Nihang Warrior

[PaulinKendal]

At the moment, after a quick and dirty blocking in of the main skintones he's looking fairly dark.

 

[PaulinKendal]

I see a huge variety of people at work - thousands and thousands a week, from all ethnicities. I'm surprised by how often I see people with truly amazingly arresting eyes. That famous photo of the afghan girl with piercing green eyes is a much more commonplace occurrence than you might imagine - and of course, in the UK, with lots of ethnic mixing, these striking variations become more common all the time.

 

[PaulinKendal]

Face done, more or less, beard done, more or less, and main colours blocked in, looking truly horrible. The white areas will be shades of cream, yellow and orange, so they needed a pale undercoat for any chance of success. I thought it was worthwhile showing how nasty things can get in intermediate stages.

 

[PaulinKendal]

Again, some very rough tonal graduation on his shawl. Doesn't hurt to illustrate how shabby things can look as one progresses - getting to this stage can generate despair, until you've been there a few times and know it'll get better as you persevere.

 

[PaulinKendal]

Blimey. Painting his turban is a real marathon. The orange (VMC Light Orange) is extremely translucent and, infuriatingly, I only sorted out a sensible way to use it, after much experimentation, towards the very end of painting with it! And no, I'm not going to go back over the earlier work to redo it, neither!

Still got the silver beads to paint (had a go with some to ensure the prep work was effective - handling has dulled them). They'll be silver paint, highlighted with Molotow Liquid Chrome - another marathon task.

(The holes and splotchy bits are where decorations will be mounted on his turban).

 

[Tim Marlow]

He’s looking very good Paul. Yellow (and orange) is a horrible colour to paint though. If I need it, I’ve taken to setting up the colour gradient using Vallejos, and then tinting using Daler Rowney FW inks to get the colour intensity. Most of the time I avoid it though

 

[Ian M]

A very interesting chap you have got hold of there Paul. More so him being a real person and not a fantasy figure.
He is coming along very well.

 

[PaulinKendal]

Lots of good-weather-induced pauses in work on this (I'm not complaining!), but he's coming on.

 

[Airborne01]

I see a huge variety of people at work - thousands and thousands a week, from all ethnicities. I'm surprised by how often I see people with truly amazingly arresting eyes. That famous photo of the afghan girl with piercing green eyes is a much more commonplace occurrence than you might imagine - and of course, in the UK, with lots of ethnic mixing, these striking variations become more common all the time.

That 'Afghan Girl' is surely one of Steve McCurry's most beautiful and iconic photographs - she has a thousand years of history behind those wistful eyes.
Steve

 

[JR]

Just used some Molotow Liquid Chrome Paul, really impressive stuff, as is this build. Great to see the head covering slowly changing with subsequent applications of colour .

 

[Tim Marlow]

You are getting a bit good at this Paul. Superb job!

 

[PaulinKendal]

Thanks chaps.
John, I've got two Molotow Liquid Chrome pens - 1mm and 2mm. The bigger one gives much better results, for some reason. Each bead was painted silver, then touched with the 2mm Molotow to make them shine. A few need touching up, but I'm very pleased with the result.
By contrast, the bangles are very boring. Dunno what to do about them.
And all the furniture on his turban, and the pommel of his sword, are supposed to be high shine, so I'm wondering about dismantling one of the pens, so I can apply the chrome with a brush.
Thanks Tim, I'm very pleased with how this is going.

 

[PaulinKendal]

His shield is vexing me. I freehanded a pattern and then tried hiding the many imperfections with lots of dirty glazes. Not happy with it (it's blu-tacked on here). I might start again and just go for a weathered leather look.

The steel ring at the top of his turban is finished with Molotow Liquid Chrome - really pleased with it.

 

[Mickc1440]

This just keeps getting better and better Paul

 

[rtfoe]

Very striking and the intricate sculpting helps with the shadows and highlights. Nothing is worse than a flat surface to paint in figures.

Cheers,
Richard

 

[adt70hk]

WOW!!!

 

[PaulinKendal]

The green marble and aged gold plinth is a very grand base for what is, after all, an irregular, a guerilla fighter.

So I tried to downplay it by using bright bronze and plentiful brown and black washes.

I've just painted in a blackened, worn joint at each corner, so it looks more like tired, gilded wood, rather than solid metal.


And the edges of the main block were too bright after marbling, so I very roughly painted them the darkest green, with the intention of blending it in later. But I like way way it suggests the whole thing might be made of painted wood, not marble and metal.

 

[Airborne01]

The green marble and aged gold plinth is a very grand base for what is, after all, an irregular, a guerilla fighter.

So I tried to downplay it by using bright bronze and plentiful brown and black washes.

I've just painted in a blackened, worn joint at each corner, so it looks more like tired, gilded wood, rather than solid metal.

View attachment 461899
And the edges of the main block were too bright after marbling, so I very roughly painted them the darkest green, with the intention of blending it in later. But I like way way it suggests the whole thing might be made of painted wood, not marble and metal.
View attachment 461900

Superb work Paul!
Steve

 

[scottie3158]

Paul,
very nice indeed.

 

[Steve Brodie]

WOW !