Gnome Assassin

Struggles with painting a flesh tone

I’ve been working on a new project, the Gnome Assassin from Miniature Madness sculpted by Leonardo Escovar "Poisonauta". This characterful bust was an online ‘impulse’ buy but it’s been waiting my attention for years. I kept it in reserve as a ‘filler’ project but, even though I had it primed and ready, the moment never came, until now. After finishing Akito I was in the mood to experiment further with painting flesh tones and the Gnome Assassin’s small size meant that he shouldn’t be too much of a time commitment. He would probably take me months rather than years!

 

 

I’ve had plenty of time to consider this project and had some ideas for how I was going to treat him. My big idea was to present the Gnome as though he was peering out from between the branches of a tree, alongside an animal companion or two. Long story short, after many attempts I abandoned this idea as I just couldn’t nail the composition. Nothing I tried quite looked right and I think that’s because I was trying to turn the bust into something it was never suited to be. It’s another case of a big basing idea that would have overwhelmed the model. So I’m keeping things simple and concentrating on painting the bust.

However, while working on the woodland base idea my thoughts for the overall scheme came together. I decided to create a cold looking winter setting which seemed to go well with my thoughts on how to paint the Gnome. I’ve always pictured him as having a greyish skin tone and white hair. This comes from two early influences. My teenage experience of Dungeons and Dragons where I played as a Gnome and the afore-mentioned colour scheme stuck in my memory. But even earlier than that is the book The Little Grey Men written by Denys Watkins-Pitchford under the pen name ‘BB’. Memories of the book were reinforced by a 10-part animated series, adapted from the book in 1975, called Baldmoney, Sneezewort, Dodder and Cloudberry. A couple of years ago I re-read The Little Grey Men after discovering it in a charity shop and was charmed all over again!

 

 

I began to experiment with colours for a palette that would create a greyish skin tone in a cool light. Once again my trusty notebook came in handy. I first laid down a possible palette of colours and then experimented with how they behaved together. My first mixes were too purple and too saturated. I gradually shifted my mixes until I came to something that I felt would give me a good basis for the flesh tones. Dark Sea Blue and Black Leather mix together to make a very dark grey that is easy to shift from warm to cool by varying the mix. This would be my shadow colour. To this I gradually added Bearing Blue to create a lighter cool grey. Into that I then added Basic Flesh. This moved the colour into the midtowns and gradually warmed it up. To shift into the highlights I increased the Basic Flesh and introduced Ice Yellow and then Ivory White for the extreme highlights. On paper this gave me a very promising skin tone that shifted from cool shadows into warmer highlights.

 

 

Figuring out a colour palette in advance is very helpful, it builds familiarity with the colours and how they work together. However, it’s another thing entirely when you put these colours onto a model and my ‘greyish skin tone’ would prove to be very problematic! I quickly came to dislike the results I was getting as the skin tone looked dead, dull and desaturated! On consideration I’d made two mistakes that were causing the problems.

 

 

Because I wanted to create moody and dramatic lighting my base colour was a fairly dark blue grey. This shifted the overall colour range towards the cool shadows which was made worse by my being too timid with my colour mixes. I needed to go from the cool shadows into the warmer mid-tones with bolder steps because the cool dark base colour was desaturating the colour I put on top of it. I could have started over with a lighter and brighter base colour (Rakarth Flesh) but I prefer to try and resolve problems by working through them. I liked the blue/grey shadows so I focussed my efforts on the mid-tones and highlights. I set to making them lighter, warmer and more saturated.

 

The final selection of colours used in the colour palette.

 

I’d always planned to use glazes of warmer and more saturated hues over the flesh tones. Because of this I already had the colours I would need in my palette.  I’d now have to incorporate them in my mid-tone and highlight layers because glazes would not be bold enough.Those colours were very familiar as I’d recently used them for the flesh tones on my Akito bust. The application was to be very different though as my lighting scheme was far more dramatic than on Akito. Both Golden Skin and Pink Flesh would be vital in adding warmth but the most significant additions by far were Bugman’s Glow and Fiery Vermillion. The introduction of these colours into the mid-tones created a bolder shift into warmer hues.

 

 

This didn’t come about easily. I constantly had to push myself to go with the warmer and more saturated hues. Throughout the process I tended to be too timid in my choices and made a lot of extra work for myself. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the process of figuring out my Gnome’s flesh tones. It’s the sort of problem solving I enjoy. The final result isn’t the ‘Little Grey Man’ I’d first imagined but it is my take on a Gnome and I’m happy with the result. 

What’s more the process helped to drive home a very useful lesson. It’s something I’ve always known but never really consiously experienced. When building up highlights it’s a good idea to focus on going brighter rather than simply going lighter. Even after forty six years of painting, there is still plenty to learn!

My Gnome is pretty much ‘out of the box’ with one exception. His original knife had a spiral Celtic style design on it and I didn’t really care for it. I felt it was too sophisticated for the rustic Gnome I was imagining. So I replaced the knife blade with one carved from greenstuff. The new knife was faceted to look like a knapped stone blade. I then painted it in green tones to contrast with the flesh.

This was an enjoyable little project and it feels very satisfying to finish a model that’s been on my to-do list for so long. I’m pleased with the final result but can’t help feeling that the dark blue/grey base colour was not the best choice.  Once finished I decided to  enter it into a couple of painting comps in the early half of the year. I didn’t expect stellar results so I was very pleased with a Silver at the Hammerhead Painting competition and a Finalist pin at Salute! 

 

 

Looking back on this project there are some lessons to be learned. I think it’s much better to go in bold and then have to tone things down as opposed to being too cautious and then having to add saturation and contrast later. If you start off bold something of that will always remain ‘baked in’ to your painting scheme and will show in the final result.

Specific to the Gnome, I don’t think this bust is especially suitable as a competition piece due to the limited range of materials represented on it. Adding a backdrop and an animal companion sat on his shoulder, a few tattoos or warpaint might have brought something extra. All of these options are still open to me but, for the moment, I’m happy to call the piece done and move on to the next project.