Busto The Aquila / Pintando cuero

Para mi lo ms importante de este proyecto fue no perder el objetivo de pintar lo ms

aproximado a la realidad posible. As que me serva de fotos de materiales, caras, etc.

Primero pint el cuero a aergrafo directamente sobre la capa de imprimacin negra. Con
marrn cuero de Vallejo. El mrito lo tiene el escultor de la capa. La calidad del modelado
es tan alta solo con una pasada ya pareca cuero
Desde un principio tom como referencia el Aquila de Roman. Tiene un fantstico paso a
paso aqu. l mancha de diversas formas el cuero para luego unificarlo y darle un
aspecto envejecido.
Aqu mancho hasta hartarme probando cosas sin miedo (luego me arrepentira de ser
tan listillo), con araazos en colores claros y oscuros, intentando simular los cortes del
cuero real.
Aqu lo unifiqu con marrn cuero de Vallejo con algo de rojo y volv a entretenerme con
l guarrendolo a gusto. La idea es probar hasta estar satisfecho y si el resultado no
gusta, siempre existe la posibilidad de arreglarlo e ir atrs. Es la nica manera de
aprender.
Ahora unifico con un tono medio y le meto sombras con negro diluido a modo de
veladura. En este punto juego mucho con la tinta marrn y le doy suaves pasadas a
pincel tambin para unificar pero intentando crear ms intensidad en algunas zonas que
en otras.
En este punto vea que el cuero me peda algo de verde en sombras y sinceramente no
s como explicaros el porque. Sencillamente quera ver algo de verde en esa zona.
Despus de darle esa suave aguada vi que le aportaba riqueza y combinaba muy bien
con el toque de rojo del cuero. (colores complementarios).
Recuerdo que no le di con verde, si no con turquesa. Tengo predileccin con ese color.
Apenas se aprecia pero ya os digo que en persona se ve mucho ms y le aporta un toque
interesante.
Poco a poco se ve que el cuero va ganando edad, como pasara en la vida del romano,
ensucindolo y desgastndolo.

Para crear las manchas de la siguiente imagen empap el pincel en tinta marrn (tambin
roja y negra en algunas zonas) y la deposit a modo de gotas desiguales. Antes de que
secase del todo retir la pintura del centro con otro pincel viejo y de gran tamao creando
una circunferencia de pintura satinada. Puedes ayudarte con un secador para ir ms
rpido.
Un da hice un potaje y me decid a ponerle unas cuantas manchas a ver como quedaba.
Manchas sobre manchas!
Bueno, aqu viene el fallo garrafal por ser tan listillo y probar cosas que estaban fuera de
mi alcance. Una vez visto desde fuera no sabes donde esta ese lmite si no pasan estas
cosas, as que al final hasta me benefici, pero el disgusto que me di cuando vi la
guarrada de la arena no se lo deseo a nadie.
La arena quedaba bastante mal y me tapaba gran parte del trabajo previo as que la
intent eliminar como pude y unifiqu.
Por fin! ya la daba por acabada.. o eso pensaba yo. No me acuerdo como ni que fue,
pero vi un objeto de cuero agrietado y me lanc a copiar ese efecto increble.

Despus del chasco con la arena me senta poco valiente pero que demonios! el que no
arriesga no gana!
Con un color arena con disolucin media empec a pintar las grietas con paciencia. La
manera en que me funcion a mi fue levantando ligeramente el pincel para pintar solo
con la punta temblando de manera controlada para crear el efecto. Siempre COPIANDO
la foto para ver en que direccin iban las grietas y respetando la coherencia de los
pliegues de la escultura.
El paso final fue unificarlo todo con tinta marrn diluida.
Para mi fue un placer pintar este busto con tanto ensayo y error. Me sirvi para aprender
nuevos mtodos de crear efectos (COPIAR COPIAR COPIAR!!) y sinceramente nunca
pens que fuese a tener tanta popularidad. Gracias gente!

Espero que os haya servido de algo y preguntadme cualquier duda que tengis.

Step by Step: The Aquila - Hero of Rome 41 A.D.

by Massive Voodoo

Hello Ladies and Gentleman,

today Roman will speak about his progress on one of his latest bust:
The Aquila - Hero of Rome 41 A.D.

If you are a constant reader of MV you might know that Roman is truely into ancient Rome, reading a lot of books about it and enjoying to drift away in
his mind to ancient glory or not so glory. Depends on the perspective of events. Well, once in a while it is a good thing to let impressions out into a
model or a drawing or a painting. Roman did so with this bust.

