A Harlequin Hiss!

With so many projects in the works, it was challenging to find some time to work on this guy, but here is the progress so far... this mini is starting to sizzle! *Hissssssss*

The biggest thing that I have tried to do with this mini is choose color palettes that are complimentary, ie: Blue & Orange, Purple & Yellow, etc.  One rule of thumb you can count on almost ubiquitously when painting--Less is More!  The first mini has too many colors that the brain can't track it all, the colors I am working through are much simpler!  Sooooo... how did I get it this far?

 

After putting on some watered down black (Less is More: less paint = more detail) in areas that I want black, as well as spots that I am going to use metal on, I used a 000 brush to put in some pencil thin lines where the diamond pattern would be on the leg.

 

Can't tell you how important it is to water down your paint (Cardinal rul: Less is More!) It is sooo much easier to go back with an extra layer, or two, than to try and pick off dried paint because you globbed it on.

 

Here you can see I am filling in the diamond pattern with a light blue (I think it is Citadel's "Hoeth Blue"); I am filling it in quite watered down and am using a technique called 'glazing' to 'push' the paint into place so I can keep it in the little diamonds. (Video from http://www.youtube.com/user/ObsidianPainting)

 

I have added pink to the alternate diamonds and am just coming around the back of the leg, and the back of the arm to fill in some spots that I missed... once again, less crazy color schemes, the more defined and detailed the miniature will look.

 

Alright, a lot was done between the last photo and this one: I used some glazing to put some highlights on the mask, as well as glazing to put some darker shading in the tops of the diamond-pattern, with glazed highlights in the lower part of the diamond. 

I also put a pencil thin white highlight in the top of each diamond, and completed full shade-glazes and highlight-glazes on the sash, ribbon, loin straps, and glove.  (Videos courtesy of http://www.youtube.com/user/wantstoplaymore)

 

I think I will stop here in keeping with my mantra of "Less is More" and finish this guy up for you tomorrow.  I do have some other "how to's" I will be doing in the future (may even consider doing some youtube videos), in the meantime... I hope this was helpful.  I certainly welcome any suggestions on things you would like to see! :D