Painting Uncle John – Colour Palette

Now that I have the majority of the Uncle John bust painted it seems like a good time to talk about the colour palette I’ve been using. Unless otherwise stated all the colours used are from Games Workshop. (VMC has been used to show when Vallejo Model Colour has been used.)

The key colours for this particular palette are Xereus Purple and Dark Flesh (VMC). Broadly speaking the purple is used in the shadows and the Dark Flesh, in reality a shade of yellow, in the highlights. This is a high contrast colour combination and hopefully I’ve avoided the extremes and managed to achieve an energetic, but not violent, level of contrast. 

Uncle John’s costume and parrot are painted with the primary colours red, yellow and blue. This could easily result in an overly bright and cartoonish look but the colour palette I’ve used helps to provide an overall harmony. This is achieved by having common colours that are used in all the areas regardless of the apparent colour. The Dark Flesh and purple are the most obvious colours used this way but the entire bust employs a relatively limited palette. 

The Flesh Tones 

Unsurprisingly the flesh tones are the most complex areas with regard to the colours used. The flesh areas were painted first and have heavily influenced the overall colour palette. All of the colours in the flesh have been used elsewhere on the bust. 

I’ve broken the colours down into shadows, mid tones and highlights but the process was far more intuitive than step-by-step. The shadows were blocked in over the base colour to provide a bold foundation for the more subtle mid tones and highlights. The colours were then applied in many thin glazes and built-up using transparency. The colours were mixed together in many different combinations and used across all areas of the face. For example a Ratskin Flesh and Rakarth Flesh mix served as a shadow on the light side of the face but also features in the highlights on the dark side of the face. For the most part Rakarth Flesh is the lightest colour used on the highlights with only a very little ivory here and there. The Rakarth Flesh is a key colour in the flesh tones as it has a cool almost grey quality and helps to calm down and unify the brighter colours. 

Base Colour:

 Rakarth Flesh

Shadows:

Bugman’s Glow + Xereus Purple mix

 Mid-tones: 

Ratskin Flesh

Bugman’s Glow

Rakarth Flesh

Xereus Purple

Mournfang Brown

Evil Sunz Scarlet

Dark Flesh (VMC)

Highlights: 

Rakarth Flesh

Ivory (VMC)

Dark Flesh (VMC)

Shirt 

The shirt provides an area of neutral colour to contrast the brighter shades around it. Of particular note is the combination of Baneblade Brown and Xereus Purple in the shadows. These colours were mixed to create an interesting range of greyish/purple tones that I’m sure I’ll be putting to good use in the future.
 

Base Colour & Mid-tones: 

Rakarth Flesh

Shadows: 

Baneblade Brown

Xereus Purple

Highlights: 

Rakarth Flesh

Ivory (VMC)

Silk Tie 

  
The use of pure Enchanted Blue in the mid-tones gave the tie the intense bright blue I wanted. Adding purple and a few touches of Dark Flesh to the shadows helped to link the blue into the rest of the palette.

Base Colour: 

Enchanted Blue

 Shadows: 

Enchanted Blue

Xereus Purple

Dark Flesh (VMC)

Mid-tones: 

Enchanted Blue

Highlights: 

Enchanted Blue

Ice Blue

Ivory (VMC)

Waistcoat and Gold Trim

  
Yellow can be a challenging colour to paint but the addition of other colours from the palette has added interest and variety. The purple was difficult to incorporate into the shadows without creating a psychedelic effect but I overcame this with the addition of Bugman’s Glow and Dark Flesh in the mix and as separate glaze layers.

Base Colour:

Mournfang Brown & Iyaden Darksun mix

Shadows:

Mournfang Brown

Xereus Purple

Bugman’s Glow

Mid-tones: 

Iyaden Darksun

Bugman’s Glow

Dark Flesh (VMC)

 
Highlights:

Dark Flesh (VMC)

Ivory (VMC)

Ringmasters Coat.

  
I expected the coat to be tricky! Red can be a notoriously difficult colour to highlight but things went surprisingly well. This was partly the result of making sure that the highlights stayed in the orange part of the spectrum and avoided pink tones. But for the most part the red went well because I started off with a base colour in the lighter mid-tone range and most of the painting involved adding in the deeper tones and shadows. Working from light to dark really helped me to get the sort of red I wanted, and avoided any problems with chalky highlights.

Base Colour:

Merchrite Red + Xereus Purple + Evil Sunz Scarlet mix

Shadows:

Base colour

Xereus Purple

Rhinox Hide

Mid-tones:

Base colour

Evil Sunz Scarlet

Highlights: 

Wildrider Red

Dark Flesh (VMC)

Hat 

The hat has been painted using a combination of stippling and glazes. It was painted, for the most part, from light to dark.  

Base Colour: 

Rakarth Flesh

Shadows: 

Xereus Purple

Mournfang Brown

Dark Sea Blue (VMC)

Mid-tones: 

Mournfang Brown

Baneblade Brown

Seraphim Sepia

Highlights: 

Seraphim Sepia

Ivory (VMC)

The hat band was painted with Sotek Green. It was shaded with Xereus Purple and Dark Sea Blue (VMC) and highlighted with a Sotek Green and Ice Blue mix. Ivory (VMC) was added for the final highlights. 

Sotek Green

Xereus Purple

Dark Sea Blue (VMC)

Ice Blue

Ivory (VMC)

Deep Shadows

In a few areas I needed a very deep shadow colour. This was achieved by using a combination of Dark Sea Blue (VMC) and Rhinox Hide. These were used on their own and in combination with each other and the area’s predominant colour. 