It was planned that this bust is the second one in Roman's long term goal to have a display with several ancient Roman models. The first one is
the Roman Legionary he painted a while ago. Roman did not plan to sell any of those as he already was proud that the collection was at two figures.
Well, mysteries happen and the Aquila here was shipped to China last week to a miniature collector.
Now the plan to make that display grow lost 50% of its volume. Ouchy!
Well, let's stay with the facts: If miniature painting is your daily life, your work you have to pay bread and rent from you paint figures to sell figures. And
sometimes you just can't say no to a good deal for both sides of the bargain.

Enough of these emotions, maybe one day he paints him again for his collection. Another version, another day. Now we head over to the article and
jump right into Roman's thoughts ...

____________________________________________________________________________

Step by Step: The Aquila - Hero of Rome 41 A.D.

Foreword
Every Miniature I paint comes from the heart.
Some are more important for me than others as the topic or the theme of the model is just the right one which
occours my personal interests. There is no big plan in doing them, I just see a model and know this is it. It calls
me to put in my emotions and it was the same with this beautiful bust by Nuts Planet. You can find
a Miniatures Unpacked about it here.

As I am used to do many photos during MV's year of the painter to write article after article for our readers and jungle visitors it was no different with
this one. This always takes time: Doing the photos while working, making them ready for the article, preparing and writing the article. If you have some
spare coins for a coffee for the work that is put in here for you to read, please feel invited to say thanks via a jungle donation.

Painting Progress
Well, now to the topic. Painting Fun.
This article will show you the steps I took through the model and gives you insight in the thoughts behind the steps. Sometimes I feel bad not being able
to tell you every single colour I used in the progress, but honestly I just can not do it as I do not remember them on my own. When I am in the midst of
painting fun, I am happy to be able to remember to do the photos for the article and colours, brushes, airbrush, dirt, etc. is just used without proper
names. As I am not a big fan of colour recipes at all this way of explaining suits me better as I am a believer that using too many colour reciepes often
blinds you to the endless freedom colour can bring you. Ok, now I hope you enjoy the article.

For me it is always important to know why my models recieve the colours I paint, so it is good to get into the right mood by thinking about what the
models story is. The reasons why he/she is somewhere? What is he doing there? What has he done earlier? Is he exhausted or relaxed? What daytime
is it? Where is he located?

I imagined my roman hero somewhere in a gentle snow storm of an early winter morning somewhere in Germania. He and some other lads had a really
though mission. Retrieving a legion's eagle from an unfriendly barbarian tribe who stole it in a battle many years ago. Recently a spy informed the
Empire about the possible location of that eagle and so the hero and his small group of trusted friends were sent to the place. Careful to avoid contact
with the enemy at all cost, stealthy, invisible until the location of the eagle was confirmed. Not an easy task. Long story short, the eagle was stolen back
again, but at a high price. They had to kill and they died. He is the only one returning home from this mission and he is still on his travel to safety.

To catch this emotion I started with my basic colours really cold. I know this looks like painting madness but it was fun. Throwing colour there to just get
into it. The face was done first via airbrushing sunny skintone from VMC. The rest of the sketch was done with the brush. Bam! Bam!

Ok, after my initial painting madness calmed down a bit, I used many brown washes to get the right colour for his leather cloak and his hood. Did the
leather parts on his armour. I painted the basic colours of metal to the bust and used all earthy sandy tones to recieve a sketch on the fabrics too.
The face recieved some strong shadows too while I worked with the washes and some first light sketches have been painted to the face. Eyes black.

You might ask: Why did you start with the blueish colour on that cloak at all?
Well have a closer look, it still is visible in the shadow areas.
Still at rough work I am. Sketching some textures on the fabric with brighter colour. Additional information to the following photo: I started the bust on a
work-plinth and will change it later to the bust plinth.
Checking for prominent spots on the face and put some more work in them by applying the colours more often to recieve an opaque look.

Also adding thin colour glazes (reds/purples/oranges) to the eyes, nose and mouth.
I learned about facial colours while I studied to paint dark/black skin at Juva.
In fact this is also happening in brighter skin and I learning more everytime I paint.
Eyes have been sketched white and the pupils were sketched with black.
Sorry for the blurry photo.
Well, good for the sketch now. As the leather cloak is really a big part of the model I decided to start with this first by working more detailed on it. Using
Army Painter's strong tone I decided for a really worn out look on my leather work as a start.

Doing just spots out of the bottle to the model.

Dry them for some seconds with the hairblower.

Take a wet brush without colour to remove the inner colour that did not dry ...

To recieve random dirt spots on your old worn out leather. I now again used brown and even green glazes to add more colour to the cloak. I enjoy t work
on leather parts like this with layers. Creating different textures and pulling them together with glazes again, then do it all over again to recieve really
interesting layers and structures.

