Lisa Dawn Wood

"The windswept plateaus of Kromar echoed in an empty silence. Zeiren stood alone, the last of his kind, once a strong and powerful lord, now reduced to watching what remained of his world turn to dust. The seasons had long been unfavorable - the winters biting and frigid, the summers dry and heavy with unforgiving heat. Many had left - seeking shelter from the climate - and many more had simply died in stubborn refusal to leave their home. That said - Zeiren loved this place - even in all her torture. This was his favorite time - the time between the setting of the third sun and the rising of the first. The whole of Kromar was shrouded in a pale light and if one looked hard enough you might even have been able to see her for what she once was - the pride of all Aradorn."

Zeiren was my first Confrontation mini - and like many other people experienced, perhaps a bit more than I was ready for but well worth the effort. I have been painting for almost 5 months and he is about my 10th mini. He was a mission to complete and then my original digital camera decided to stuff up - but that lead to my new beat of a camera. So without further ado...I present you the evolving faces of Zeiren.

Biggest Challenge: All the fiddly bits (mostly the strap buckles.) And the fact that I only own 12 paints in total - so I do a lot of hand mixing. Biggest Accomplishment: Completing him *smiles* His weapon - it evolved through three levels - metallic, bone and finally my first practice attempt at NMM.

Skin: Base - mixture of Scorched Brown, Snakebite Leather, Black, then highlighted to an Base/White mix.

Loincloth: Base - Regal Blue, Grey - highlighted with a touch of white and shadowed with a light black/blue ink wash.

Purple: I found the hard way that red and blue in GW paints don't necessarily make purple - but a bit of trial and error later - Blood Red and Regal Blue, with a bit of red/blue ink made purple. It was then highlighted with a mixture containing - you guessed it - white.

Gold: Base of Snakebite Leather, Golden Yellow and Skull white - highlighted to a lighter shade.

Red (Tomes): Blood Red, Lich Purple, Golden Yellow and white - weird combination I know but I just go by what looks right to me.

Hair & Tail: Went through several stages - as you can see in the WIP shots - I was going to do it a lighter version of his skin but in the end - inked it with Flesh Wash to darken it up.

Weapon: Trial and error - but mostly it is black and white in varying depths and thickness.

Base: I tried a few different things - but in the end - found a piece of driftwood that worked well with the barren wasteland of Kromar - so I used that - grinded his slot base off and once I was done - glued him to this base.

So why did I do it the above way - well it is just what he wanted - basically he was tired of being the bad "Adventurer Devourer" and wanted something more stately - blue/purple/red/gold - good kingly colors and so he was born...

Lisa Dawn Wood

Comments submitted on the original site:

AutumnMoon writes...

(My own mini)

Strengths: His skin - especially his face came out well - and I
like his colors.
Weaknesses: Lots - but the most significant are his weapon and
his base - but it is supposed to be a piece of barren wasteland.

Overall: Quite proud of him - I have come quite a way from my
first mini almost 5 months age....

Rachel writes...

Very attractive colour scheme, this is a strong looking mini,
nice and defined. The texture on the blade is also pretty cool,
it's got that kind of acid-pitted aged look. The blue loincloth
is a nice colour, although the highlights/shading looks a bit
abrupt. As an aside, if you mix GW's Ultramarines blue and
Warlock Purple (yep, that fuschia colour) you get a very nice
purple colour, that can be highlighted nicely with colours like
white, or blue-greys (eg ghostly grey). Much easier than the
blue+red mix, which always comes off muddy without all the
tweaking (which you've managed admirably).

Bethany writes...

You're right about the "kingly" colors. They look good on
him. And his face is great, mean eyes--cool. Great work for
your 10th mini and first Confrontation!

Zach writes...

After leaving all the reviews you did, I can't not review yours,
lol.
To me, the axe head looks cool, but more of a stone effect than
metal. Actually it looks like a good job at doing marble
textures. I like your skin tone and it all looks well-painted,
especially with just 12 paints, yikes! Overall a nice job!

Kat writes...

