but I also wanted to keep it in that same colour palette I've been working with.  I added a neutral grey in Deck Tan, then painted Coal Black lines over it.  I glazed over these lines several times with various mixtures of those two colours, before refining the lines again with Coal Black, and then Coal Black mixed with VMC Black.  The next step was highlighting the volume (ie, brighter at the top of the staff, and darker at the bottom) by adding some Menoth White Highlight to the Deck Tan and generally painting underneath the green lines, like highlighting chipped battle damage.

I kept working back and forth with these stages until I was happy, and here is the result!

After last blogs discussion on the wonders of grass and leaves...

We definitely decided no grass, and yet I still have to make the bases look good!  So, I mixed some bicarb, pigment and matt varnish together, in a few different colours, and blobbed it all over the bases with the brighter reds at the top, and the black at the bottom.

After that dried, I splashed some washes on there with a few different colours but mostly Strong Tone, just to add a bit more richness into some of the shadows.

Once it dried, it looked like this:

You can see the difference I think.  After the pigment fixer has dried, I will do some very subtle highlighting on a few areas, and polish the metal and rock elements up a bit, and the bases will be done.  

For painting the three girls: Baby Haley I just want to fix up a few little transitions on her pant legs, and the metallics.  On middle Haley, I need to do a little bit more to the blade, refine the leathers a little, finish her goggles and make sure I am happy with her hair.  

Grandma is the biggest fucking molebag and she is taking forever... I still need to smooth the cloak transitions, paint the rivets all over her cloak, paint her goggles and paint the metallics.  

I've got some black areas to edge highlight with grey, and then I will hit the models with some Satin varnish (or Matte depending on what the client wants) and the final step will be to just paint over the water with a tiny bit more gloss gel (I repainted the water so it isnt glossy any more).

Might be finished before I leave for Munich on Saturday!

Cheers

Trent