As you can see, the first I started on (the one most to the left on the picture above) is finished, rider and all. I'm really pleased with how he turned out in the end; just hope the use of yellow will transfer well to the two other models. Yellow, apart from the metallic and leather colours, will be about the only colour the three models will share, tying them together. Or that was my plan, still has to see how it turns out in the end.
The brown Pegasus clothed in green was the second I made, but apart from the colours I changed little from the first one. Initially I wanted to make it look like a brown-feathered eagle, as the first one had been inspired by a hawk, but figured it needed something extra in the end, so I gave it a touch of yellow (Vomit Brown) to add some contrast and texture to it.I'm not as happy with the green as I was with the purple - I tried mixing Dark Angels Green with Goblin Green in the same way I had mixed Liche Purple with Warlock Purple, but the outcome was a way too flat colour, so I made my darkest colour Choas Black+Dark Angels Green, ad used Golden Yellow to create the lightest colour. Overall, it has resulted in a much darker caparison, but I hope it isn't too dark and that it merely serves to draw attention to the heraldry and other freehand I've done in yellow. All in all I'm happy with it, and think it'll look as great as the first as soon as the rider's done.
Last, there's the Pegasus of the Gallant, the black one - or should I say grey? I wanted it to look like it had raven wings, but all black became too dark for me. I've tried to add some blue-grey-purple'ish colours, but in the end my brush went for one of the grey paints, and now I'm not sure what it looks like. I fear it's pretty close to a grey city-pidgeon - not quite fitting into the "bird of prey"-theme I thought I had going on...
"Not quite ..." sadly sums up this model, as it's the one I've been struggling the most with and the one I'm least happy with. In fact, the only thing I'm completely happy with, is its base...In a previous post, I believe I mentioned doing some Greenstuff work on its caparison, and as you can see I have covered the shield, as I wanted some space to paint a bit extra freehand stuff. Now that I've gotten my freehand design onto the model, I'm not sure I like it anymore. The more I think on it, the more I want to repaint the whole caparison, the colour of the cloth is too vibrant and strong, it doesn't fit in with the two other Pegasi when placed next to each other, who got rather dark colours for their caparisons. What to do, what to do.. Any suggestions?
I am really happy with all the bases though - finally found some use for some old pieces of city ruins that I got at some prize draw or something. A saw, my hobby knife and some files, soon reduced the ruin to even smaller pieces, and after making sure any iconografy belonging to 40k was totally removed, I glued them onto the Pegasus' bases, and added sand and pieces of barch. I've also had great pleasure experimenting with weathering effects on those pieces of rubble, using a sponge with lots of different browns, black, white and grey on it, and just press it randomly over the ruins. Painting stone's never been more fun! I just need to add some grass, but I know I got some back in Norway, so it'll have to wait 'til I get there.
Any critisism and/or suggestions that can make the Pegasus Knights look better will be greatly appreciated - christmas is soon upon us, and I really want my brother to like this gift! So please help if you can!
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Edit:
Here's a crude drawing of some alternative freehand designs for the black's caparison:
Any favourites?
This might come across a bit critical, but don't let it bum you out:
ReplyDelete-All of the wings are awesome - wicked job blending the colours etc; however, your comment about pigeon wings isn't far off - the others do suggest a mean bird of prey, but that last one doesn't, and I struggled to think what it did look like but then you came up with it - pigeon. I think what compounds the problem is that the horse body is grey as well, and then you have the orange caparison - it all clashes a bit much. Now how might you fix that? I was going to suggest running some more washes - black and blue - through it, to get that raven like sheen, but I can see from the pictres that it already carries some blue through the feathering. You could always pass it off as a sea eagle - according to a documentary I once watched, the Scottish ones are quite vicious. The other thing would be to make the horse body white like the first one. That would create another visiual tie back to the others, and give a better contrasting colour to the orange.
-The green caparison does look really flat when compared to the purple one - it may be the pictures, or it may not. Maybe try feathering your lighter colour over again to try to bring some depth to the model.
-The orange one does stand out quite alot from the other 2 - the lightness s quite jaunty when compared to the other 2 which have a darker undertone. If the others had been lighter then I don't doubt that it would have fit right in, but as it is, it doesn't really tie in to the unit. Your free hand symbols on the caparison is awesome. If you had the time and the inclination, i might have suggested redoing it in a deeper redish colour, but keeping the same yellow free hand. The darker red should tie in nicely with the green and the purple (i think - was never brilliant on that whole complementing colours thing).
Or what I have written could be a lot of none-sense. At the end of the day, they are still beautiful models.
Keep at it, persevere, and you will come up with something amazing!!
Thank you for taking the time to write so much Rogue Pom! And don't worry about sounding critical, that was what I asked for, no? Best way to improve and to see one's own mistakes, is to get someone else to point out what's wrong, and offer a small shove in the right direction!
ReplyDeleteI've started redoing the wings of the black one completely, removing all the grey, going for a much blue look. I think it might be working..
I think you might be onto something, when it comes to using red with the orange, to make it darker. I've decided to redo the caparison anyways, and I have scetched down some ideas to new freehand designs (picture edited into the post) - which one do you like the most, or do any of you have any other suggestions, then please tell me.
Been meaning to comment for a few days Noeste but have so little time at the minute! I think Rogue Pom covered quite a lot and it's hard to think of much to add to it. The finish purple one looks awesome though so you're definitely on the right track. I think adding more red to the orange one will work, I think you need to keep to darker/deeper shades to create a better effect and to go nicer with the lovely purple you ended up with. Love the freehand you've done, insanely jealous of that. As for the new designs you've sketched I think the bottom right would look nice with the diagonal divide and the fleur de lis.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to seeing pics of these, especially the grey one that's going to be more blue. Unfortunate that it ended up looking a bit pigeon-y but I'm sure with the changes you're making it'll look brilliant!
Thanks for the comment Elazar!
ReplyDeleteI havn't had very much time since my post, but the green rider is finished except for his shield; I've made greater contrast in the green cloth by lighting it up a bit more, and done the neseccary touch-ups on the caparison of the Pegasus. I might catch some daylight this weekend, and get some pictures of him uploaded will hopefully get the freehand on his shield done by then as well.
Havn't gotten further on the orange cloth/blue-black feathers, but that's mainly due to the aforementioned lack of time, and not due to lack of motivation! I'll see if I can swing the brushes this weekend.
Thanks for the support *smiles*