ScratchBuild Log Part 4: Painting the 1915 Curiasse "Fortin" Aubriot-Gabet

So on to the actual paint! Started with a quick shot of Stynylrez. This primer by Badger is the best I've ever used, though **SPOILER ALERT** Ammo of Mig's new one shot primer is the same formulation made by Badger for Mig!!! Partnerships are something AMMO has really been developing as of late - Alclad being another example - What a great way to get an amazing products into even more hands!!

Once primed I reached for the AMMO by Mig Jimenez French WW1/2 Camoflage Colours - a great selection of period appropriate colours, but moreso than that a key selection of skewed grey tones - the light french blue was key in this paint job. I also grabbed some VMA German Grey and some Scale Colour Nacar to do some temperature adjusted contrasting zones in the paint job. With this being essentially a monochromatic model it was important to me to use contrasts of temperature and saturation to create interest in the surface of the model. I tried to create exaggerated and interesting areas of light and accentuated form without making it look completely unbelievable. This can be a difficult line to walk in these early stages as the following filters and layers will dramatically adjust these basecoats in a variety of ways. That being said I nailed 90% of my finishes on the first try. Came back the next day and could see what I wanted to change and made it happen. One of the best starts I have ever had on a model! A quick shot of dullcoat sealed this layer in.

After a little test fitting to make sure all was still properly aligned with the base, the front wheel assembly was removed for separate painting and weathering. I started laying rust tones into the rear roller assembly and then began to apply filters and stains using AMMO of Mig Enamels. Any of my readers will know I love these products and that they have dramatically changed the way I work. Another miniature artist making awesome use of AMMO products is James Wappel - if you don't already follow his incredible mini painting exploits you really should!!!!

While the filters and streaks were drying I started on the wheels where I used a combination of actual chipping with AMMO Chipping fluid and  Layers of paints, enamel rust effects washes and pigments.

I also used a graphite pencil and Forgeworld Dark Iron metallic pigment to add exposed metal marks and edges. While those were drying as well I took the Forgeworld Barbed wire and began to add it to the base as well. It really added life and interest just as I had hoped - Really pleased at this point with everything!  

Once all the parts had dried it was time for test fitting on the base again

So with that it was time to add more marks and interest across the surface of the hull. Some painters like to refer to this as more "information". Even if (especially if?) it is subtle it really engages the viewers brain more.   Sometimes it can also forward the story element by relating the piece to its environment. As this is designed to drive through barbed wire I wanted to make sure it has many little scratches across the lower hull in particular. These were painted with care and individually highlighted.

Once I had addressed surface detail and finish it was time for environmental effects - I like to think of my models in layers - Base coat and basic lighting come first. Filters and surface treatments are next. Weather/environmental factors are layered last. So I began by breaking out more of my AMMO of Mig enamels and using them to simulate a first spattering of mud - basically older dryer splashes that would have a matte finish against the slightly satin hull. I loaded up a large brush with the enamel mud and held it near the hull behind the position where the wheel would be. Using the airbrush I shot bursts of air effectively "flicking"  the bristles and giving a natural distribution of spatter across the hull. This was a VERY effective way of simulating the mud and filth that would be spattered by the turning wheels in this wet landscape.

While waiting for this to dry I also attached the extension cord that ran from the back of this wild little electric vehicle back into the friendly trenches (this easily severed and unreliable power source was one of the key reasons cited in abandoning this project after building only the one prototype!).  I also fit and primed the sandbags and supports and began to paint and weather them using a mix of acrylics and enamels. I wanted them to be harmonious with their muddy surroundings to be an accentuating detail rather than a secondary focal point. When finished they help lead the eye into the scene rather than drawing strong attention to themselves. Even the way they are stacked is to emphasize an upward movement pointing towards the tank.

Once the body was dry and the bags were in place I mounted the tank to the base and moved toward final harmonization - making sure it looked as though it was part of the scene and not just placed on top of it. I began by adding the next layers of dimensional mud. Made with pigment, acrylic pigment resin, paint, a little bit of gravel, static grass and some plaster this sticky mess matched the groundwork beautifully. It needed to be applied in stages, however, to build up naturally and to hold the dimension. It was really important to pay attention to the front wheels in this stage and make sure they looked partially sunk/dug in.

As the mixture was built up it was also added to the sandbags and areas of the base with additional roots and plant matter mixed into it - to keep the finish natural and to ensure harmony.

With that it was only a matter of small touch ups and finishes - highlighting the wooden posts, using dark iron pigments and black pigments on the gun barrel and metallic components with Ammo pigment fixer and a few more streaks etc with AMMO rust streaks and track wash. 

