A Study in Brown

Have been without a painting desk for over a week now, having decided it was much to awkward to move around given an impending house move. I'll be writing a proper commemorative blog later.

Anyway, no post for a fortnight, time to rectify with better images of my recent ogres. Very challenging to paint in brown. Has been a good exercise in making each brown different and distinctive, yet look like they belong together and of similar colour temperature. Photos were taken in natural light (overcast conditions outside).

Ogre Mercenary (*must get that shield sorted out!):

 

Tons of nice fiddly detail on this one, this and the other ogres in the set retains Jes Goodwin's style first shown in his work for Asgard. With the next group of ogres, it looks like less time was spent on finer detail, and the ogres have a more generic character.

 

I already posted a shot of this Gladiator before but here we have a better view; and the same with the Warlord, looking much better in natural light. 

 AD&D Ogre:

I had quite a lot of fun doing this. Layer upon layer of various browns. In close up, there are all sorts of wonderful effects going on. Very painterly. I think Mr Blanche himself would approve.

~J~

Project Ogre

Bypassing the McDeath promise for now, here are a bunch of classic, old school oggers for your visual enjoyment, and might even induce a giddy feeling of nostalgia if you are of a certain age.

So, halfway through my recent Project directive of 16 ogres now, though the photo above shows nine (it being a refugee from the AD&D line.) The left-hand 5 are all paint jobs from the early 90's, the rest all recent (2nd & 3rd from right only varnished last night). Will follow up on these two soon when I've edited the images.

And these are the rest, to be worked on who knows when, but I used up some black paint on the Chaos Ogre so I guess he will be next. I actually painted an example of that model soooo long ago it gives me temporal vertigo. Sold it for a fiver at a shop in Orpington. I wonder where it is now, along with 50-odd other painted minis...

~J~

Still here...

I had planned to do a new year entry on New Years Day. All good plans go awry. The activity graph says some folk are either dropping by to check or accidental views that Blogger lets surfers do if they are a-wandering through blogs.

So, for the benefit of readers who are actively checking on my blog - looks like there are about 4 of you :) - I will be doing a couple of entries. I'm merely pecking at the lead pile, a few minutes here and there, but I did recently finish off a classic Goodwin, namely his Gladiator Ogre, which I am quite pleased with.

I could spend a good hour picking away at the small details, some dirt and blood would be good for sure, but I'll deal with that when I base him.

Next time I will start to show off some highlights from my old 80's & 90's stuff.

~J~

11 Years in the painting...

Not quite finished, but enough to present as finished. Shield will have some text - Runic text - of a phrase I not yet settled on. Bit of old and fresh blood on the axe maybe. I say it took 11 years (minimum) to finish this, it could well be closer to 15  : /

It has been interesting reading a recent Steve Buddle blog post about earthy and gritty painting styles. I followed the old 'Eavy Metal pattern from the 80's into the 90's. But during the brief period I painted in 2000/2001, I was trying out a more realistic approach. I didn't have to do an awful lot to this ogre (over the last week) except paint over the (awful) blue hair of the helmet, some judicious washing of reddish & dark browns and blacks, touching up here and there, some highlighting, some repair. The palette was nearly all buffs, greys, ochres, browns and blacks (i.e. black with a touch of the afore mentioned colours added). May as well add a photo of the 'inbetween' state [image deleted].