Pie Clown step-by-step part 1

A short while ago I was contacted by fellow cool mini member Moonmin82 who asked If I would be interested in painting up a miniature he had sculpted www.facebook.com/MadClownMiniatures. As anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis will know I'm not the fastest of painters so, with two project already on the go, I had to think carefully before taking on another. The mini is very different from anything I would normally paint and that caught my interest. I thought it would make a nice 'little' project to get back into the swing of things after the Summer's painting pause, and so it has proved.

I wasn't 100% sure how to approach this mini as I really didn't want to paint a traditional bright and colourful look to the clown. The words retro, sinister and grungy kept on popping up when I thought about what I wanted to do. But I couldn't quite get my head around how to apply these qualities to the painting scheme. In the end I took a deep breath and just started painting. Sometimes thing like this sort themselves out in the doing rather than the planning.

I cleaned up the mini and applied a little crackle paint for some added texture. Then I painted an overall base coat of Dheneb Stone. Next I gave the mini a wash of Gryphone Sepia just to get things started and to begin creating some definition. I used a mix of Gryphone Sepia and Devlan Mud to create some deeper shade and tone down the sepia.

At this stage, seeing the mini with these rather rough brown tones washed onto it, inspiration stuck! I would paint up the mini in a (mostly) monochrome scheme to resemble an old sepia photo. This approach tied together all of the qualities I was looking to achieve and gave me the opportunity to try out something new. To keep a rougher/grungier quality to the paint I decided to do as much as possible using washes and transparent glazes. This would also have the benefit of being a speedier method of painting as I wanted to push this project through as a quickie without compromising the quality and character of the final mini.  It also gave the the chance to try a style of painting that would be radically different from my usual highly (or indeed obsessively) refined and tidy finish

Now, with a clearer idea of how to proceed, I continued to build up layers of dilute washes and glazes. As well as the colours mentioned earlier I introduced Rhinox Hide to the palette to get a little variety in the brown shades. Superficially Rhinox Hide looks a lot the old scorched brown but this colour seems to contain a lot less red and has a cooler/duller tone. A mix of Rhinox Hide, Devlan Mud and Vallejo Dark Sea Blue gave me my deepest shade and Vallejo Ivory completed the colour pallete by providing my lightest highlights. From here on Its a matter of refining the finish and adding detail and definition. All the time repeating to myself "retro, sinister and grungy".

Comming soon ! 

(Shockingly soon for me)

Pie Clown step-by-step part 2 and Creating a scenic base for the Pie clown.