Next Week - Finished photos!

ScratchBuild Log Part 3: Basing for the 1915 Curiasse "Fortin" Aubriot-Gabet

So now that I had the proto-tank built and riveted, it was time to start working on the presentation base. I started by laying out some rough ideas with scrap pieces of balsa foam and once I had a clear idea in my head I started piecing together the pieces I would actually use.

For compositional purposes I wanted to use a raised piece of groundwork that would help draw the sight lines up and that would narrow towards the wide end of the tank and be wider at the narrow back of it. this would give emphasis to the bodywork and form of the vehicle while still giving me some space to add some landscape details and points of interest. It would also give the impression of forward movement.

As a competitive modeler an a judge, I cant emphasize enough how important good composition and interesting presentation are to separate your work from the competition.

Next up I started to carve into the layers of balsa foam. I wanted to add sunken track marks that would help to emphasise the weight of this contraption as well as to reinforce the nature of WW1 Trench warfare. The Fortin was designed to help cross the muddy shell pocked no mans land - pushing its way through barbed wire and shrugging off conventional small arms fire.  To the right here is a photo I took In France of a section of No Mans Land - even now a hundred years later the effects of the shelling and digging upon the landscape are frighteningly impressive.

Therefore I wanted to include:  Mud, Barbed Wire, Shell damage/craters, evidence of destroyed features from before the war, and a trench line. The tracks and pockmarks were easy to dig in to the balsa foam and then I just sealed them with some PVA foam glue. I took some Bass wood and used it to make some wooden posts, debris and the core of a shattered tree trunk. I built out the rest of the tree and its roots using Super Sculpey. Finally I made some Barbed wire support pigtails like the ones I had seen when touring the battlefields of Europe out of wire.

Next I broke out the Celluclay - a strong powdered paper mache that is great for making textures. I applied a coat of it to the balsa foam to give a real churned mud texture. It also let me smooth out the seams between the layers of foam. This also allowed me to build even greater depth into the surface and imbed the tree so that it looked like it had grown out of the landscape instead of being placed on top of it. I sprinkled some additional sand, small gravel, cork debris, static grass and wooden shards and worked them into the celluclay "mud" so that it all looked cohesive and organically occurring.

With the groundwork established it was time to begin building the edge of the trench line. I wanted to include a sandbag edge like the ones seen at Vimy. I have built these before with great success for a couple projects and find that it is important to build the bags one at a time and detail each because you never can be quite sure what will show. So I treated each bag as its own little sculpture - texture, patches, stitching tears and all. Though it takes a while it is quite fun to be honest. I made sure that I kept setting aside my favorite bags from the others to become the most visible ones where possible.

I made some with apoxie sculpt and some with super sculpey.

The next steps were pretty fun. I broke out a variety of earth colored paints and powders and went to work creating as natural a finish as I could. The photos don't pick up the color variations nearly well enough but I was pretty happy with the overall result. I broke out some AMMO of Mig rust finishes (enamels and pigments) and treated the barbed wire posts as well as some Forgeworld Brass etch Barbed wire. Once the tree, all the wood and earth and scrap had been fully painted I mixed up a batch of Envirotek Lite clear resin and using a medicine dosing syringe and an old brush I added wet effects and puddles to the mud and added a little static grass in both clump/growths and sprinkled into the mud and water

Time to let things sit dry and harden. 

Next week working on the paint and weathering for the Proto-tank itself!!

Luxumbra!

In case you hadnt seen yet :) my fellow CB judge Angel, of Studio Giraldez, has a kickstarter on the go that is looking amazing (<- click here to check it out!!!).

Fully funded in minutes and working towards many stretch goals. I have been waiting for some time to see this campaign come together and it looks impressive! I am not an Infinity player but these busts and figures are beautiful - I definitely want to paint one!

The sculpts are evocative and characterful. They appear to be exceptionally well sculpted and cast and represent a nice variety of subjects from the Infinity world. Even for those not associated with infinity the characters have great variety to appeal across genres and styles.

Whats more the model stands that have been unlocked are pretty darn cool! I hadn't seen this style of plinth before but I REALLY like the clean aesthetic of them They could be used as display stands or as holders while painting and are priced very well.

With more limited release models, special bases, painting guides, a WONDERFUL deal on a great H&S airbrush kit!!!!! this Campaign is going to be amazing. 30 days still to go means lots of room for surprises yet :)

Best of Luck to Angel and the crew at Luxumbra!

I AM JUDGING YOU!!!

Well sort of.

If you come to Adepticon.... and enter Crystal Brush.