If you look close you might also recognise a structure on the hood and cloak which is not painted. I used Vallejo Putty 401 before priming the model and
added some structure to this really old cloak. Why is it old? Roman's are used to look great and ... well, he stole it from a barbarian guard who stood
watch at the eagle's hiding place and it smells like hell.
Next, another layer of structure and texture to the cloak, now using different sized sponges to recieve different sized texture with different looks.

Make sure the colour is not to wet if you apply such or you will not recieve what you are aiming for.
Use different bright colours to also install a light situation on the part you are working on.
Looks rough I know, but feels great to do :)
A little voice in my head told me that I am loosing the cold look I am aiming for in the whole bust so I took the chance and used some masking putty on
the face before spraying thinned blue/tourquise with the airbrush. Gentle.

The aribrush work already helped to calm down my texture work everywhere. Just a little bit. More was needed. Now patience was up on the plan
again. Working with glazes. Bringing it all together once more. I used mainly different browns, from yellow browns to red browns, greens and a little
purple.
The glazes were really thin - as you can see in the upper example - and I applied many and can not remember how long it took me. Felt like ages.

Four things I prepared to be painted seperatly: The helmet's check protecotrs, the gladius handle and the rope part with whom the cheek parts are
closed. I used blue tac to prepare them on a piece of cork.
After the face recieved some more attention in working out more prominet details I painted those parts and glued them in place. But not the gladius for
now. You see I also used some blue glazes here and there in the metals to show the reflections of the cold environment. If you plan to paint an
athmosphere do not lose it. Take it to all the parts, no matter how small they might be.
While I was working on his beard with thin brush strokes to recieve hair texture there I also worked again on the leather cloak and the fabrics with some
more detailed textures.
Now it was time to close into more detail work and with that I mean careful work. So let's start with some dirt. This hero of Rome is hunted through the
deep winter forest and is going in a strong pace. So I thought it might be realistic to show some dirt on him.

Using matte varnish, soil and brown colour I mixed this paste:
And applied it. The matte varnish in the mix will keep it in place. I also switched the working plinth to the final bust plinth that I put to fire. Click photo to
enlarge.
With some help of red wine I found bravery to apply more colourful thin glazes to the face to make it look more alive. Purple, pink, reds, orange. Plinth
was painted black to have a better vision of the final result.

Right now I already enjoyed the cold athmosphere everywhere on the model.
Well, time to do a break on the figure and go for that gladius. The wood parts were painted with chocolate brown by Hobbyline. A very matte colour
range that is highly recommended when you look at the quality and the price/amount part of the bargain.

I did not paint it totally opaque as I wanted to keep some of the texture I did put before by drybrushing the piece.
Inked with Scale75 Inktense Wood.
Now more or less careful, using my fingernails to add some scrateches to the wood parts. I try to only "hurt" the upper layer of ink.
Well, I was not sure if this worked well, so I decided to go for some snow finally. I decided to apply a version of the snow you can also find explained in
the article about masterclass snow.
These materials were used: White texture paste for volumes, bicarbonate of soda for tiny flakes, crushed glass for some glitter effect and some white
powder which I forgot where it came from - I think Battlefield-Berlin - which also has a little glitter effect in it. Yeah, white powder I know what you all
think.
Well, I quickly decided to not work with the texture paste on the roman hero as I did not want to hide him in thick volumes of snow. I did a mixture of
satin varnish, bicarbonate of soda, crushed glass and the white powder stuff. Mixed all together. Why Satin Varnish? Well, I did not have any matt
varnish at hand and wanted to give this a try if it looks more like fresh snow which is still some kind of wet. You can also go with matte varnish here, but
I do not recommend using gloss varnish as this might bring you looks of a lot of wet and shiny places to your model.

Now important is to decide the direction of the snow fall. I went for about 8 o'clock from the Roman's face. Maybe a little symbolic angle: He leaves the
cold and danger behind, eh?
Think about where the snow might stay. Do not just throw it on top. This will take time but it is worth it. First careful.
When you are sure what you are doing and know about the direction of it, do it more aggressive but still careful.
Final Steps after the snow where checking back with areas I want to clean up and sharpen further. I'd say this was about 6~7 hours of brushwork still to
make everything like I wanted to see it. Increasing contrast here and there, applying more colourful glazes to make some areas more interesing. Did so
mainly on the skin and leather.
You can find more photos of the final result of "The Aquila - Hero of Rome 41 A.D." on Putty&Paint.

You can find this step by step article linked up to MV's article area, section Step by Steps.
I hope you enjoyed the article!
Keep on happy painting!
Best Wishes
Roman

11 Kommentare

Labels: Step by Step

Posted On 21 November 2014 at 10:49 AM

Comments:
There are 11 Kommentare for Step by Step: The Aquila - Hero of Rome 41 A.D.
Jack 'PsiCrow' Crowe Says...

