Black Tree Design Soviet Progress Photos

Knowing that I won't have much time today for posting to the blog, I thought I'd put together a little series of progress photos that I cooked up last night when I wrote this post.. I don't consider myself an awesome painter, but I have enjoyed learning how to paint figures. Working on a large number of figures at once the past 14 months, has allowed me to experiment and slowly improve. In many ways, not having to finish figures quickly so I could get them on the game table worked to my advantage. I was able to slow down, read painting articles, watch painting videos, deconstruct photos of minis, and experiment at my own pace. And then repaint my many mistakes! (Don't talk to me about repainting Soviet helmets and the correct color for "Russian Green"!) I'm no Golden Demon painter, but I like to think I'm better than I was I began. I guess that's all we can ask for. Ok, enough pondering. On to some photos!

I snapped this photo on 3-25-11. The basic flesh is done, though I'll do more detail work on it later, like lining the cheeks and nose with Irdian Flesh. I only use P3's skin tones because those are the only flesh tones I've learned how to use.

I took these two on 10-8-2011. At this point, I was not happy how I painted the highlights and other details on the figures.I had to keep working on my techniques, so after I snapped these photos I did some repainting on all of them. I'm still working on getting it just right.

You can see on this figure that I was experimenting with black-lining the folds on the equipment. I quickly stopped that and began outlining the equipment and folds with a darker color. On the satchels, for example, I began using Olive Drab instead of black in the folds and pocket outlines. In the end, the eclectic painting styles just add to their rag-tag, battle-hardened appearance when you see several of them in a group--this is my story and I'm sticking to it! Painting straps: Because the Reaper khaki colors I was working with are thin, I always painted a base coat of Olive Drab on the khaki straps. This made it easier to paint the khaki onto than black. I then painted the straps Reaper Khaki Shadow. Thinning the paint with each new color and trying to layer it up as well as blend when possible, I painted the strap edges and other raised areas using Reaper Terran Khaki. Finally, I picked out the raised edges and folds using very thin coats of Reaper Khaki Highlight. Lastly, I black-lined the straps using a 00 brush.

The final product, minus the naked, unfinished base.