Blog Val Muna's Humble Painting Blog

I'll kick this off with the very few Seraphon I even have painted. The first was a color scheme test done on an old model i had laying around. See the purple and black skink with a bow. I wanted a fade to black that looked natural, and i think i got it. But I was worried the black was too subtle, and it didn't carry over to the new skink models as well as i'd like.
Searching the net , I found a breed of lizards that come in some really nice colors. They are called the Agama, do look them up because they have some really wild color schemes. The one that caught my eye was the Red-headed Rock Agama, as seen below. Initially i ran a straight black and from-the-bottle orange. This had a very wild neon look too it, and it felt too "toxic" kinda like i was trying to make it look too spooky. I then desaturated the orange with a bit of ocher yellow and a light grey-tan and came out with what i call a butternut squash orange, as can be seen below. It is a bit more desaturated than the real article, but on the model i prefer it strongly. As well, the black has more than a bit of blueish-turquoise that only comes out in the highlights. Speaking of the highlights, i really don't know what I am doing with respect to the shoulders... I went for a heavy stippling to imply scales, but kept it coarse as this was still intended to be a battle-line paint job, not a one off try-hard. I think i might could push the highlights further on the body. I didn't know what color to do the shield. The black looks to lack-of-contrast to me, but if i'd gone witht he orange, that'd be too much. I couldn't settle on a third color... maybe the tanish-grey (Rakarth Flesh) i had been blending with would standout, but also feel a part? Overall it isn't amazing and there are some things i am not totally settled on, but it works for a battle-line unit. I think i need to research volumetric shading a bit more to handle the arms and shoulders better. I AM happy with the eyes, which my crappy phone camera barely does justice for. Yet it further reminds me that i need to expand my color pallet past two main color blocks...





oh and base is still WIP - i got materials coming int he mail

 

Lovely skinks! Both look really great. But I especially like the old bow skink! Nice job on this one!

 

OK, I thought about the shield color for hours. Measuring the hue of the orange and the blue-black, i get 20 and 140, AKA they are basically polar opposites of the color wheel from one another, and I can't easily build a triad. Then i decided on green, as it acts as a bit of a neutral in this instance, and will have components in the base, with the static grass. But as soon as i sat down, Crowsfoot's comment started to tickle in my mind. I initially didn't want that much light blue in this model, but... i tried it and it really fit. It sits on the same side of the color wheel as the blue highlights in the flesh, but adds a bit of light dark contrast that was really missing. I was digging through image searches for some inspiration and found, oddly, that with turtle shells, the lines in between the scales were as often much lighter than the scales than they were darker. Basically like this:


I really wanted that affect with the "scales" of the shield and after a bit, ended up with this:



once again forgive the poor photography,. Also i think i should start showing these at a more "table-top" distance rather than the intense upclose shots.

Anyway, thanks Crowsfoot, i had a feeling i should trust one as venerable as yourself, and It ended up being what I was looking for!

 

Fantastic- it looks really good!

 

Ha I like them a lot, nice

 

WOW! amazing looking skink. Nice to see that the advice in here leads to a solution

The eye's are really great, good details
Looking forward to a complete unit of skinks

Gr, Imrahil

 

Damn i want to repaint my guys now

 

Alright, managed to get another two done. Now my mighty Seraphon army is: 3 skinks.




You've seen the natural inspiration photos, but I had them in the mega photo from another use.

You might notice that I've darkened the shields. Actually I added a bit of the orange of the head to the blue of they eye and it came out this green color that feels a bit more natural than the baby-blue.


These are trending more towards the detailed painting side of things, as opposed to the get-the-horde-painted style. I'll speed up as i get used to the scheme, but i am still looking at like 4 painted max a week, and that's assuming no burnout, no hobby ADD, and all planned available free-time unlost. I was already feeling a bit burned out, but then i got the end-of-paint job rush and feel re-energized! I really don't want to lower my standards at all, though. Even for table top. The likely hood i even find someone to play with in the next year is basically zero, so i am in no rush. I've got two young kids and a third on the way and I am doing my best to groom them into table-top gaming (many a brave leftover spacemarine has sacrificed themselves as play-things for the glory of the future gaming session).

anyway, keep it steady

 

Awesome!

Gr, Imrahil

 

oh MAN! I love these! Incredible scheme, great paint job and if this is table top, I might as well drop my models down the sewer.. xD

 

I intend to make this my tt, mostly because i have no gaming prospects, and the hobby aspects are it for now. But it's not too bad really, it's mostly washes and quick layers, the damn blow pipe takes 30% of the time.

 

Absolute stunning!

 

Amazing colour scheme