Posted now on the Crystal Brush website under the heading "Meet Our Guest Judges for 2017"

It is an INCREDIBLE honor to have been asked to be a part of this! Really makes a guy feel valued in this community. Thank you to Jen Haley for the kind words in my intro. :)

Being a volunteer in a role like this carries a lot of responsibility and I am definitely feeling anxious, but I really think it will be a fun, educational and community building experience without parallel.

I hope to be able to connect with many of my artistic peers - both old friends and those who I have not yet met face to face. I look forward to working with, learning from, and sharing insights with you all. This is going to be a weekend of painting, sculpting, sharing and inspiration to be sure.

See you soon
James

PS - if you follow this blog but prefer Facebook - I have a mirror there with additional content https://www.facebook.com/lostinthewarp/

Out of the Darkness - Chris Suhre's Spotlight on Composition

Hello everyone!

My name is Chris Suhre and I’m an amateur hobbyist/painter. This will hopefully be the first in a

long series of blog post on various miniature/hobby topics. (I hope so to! - J)

I thought I’d start off by discussing composition in competitive painting. Hopefully it’s no big surprise that to do well in painting competitions you must have a great grasp of color theory, lighting effects, and painting techniques like blending and such. But having well composed settings can also help you present a much more pleasing ensemble to your viewer.

Have you ever noticed that certain dioramas keep your eye traveling around while others seem scattered? This is due to composition of the setting. This blog post will help discuss some of the elements of composition and how we can use them to reinforce the feeling we want to invoke in our viewer. Composition is not just in miniature painting though. It can also be seen in other art forms as well such as movies and classical painting.

But before we really get started I just wanted to note a few excellent resources for composition. Many of the ideas I will discuss are thanks to these resources. The Rise of Fantasy is an excellent book by Juan Barrena that discusses many of the points I will make in this blog post.

Another great book resource is Modeling Stories in Miniatures by Antonio Fernandez Lizaso. Also, while preparing this article I came across The Art of Composition 140 Iconic shots on Facebook. We will be looking at a few of these iconic scenes in this post. Finally, the online site Massive Voodoo is a library of useful information for any painter/hobbyist.

So, the first area to address is forced composition vs natural composition. In forced composition, we are often lining our model up with the scenery around them in parallel lines. This gives a forced or artificial feel to the piece. This is often what we see in family photos. Everyone is lined up and placed in front of scenery or behind it but not actually interacting with it. Forced composition can work on a display piece but you should realize it will give you a more photographed/posed effect. Natural composition is when there is a lack of parallel lines in a piece. This is more often what we see in dioramas where there is a battle. That doesn’t mean there can’t be good composition within the piece yet. Just that warriors on opposite sides of the battlefield shouldn’t be directly lined up against one another.

This is the Devil Shadow Mutineer’s by the incredibly talented Kat Martin. This is an example of forced composition. Notice how it almost seems like the crew members came out of the bar and then posed for a picture. They are arranged with a back drop that fits the models and scene but they really aren’t interacting with it. Note the parallel lines within the piece. The miniatures backs line up in parallel lines to the bar wall behind them.

Next is balance. In general, we want the final symmetry in a piece to be balanced. What this means is that when the piece is divided in half vertically it should appear to have the same “weight” on both sides. Now this can often be done simply by making sure the same number of items are present on each side. For instance, having a 5 man unit of troops. Having the leader in the middle with 2 troops on either side produces a simple balance/symmetry to the piece. This is also known as perfect balance, when all items are distributed evenly both in quantity and weight between both sides of the piece. There is also balance by equivalence when you have a large item on one side and its visual weight is balanced out by numerous smaller items on the other side. It should also be noted that balance can not only be created by the weight or quantity of items but by color itself. Warm colors (red, yellow, etc) have a higher visual weight than cold colors.

Look back to the Mutineer’s by Kat. The scene can easily be divided down the middle vertically with a member on either side and a balance in weight of the items on each side on the back wall.

Once again notice the symmetry and forced composition in this scene. The items, hues, and light are equal on each side making this a perfect symmetry.

And this one.

Okay so now let’s dive into composition styles/lines. Just a few general notes to start....

First, I often like to have an item in the upper left hand corner of the piece that grabs the eye and then pulls the eye into the piece. This is often something as simple as a tree, rock formation, banner, etc. We typical read from left to right so this helps one grab the viewer’s eye and pull it into the piece.

