Meg Maples Intermediate Class

I recently attended another painting class run by Meg Maples.  The focus of the class was on more advanced theory and techniques, and there was a projector where a number of slides were presented and we discussed a lot of colour theory and concepts.

We were each given a bust, Romero the Cat, sculpted by Raffaele Picca.  You can purchase it here from FER Miniatures: Romero!



The idea with the bust was we had to consider the environment and atmosphere that our chap would be found in.  Having already done a class with Raffa, talked with Meg and read a lot of articles about this type of considered painting, I already had planned out in my head how I would paint Romero.  I wanted him standing over a pit of lava, basically wondering to himself how he got into this situation.


I started with a very simple basecoat from the top right with a grey colour, and then I simply airbrushed bright red from underneath.  That gave me my basic sort of colour ideas.

From this I glazed a lot of colours over this, blue for the cloak, skin on the face, brown on the leather armour and so on.  These were thin layers, allowing the translucency to come through from the layers of airbrushing.  Next step was creating more contrast, so I considered the dark moonlight above, and used cool colours for the highlights on top, and then warmer colours for the highlights below.  I took the face up very high, almost to pure white.  Again, these were glazes, but I did use a bit more opaque colour towards the highest points.

Once I had established the basic colours and framework, I went back with the airbrush and sprayed another layer of that red, although a lot thinner.  Just to reestablish the colour and atmosphere.  I considered adding a bit of orange, but I didn't want it to feel like torchlight, or a warm sort of colour.  I wanted like a cold red, like the darkness of lava with the black edges.



All up, I spent just over 4 hours on him.  He was a pretty simple paint, the model has real quality and easy textures and surfaces to paint.  His face is absolutely filled to the brim with character.

More photos here:

http://www.puttyandpaint.com/projects/12938



Highly recommend attending one of these classes with Meg.  Very informative and really challenges how you consider colour choices and theory.  A lot of people as I looked around the room were really having a lot of ahah moments.

I tried to help out the other students with my spare time, and in a lot of ways I got as much out of this as I did about the class.



You can find out more about her classes on her website:

http://www.arcanepaintworks.com