Rhinox Hide

Dark Sea Blue (VMC)

Painting Uncle John – Part 5

My photos are a bit quick and dirty this time but they show how things are going.
On the whole I'm now feeling more confident about bringing together the elements of this project and finish them off to a satisfactory standard in time for Euro Militaire. I've had a full weekend of parrot painting and that means I've made some good progress. With the exception of a little tidying up here and there only the blue areas remain to be painted. After that there is a lot of shine from the vallejo paints that needs to be fixed but that isn't a great problem and can be sorted out with a little matt medium.

Painting Uncle John – Part 4

I’ve started to paint the parrot that sits on Uncle John’s shoulder and although I’ve made progress it’s been a bit of a struggle! 

 I’ve very limited time at the moment and haven’t been able to put in enough hours to make dramatic progress. But the biggest frustration I’ve had has been getting the colour right. Yellow has never been a colour I‘ve liked to paint and I’ve probably allowed that to spook me. Put simply I went in with too bright a base colour. As a result I’ve had to work hard to tone down the brightness and get the parrot looking like it belongs with Uncle John.
On the positive side I’ve stuck at it and I’m beginning to get closer to the colour I want. 

Time is rapidly counting down to Euro Militaire and I need to crack on and resolve this piece. I’m so close to getting this done but those last steps can make or break a project!

Painting Uncle John – Part 3

It’s been an odd few weeks featuring a period of ultra intense painting followed by a total break and then a gradual return to my usual routine. I had a tricky couple of days where I struggled to regain the buzz I’d felt previously. But perseverance has paid off and I’m back to loving every moment spent on this model. 

 Now that I’m back to work my painting schedule has returned to the usual stolen hours in the evenings and at weekends, so the pace has slowed a little. However, before my holiday, I had already established my colour palette and achieved some significant progress that has laid down the foundation for the rest of the job. 

Recently I have been painting the mechanical lens and monkey under Uncle John’s hat. I’d intended to use true metallics but my gut instinct has been to paint NMM instead. Somehow it feels more in keeping with how the rest of the model is turning out. Both of these areas are relatively detailed compared to the rest of the bust and I struggled to get the definition I wanted in my paint job. After two days I broke out a new paintbrush and had an instant solution to my problems! 

With the lens and monkey painted, I could finally turn my attention to the jacket. This is a key element of the bust, as its red colour will provide one of the strongest visual elements. Several areas had been left unresolved, as I needed to see them against the red to finalise their appearance, so I was keen to get started. 

I was feeling a little cautious as red can be a notoriously difficult colour to work with. I mixed up a pot of a deep red for my base colour and base coated the jacket with it. The next stage was to block in the shadows using a red/purple/brown mix. With this groundwork established I could work on the mid tones and highlights. After a little trial & error I figured out those colours that seemed to work best and carefully built up the highlights. Broadly speaking I used a red/orange to orange/yellow mix, as I wanted to avoid taking the highlight into pink tones. With this done I went back in to enrich the mid-tones with red /purple glazes and stippling. 

I was pleased with the colour I’d achieved but the jacket was looking a bit bland. It wasn’t until I began to paint the gold braiding onto the jacket that the red colour seemed to come alive! At this stage I was able to have a little fun and mess things up. I’ve always wanted to paint Uncle John as dirty and decrepit with all sorts of (literally) crap over his clothing. After all the man has a monkey living under his hat – you probably don’t want to get downwind of him! 
The dirt has been built up with a combination of stippling, sponging and pigments. I’ve also used a variety of finishes from matt to gloss to convey a feeling that some stains are ‘fresher’ than others. 

There is still a fair bit of work to do and a lot of little tweaks and adjustments as the overall scheme comes together but it feels like I’m on the home stretch. There is only one major element left to tackle but I’m well prepared. While I was on my holiday I went to Paphos Zoo and couldn’t believe my luck when my feathered friend below ‘posed’ (he really did) for photos. Needless to say I’ll be making full use them. 

Review - Boiler Alt Edition from Guild Ball

I came back to the office after my holiday to find Boiler, one of the new Guild Ball minis, waiting for me on my desk. Having had a peep at the artwork, I was keen to see what the actual miniature was like. 

My very first impression was that he was a bit small, but I think that had to do with my being in a bit of a grump due to the end of my holiday! As soon as I took a closer look I realised that there was a lot more going on with this mini than I’d first realised. Although Boiler is a small character his mini comes as a five part kit that, once assembled, makes up a dynamic and characterful mini of a good size to paint. 

The quality of the casting is excellent and I was able to put him together for an initial test fit (see below) with no problems. There was very little flash on the mini and the mould lines pose no special problems. All the parts fitted well with out any extra filling or trimming and no need for any major gap filling once properly assembled. All in all this was a better than usual assembly experience for me. 

 The assembly may only be an initial test prior to giving him a proper clean up but it’s clear that this is a very nice mini indeed. There is a lot of great detail but also areas that are plain enough to give a painter the opportunity to have a little fun with adding some extra patterns, texture or insignia should they be so inclined. 

The thing that really clinches the deal for me is the pose. Boiler has been sculpted in the act of leaping and is captured in a dynamic mid-air pose that is supported on just one arm. For a mini of this size it is an extremely successful use of multiple parts to achieve great movement and dimensionality. Something I’d normally associate with a resin or plastic kit rather than metal. 

 You can see a fully assembled & beautifully painted version of Boiler by John Keys aka megazord_man Here
 
The only problem is that he is such a good mini I want to paint him straight away and I’ll have to exert great self control to restrain myself. Euro Militaire is fast approaching and I’ve a painting schedule to keep to if I want to get Uncle John finished in time. 

It’s tough when you’ve more enthusiasm than time but that’s preferable to things being the other way around!