In my “Into Darkness” diorama I use a ruined stone column to grab the viewer’s eye and then that eye is pulled along the wooden support beam into the first member of the wither shadow combine. In this piece, you may then notice how the first member of the unit then looks in the direction of the second who then looks to the third helping to direct the eye through the entire piece. (orange lines) Another general idea about composition is framing the scene. In this case, we’re talking about using items to help contain the vision we want the viewer to see. Returning to the “Into Darkness” diorama note how the ruined rock column and wooden support beam also help frame and define the edges of the piece. (green lines)

Now that we’ve hit on the ideas of forced vs natural composition and symmetry/balance vs symmetry let’s discuss geometrical types of composition.

These are patterns you can place within your composition to reinforce the importance of an item  or enhance the feeling generated by the piece. The first type of composition I’m going to discuss is the Cross. This is probably the easiest form of composition with which to highlight our main character. Simply put there’s a vertical and a horizontal line that run through the piece and these two lines are perpendicular to each other.

So, let’s look at Winter’s Maw. By adjusting the creature’s right leg upward, I could bring the head and hands in a horizontal line with each other. This coupled with the ice shards on the back and the mammoth skull created a cross composition with the lines meeting right over the face drawing the focus to that place. You may also notice how the
trees in the background help frame the piece. I often like doing back drops to my pieces because it helps direct the viewer to what I want as the front of the piece. It helps define the optimal position I feel to look at the piece.

Notice in this screen shot from Jaws how the wife behind Brody and the flat horizon form a cross that draws even more attention to what the director wants you to focus on, Brody’s face.

The second type of geometrical composition I wish to discuss is the Grid.

The grid often works well for arranging multiple figures on a single piece. Essentially, we create an imaginary grid with 2 equally placed parallel horizontal and 2 vertical lines creating 9 sections on the grid. We then work to arrange figures in each box or at the points of intersection between grid lines.
This is also known as the rule of thirds.

Take for example Kith, Kriel, and Kin. If you place an imaginary grid over the diorama you can see how pieces are placed in different sections and at points of intersection. (magenta lines) Also as you look at the piece you notice that a tree is used in the upper left corner to draw one’s attention into the piece. If you draw a vertical line through the piece that the two sides are slightly imbalanced. (green line) The impaler troll has slightly more visual weight than the 2 pygmy trolls on the opposite side. In my opinion this help pull the eye in a short of circular motion around the piece to visualize all the aspects. (orange line)

Here is another example of the grid placement in some famous screen shots.

Next let’s discuss diagonal composition. Diagonal compositions are often dynamic and reinforce the feeling of movement in the piece. This can be made even stronger if you combine with additional forms of composition like the grid. Take for example Borka’s Berserkers. Notice how a diagonal line can be drawn through the Earthborn into Borka and then the Axer. This diagonal line reinforces the feeling of movement or charging that is present with the figures in the piece.

The diagonal composition can also be seen in these to screen shots. Note the sense of
movement in these still images.

The triangle is another form of composition. Our eyes often scan pieces for basic geometric shapes including the triangle. The triangle composition helps guide our eye to all 3 corners of the triangle and placing objects at these intersections can increase their prominence within the piece. The triangle composition can also lend prominence to items within the shape.

I used a triangle arrangement in my Dogs of War piece. (beige lines) The blue line helps
shows the symmetry in the piece.

This is Blood and Flame by Andrew Leung. Note again how Andrew used a triangular composition to guide one’s eye to each member of the Daughters’ of the Flame and then keep the Dire troll within the triangle composition of the piece.

Also, check out these screen shots and how the triangle composition is used to keep your eye scanning over the piece.

 

The final geometric shape in composition is the diamond. In the diamond we are lead from one strong focal point at the top out to both sides as we scan the piece and then back to a strong focal point at the bottom. I unfortunately don’t have a personal piece of diamond composition I can show now but please look at these screen shots. Note how you start from a strong upper focal point, scan the piece back and forth, and then end at a strong focal point at the bottom.

That covers the basics of composition. But to paraphrase a famous pirate Captain, these are more like guidelines than actual rules.

It’s okay to break the rules but you really need to understand what they are first and why you are breaking them. For instance, you may want to present a desert nomad wandering in a bleak wasteland. In such a circumstance, it may be appropriate to have the nomad on one side of the diorama and the rest be open desert to help symbolize the vastness of the desert and the nomad’s aloneness....

I hope this blog post has laid down the basics of composition in miniature art. Hopefully
this can be applied in your future projects and help you enhance the feeling you wish to convey
with your art. Thanks for reading!

A special THANK YOU to Chris from me and the LITW community!!! If you want to see more of Chris' work check out his Putty&Paint page at:  http://www.puttyandpaint.com/DVader