AvP: Unleashed "Dutch" and "the Sarge" skin tones finished

So, after taking some advice that sounded like "If you find that the contrast between highlight, base and shadow is too high consider glazing all the flesh with a very, very dilute glaze of the original flesh base (...)" by dwartist, I did exactly as he suggested.

I must admit, his expierence pays off. After I did as I was told this morning, the faces look more natural then before. "Dutch" is the best painted face in my entire collection. Very satisfied at the moment, but trying to increase even that level with more practise. There are plenty more humans to be painted, so that should do it.

I am still not quite happy with the crude sculpt of "the Sarge's" face, but after some clean-up and touch-up like I did on "Dutch" it looks okay to me. I am especially pleased with the front tip of the cigarette he's smoking.

All reference pictures I found on Maj. "Dutch" Schaefer of Capcom's beat-'em-up game show him with a hair colour somewhere between a bright brown tone and blond. Hope that's good enough what I could achieve here. Oh, and since the entire character seems to be somewhat inspired by Arnold Schwarzenegger's performance in the original "Predator" movie, I thought giving "Dutch" some subtle beard stubble won't look out of place. Tell me, what do you think?

Some pics and as always any comments are highly appreciated.

AvP: Unleashed "let's face it" or me, trying to paint a face properly

So, after some serious tutor work by dwartist  (check out his incredible work following this link) 
I spent the late afternoon and early evening with two things: trying out a homemade wet palette (something I have read about a 1000 times, but never used myself before) and painting up some proper faces.

The faces were built up slowly from mixing into each other 5 different skin tones by Vallejo and GW. This is also my first time to actually try to paint the eyes properly. The Sergeant's head looks like he got some tremendously huge eyes, but it is the sculpt - I already tried to paint them smaller then they are sculpted. Compared to him, Prodos' Major "Dutch" Schaefer is simply perfectly scaled.

Some of the hints and tips I got from dwartist was trying to add a more natural shade to the skin tones by mixing up glazes from flesh tone, blue and red. The result is a somewhat violet tone that needs to thinned down to almost being transparent. It is not applied like a wash, but instead painted over the areas where your skin would normally have kind of a rosy look to it. I wasn't aware how dark it will become even though the mixture was almost transparent. In the end I think I should have done one step less applying it.

However, this is the work of 3 hours and I never did it that way before, so please have mercy but give me your honest criticism.

Here we go with some pics (kinda hard to focus on such small surfaces with my old digicam)

AvP: Unleashed - time for working on something from this project again

Resin bits washed in warm soap water, ready for clean-up, flash removal and assembly.

Lord Zymran's forces #1

Some opposition for my Chaos Gate project

"Rynn's World" - a Rogue Trader 40k campaign: Crimson Fists jetbike squad

Recon squad done!

1st Jaguar Guards Assault Star finished, group shot

The completed Assault Star:

From left to right:

Star Captain Kisen in a "Gargoyle (Man O' War) Prime"
Mechwarrior Zena in a "Hellbringer (Loki) Prime"
Mechwarrior Juste in a "Huntsman (Nobori-nin) Bravo"
Mechwarrior Olva in a "Summoner (Thor) Prime" 
Mechwarrior Silas in a "Nova (Black Hawk) Prime"

1st Jaguar Guards Bravo Assault Star "Nobori-nin" Alt. config. B Mech

After a lot of urgent family matters I finally got back to the painting table. This conversion of Ral Partha's Nobori-nin to represent the Bravo configuration is my latest work.

AvP: Unleashed - an unexpected parcel arrived today

When I came home a few minutes ago from a local Warhammer 40,000 tournement I was watching, an unexpected parcel obstructed my way through the door of my appartment.

It was from Archon (read: Prodos Games) in Poland. The content:

-AVP: Unleashed hardcover rulebook (tabletop rules for the boardgame miniatures), labelled version 1.0 (March 2017)

-Kickstarter Exclusive Female Predator figure (missing from my first KS delivery)

-a pack of Facehuggers plus 2 extra Huggers (for a total of 7 miniatures as promised via stretchgoals and freebies for backers; the extra two ones were also missing from my first KS shipment)

-4 Colonial Marines objective markers (cut-in-half "Bishop" Android; also not contained in my initial KS shipment)

WOW - now the only thing still missing is actually the pack with alternate heads that according to Prodos still isn't signed off for by Fox Entertainment's liscense department.


Still, count me in as one happy AVP fan.

1st Jaguar Guards Bravo Assault Star "Thor" Mech

1st Jaguar Guards Bravo Assault Star "Loki" Mech

For the Assault Star I had to paint another "Loki", so here he is:

Yes, I actually did paint a second one.

1st Jaguar Guards Bravo Assault Star "Man O' War" Mech

This is an old Ral Partha sculpt, I have only added SRM-6 launchers from the Iron Wind Metal Omni-Mech part catalogue to finish off a "prime" configuration.

1st Jaguar Guards Bravo Assault Star "Black Hawk" Mech

Reinforcements for the attackers: Black Hawk plastic miniature from the old CityTech (2nd edition) box.