Ogre Here! Look Ogre Here!
As in "over here! look over here!". It's a joke, you see.
I had it in mind to write a thrilling account of my first pre-season friendly, being a mighty clash between truculent Orcs and heroic humans. That notion has been somewhat scuppered by my abysmal failure to actually finish such a game. To be fair I have played almost a whole game - we're about two turns from the end of play, I have an orc storming towards the end zone with ball in hand (the opposition end zone, no less) - and a draw is almost within my grasp. But until the denouement of that play I shall forego the match report.
Instead, let's look at something else that has been bubbling away for the last couple of months - my Ogre. This is my first "character" figure since taking up painting again, and I daren't think how much time I've spent on this guy. A lot probably. Like a lot.
My goal here was to try out a few new techniques and skills, primarily:
- Getting skin right (or at least better),
- Weathering effects (chipping, rust etc.), and
- Painting fabric textures
Before we get to the nitty gritty, let's take a look at the end result:
How do I feel about the big ugly brute?* I'm pretty happy actually. It's a more "realistic" style of painting - as realistic as an 8-foot tall armoured Ogre can be, I suppose. The rest of the human and orc players have a more "stylistic" approach to stand out on the field. I figured the massive Ogre would stand out regardless.
So, on to the techniques...
Skin Tones: As the human team have very little exposed skin, this is something I've not had a lot of opportunity to practice. Most tutorials I looked at suggest it's a matter of lots of thin layers - starting with a fairly neutral base layer and building up the shades, adding in the highlights and then bringing them together with a blending layer - and then repeating. The one unusual step I threw in, having seen it in one tutorial, was to add a layer of blue wash. Not sure it worked, but it does add a contrast to some of the more "red" tones around the nose and lips. The final finish is okay, but this is an area I definitely need to practice more.
Weathering Effects: I tried "chipping" for the first time (using this kit). This involved painting the sections of armour which would end up blue initially as bare steel - with all the appropriate shading and rust. The next step was to apply the chipping fluid - a thin, clear liquid which covers all the areas to be "chipped". Once properly dry, you paint over the top with the blue armour colour. This is the tricky bit - the chipping fluid goes back to a liquid when it comes into contact with water, which is what allows you to "chip off" the top colour coat. Unfortunately the top coat of paint contains water, so unless you're very careful and quick it ends up a splodgy mess. The last step should be to apply a matt varnish to "seal" the chipping fluid. For me the surface of the armour was a bit rough after applying the main colour, so I had to apply the shading and highlighting after sealing with varnish. Still, I'm not unhappy with the final result. Next time I might try the technique on a slightly bigger surface before going for another character.
Painting fabric: This is an idea I picked up from an online video (also painting an Ogre) which I have unfortunately misplaced the link for. If I find it, I'll come back and update the blog. This is a bit easier, but requires a steady hand. Essentially it's painting very find lines of a colour very slightly lighter than the base fabric colour, in a "cross hatch" pattern - then going back over the top with a blending layer. For a first go I'm pretty impressed with the result. I'll definitely use this approach again.
Well there we go. Fingers crossed for another blog post, and a completed Blood Bowl match, before Christmas!
* Editors note - a number of puns concerning brothers and suchlike were removed from this paragraph