Painting Descent - Pathfinder Durik

Let's paint this guy!

Thought I'd share what it looks like over time as I work through a figure, so I took some work in progress pictures as I painted this figure (recall from last time, the goal is one a week for the year, so I am technically behind so far for 2019).

 I always prime my figures - I don't trust the plastics and I've always had decent results with the gesso I use (ProArt black gesso). Gesso shrinks as it dries, so I don't feel like I lose detail on the figures and I don't have to deal with outside temp or conditions in order to spray - I just brush it on.

Generally speaking, working from the inside out makes it easier to paint, so that means starting with the lowest areas - the skin. I wanted to start with the skin as I planned to dry brush after the base color and wash, and I'm sloppy about it, so not having to worry about overpainting is a good thing.

I picked a good grey/blue base color (Fenrisian Grey - Citadel) and thinned it down so I could apply a couple thin layers. After the skin layers dried, I needed to apply a wash. Citadel's washes are my preferred choice, but their blue is much too dark and their blue glaze is too bright blue. I have a number of Secret Weapon Washes too, but I don't like they way they flow as much as the Citadel washes.

I ended up settling on Secret Weapon Washes' Sapphire with a drop of Citadel's Drakenhof Nightshade and a couple drops of water to thin it. The color was just right and didn't darken the skin too much overall.

Once that dried, I went and dry brushed over the skin with an off white (Citadel Screaming Skull). The point was to reduce the blueness a bit while highlighting the face and areas like the hands. Once that was done, I went back and added a bit more of the wash to the recess of the eyes (I picked up an eye trick - the idea is to darken the eye socket area, which you will then add white for they actual eye. The extra shade in the socket area helps it to look more natural and less like "ping pong ball eyes). With the skin more or less done for now, it was time to move on to the rest of the bulk painting areas.

I have a nice tan color I like to base lighter colors and browns with from P3 (Rucksack Tan) that I've thinned down for my airbrush. I also use it to brush on (as I did here). I basically hit all the furs, boots and the areas I play to lay down a lighter color (the wraps on his wrists). After taking this picture, I decide that I'd apply another layer of the tan to the skins and just use washes to get the color I wanted. The nice part of this technique is that it's faster. I don't have to worry about a little bit of the black primer showing through the tan, once the wash is applied, it'll look just fine - uniform color looks unattractive and cartoonish because of the lack of shading and on things like furs, variations look much much more natural.

Now, the picture above doesn't show the back side, so I have some leeway in colorings, though the cape does appear to be fairly light. I don't particularly like light furs, so I went with a more orange color and plan to "lighten it" with some dry brushing.

So here we have the next phase. I applied two different washes to the cape/furs. Citadel Fuegan Orange to the upper part and their Reikland Fleshshade to the lower. I also took some straight (untwined) Rucksack Tan and went over the boots, one armband and the cloth between his legs.

I pulled the Screaming Skull back out and did the fur on his boots and the wristbands.

The fur edge of the boots I wanted to be dingy, so I washed those later with Citadel Nuln Oil wash. The boots, warps and cloth I wanted a more subtle shading to, so they got my go to wash - Citadel's Sepia. If the cloth had been wrapping a mummy or some such, I would have gone back and used a little bit of a light green to really make the wraps look good.

As you can see here, the furs already have a bit of a pop to them. The wash settles into the recesses and stains the original color (that color being the same as the boots here). Furs are soooooo much easier to do than cloth capes and robes.

After they dried, I went and dry brushed a bit of Elfic Flesh onto the orange fur. The light color stood out far too much against the darker orange, so I pulled the Rucksask Tan back out and dry brushed a little of that into the orange cape as well. The color of that blend was much better.

While I had the tan on the brush, I also barely hit the lower fur to help that along.

At this point there wasn't much left to do but some of the detail items - the necklace, some feathers, and the weapons on him. And of course, the eyes.

And there is the finished result. My picture skills are a bit suspect, but he came out pretty decently. He'll look really good on the table. And if you are wondering, I totally cheat on the eyes. After laying down a small amount of white, I use a micron pen to dot the eyes - saves me so much frustration. Time to get back to painting!

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