Your passion for the subject really shines through. This is definitely one of your best. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts.

Posted on: November 21, 2014 at 11:21 AM

Ptitlap Says...

That's amazing. The face is incredible. The look is really intense!

Posted on: November 21, 2014 at 11:22 AM

Black Dagger Says...

Really great work. one of my favs from you roman, the snow adds a whole other dimension to the bust. great article keep up the good work. regards

Posted on: November 21, 2014 at 11:50 AM

Peter Aka Baphomet Says...

Thanks for the SBS my friend :) I enjoyed reading it!

Posted on: November 21, 2014 at 1:53 PM

Zab Says...

That is likely you best piece to date. Thanks for sharing.

Posted on: November 21, 2014 at 3:41 PM

Anonymous Says...

Hi! Stunning piece of work!!!

There's a question looking at your painting process. One thing i didn't really understand all the time but perhaps you can help me now.
You gave the face a first colour and cover it completely with sunny skintone from VMC.
Than you did the highlights an the shadows. Now the question - why isn't the color you covered the skin at first (the sunny skintone) seen anymore.
Isn't this first color the same as the middletone everyone speaks about? Tutorials often say something like "....do the Highlights....do the
shadows....never loose your middletone....".
If the sunny skintone is not the middletone, so why do you use it as a base?

Zu schwierig in Englisch - auch wenn es eine totale Anfngerfrage zum ganz grundstzlichen Verstndnis der Begriffe und Technik ist.
Wenn ich, nachdem Schatten und Highlights gelegt sind, nichts mehr von der ersten Schicht "sunny skintone" sehe, ist das dann noch der oft zitierte
Mittelton?
Ich dachte man mischt dann zu dem "sunny skintone" (Grundfarbe = Mittelton ??)
z.B. 3 hellere Hautfarben fr die Highlights und drei braun-/rottne fr die Schatten aber das "sunny skintone" als Mittelton bleibt immer als farblich
unvernderte Flche/Farbe auf der Figur stehen (auer natrlich an den Rndern/Punkten, wo eben die Lichter und die Schatten sitzen).
Wenn die Theorie, wie eben geschildert, richtig ist (was ich natrlich nicht wei) warum wird dann der "sunny skintone" als "Grundlage aufgetragen,
wenn Lichter, Schatten und Mittelton sich doch aus ganz anderen Farben zusammensetzen.
Ich hoffe ich konnte mit der Frage mein Problem verstndlich machen und verspreche mir von der Antwort Quantensprnge fr mein "Gepinsel".
Vielen Dank vorab!!!!! .....und Tchulligung, dass es nicht in englisch ging.

Posted on: November 21, 2014 at 3:55 PM

Massive Voodoo Says...

Thanks for your feedback, guys. Happy that you enjoyed the write up.

@Anonymous
You are right, in what you say. Why do I lose the basic tone of my skin? Well, I can not even explain to you. Maybe it is because that first stage of
painting and preparing that bust is not a common way. No way with guidelines, rules or explanation. I just felt like starting my sketch with it and while
I proceed I decided that it was too strong and changed it. There is not much left of the basic colour of sunny skintone in the end at all.

Posted on: November 22, 2014 at 12:30 PM

Anonymous Says...

Hi Roman,
thank you very much for your answer!!!
It says, that i understud the Middletone-Highlight-Shadow-Thing right.
Big step on the way of a beginner.
Changing the heading on the way is a thing that shows to me how good you are.
Eine Figur whrend der Bemalung einfach "in eine andere Richtung zu biegen" zeigt Deine hochklassigen Qualitten als Maler. I ch muss mich leider
noch an "Hilfsleinen langhangeln".
Thanks a lot for all the time and thougths you share with us!!!!

Posted on: November 22, 2014 at 12:45 PM

Anonymous Says...

GENIAL ...assolutamente geniale .. sei un grande Roman !

Giuseppe D'Alessandro from Italy

Posted on: November 23, 2014 at 1:19 PM

Migsula Says...

This is absolutely breathtaking. I realize I hardly ever comment, just feel overwhelmed by the beauty of your work, but this one is so special. Thanks
for once again educating us with your process. Always something new to try :)

Posted on: January 4, 2015 at 5:17 AM

Brandi Bradley Says...

Wow looking at the beginning stages of this miniature, I would have thought this was computer generated! Such an eye for detail. I have never looked
into painting miniatures much but after seeing this, I am very interested in learning more about the subject. I really appreciate this post! Thank you.

Brandi Bradley @ Rotax Metals