Harlequin Bliss!

Well, I couldn't let this little guy sit there anymore today, even though I am swamped with work!  He is in bliss now that he has his armor virtually finished! (...will get to that momentarily!)

In my last post, I ended with this Harlequin's armor unfinished, so... keeping in mind color schemes again, I wanted something dark under the tough carapace armor on top; I thought since blue is already being used (as well as yellow) I would go with a variation of it here by using dark blue and gold!  In this pick, I had decided to pull his assassin's needle holster on his leg up with his chest by putting down dark blue on both and highlighting using the glazing technique again.  Getting ready to prep for the gold, and remembering that it is a 'transparent' color, I needed to put down a base coat and thought the citadel "Zandari Dust" would do nicely!

 

Here is the miniature with the base coat of Zandari Dust... now I need to glaze in some depth!

 

There are two things here that you want to keep in mind, first off... if I really want some nice contrast I want "Snow in the mountains, and shadows in the valleys."  In other words, lighten up the ridges, and darken up the recesses on the model.  Next, new painters will default to black to add depth in the recesses, not realizing that adding a dark blue, dark red (or both) will give me a better result because it will pull the other colors from the model in! *wink*

The dark blue I added wasn't quite deep enough, so I am going to mix in an 'ink' wash to add just a little more depth... this "Nuln Shade" should work well!

 

Now that the shades are darker (shadows in the valleys), I am going to go back and lighten up the ridges with a lightened Zandark Dust (snow in the mountains), so that my base layer will reflect properly with my metallic paints.

 

I went ahead and did a wash of dark bronze (Citadel "Baltashar Gold") in the recesses, and now I am going to go in and 'stiple' (very delicately 'push' the gold in the right places with the tip) some bright Citadel "Auric Armor Gold" to really make the gold start to stand out...

 

A lot of painters ask "How do I get that magnificent Gold shine on my mini?"  While this particular gold is very bright, if you don't lay down a proper base, the gold won't show well.  Additionally, once the base is down, and the gold has been put on, you will want to go back and 'dry-brush' some silver on the natural high-lights of the places where the light hits the armor.  Finally, a couple of 'pin dot' points of white will finish it off nicely giving it that shiny gold look!

 

Here is a "before and after" to date.  Tomorrow I am going to go in and do some 'jeweling' and our harlequin will almost be finished... have a great evening!