Hi,

considering how long you have been painting you should be really
proud of this mini! The colour scheme is really nicely done and I
like the photomontage picture at the start- very funky!
Are they yellow bits supposed to be NMM? If so, they need more
shading and highlighting as at the moment they just look like
flat yellow.
The blades are very nicely done.

Great job overall!

Regards

Kat

(Jo Dale)

David writes...

Great work for only your 10th mini. This guy was a challenge,
even for those of us with a lot of experience. Twelve colours!
This really puts your effort into perspective. It must be an
enormous challenge to paint with so few, I must have ten times
that and I can still never find that colour I'm looking for!!
Anyway back to your paint job. I'm not really sure about
combining purple and blue, but it seems to work OK on this piece.
Overall the colours hang together well. Nice sharp colour
boundaries. Your skin looks quite good, although your highlights
look a little rough in some areas. This seems to be a problem
right across the figure, especially the blue areas. With such a
big figure you need to increase the number of layers you're using
for highlights, building up the colours very gradually. This will
come with practice (I'm hoping to perfect it one day, and I've
been painting off and on for 17 years!). Your NMM on the blade
isn't quite giving me the impression of metal, as someone else
mentioned it looks more like stone, but good stone! Lastly the
hair and tail could use a post-inking highlight, just to help
define the strands a little. Although I've found a few things
that you could work on, I think this is a fine effort and that
you definately have a lot of potential if you stick at it (and
suck as much advice as you can from Minipainter!). Well done. Oh
yeah, the base actually works OK for me in this instance, as a
display piece.

Geert Horvers writes...

Inquisitor wolfen. Nicely done. Keep the number of colours on
your palette down a tad, next time, it should only make your work
stand out stronger. Look forward to seeing more of your work.
Cheers,
Geert

Jack writes...

Great background story. I like the halberd, not only technical
execution, but also the color choices. The skin tones are also
well done. Probably the best work you've done.

AutumnMoon writes...

Thank you to everyone who has commented on him so far - I am
taking all your suggestions and storing them away - I have
already put some to use on my new project - hopefully we will see
an improvement in smoothness...and color theory...
Thanks again!!

Sandi writes...

I'm pretty pleased with this mini - the skin tones come off well
and I like the blue and purple combo. That said, the head seems
to pull the eye in all different directions because of the
variety of highlighting and bands that were painted. I'm not
sure what to suggest, but it bothers me a bit. I would also have
prefered to see the hair and tail in a different color to work
well in combo with the skin tone. Some of the blendings seemed a
little rough, but I like the mini. And I'm very impressed that
you pulled this off with only 12 colors - I don't think I could
have done that. Congrats. Thanx for including photos without
your desert-scape background - it's really hard to see the mini
well with the background interference.

Dave Kelly writes...

Not sure the NMM worked out, it's got more of a stone/marble feel
to it, but that's not a bad thing as it's been well painted and I
like the effect.

Attention to detail across the whole figure is excellent.
Everything fits together nicely but offers enough of a contrast
to show off the different areas. You've definitely got an eye for
colour combinations. About the only thing I'm not sure about is
the blue on his collar ... looks a little 'messy' compared to the
rest of the figure.

10th figure? Only 12 paints available? Bloody hell, with those
sorts of limitations I wouldn't have gotten close to what you've
been able to achieve! Pat yourself on the back for a rather super
job.

Christopher Sheets writes...

A wonderful job, especially creating those colors from such a
limited selection of paints.
I just wanted to comment on the metal effect on the weapons.
Unlike others who see stone or marble effects, it struck me as
metallic right away. Not the NMM of a polished steel weapon head,
but it looks, to me, just like the myriad scratches I've seen a
thousand times on pieces of sheet metal in my dad's shop, or on
other pieces of industrial equipment. So, something like
aluminum, maybe? It gave me the impression that our friend here
had had to use that weapon for a lot more than just hacking and
slashing. Maybe levering up boulders off a crushed comrade or
something ... I really liked it. Oh, and thanks so much for the
works-in-progress photos of his painting and assemblage. Cool!
Good work. You should be very, very proud.