The Bouncer
While I’m it, I thought I’d showcase another great piece I’ll be bringing to MFCA … this time in the Fantasy Category. I don’t really have a name of this piece. It was given to me by my good friend Taesung Haarms, owner and operator of Alpine Miniatures.
There’s a story to it … as there often is when Taesung is involved. I believe he was at a bar at some point during the Moson show a few years back, and Miklos Bute handed him the piece and asked if he knew any painters who’d like to give it a whirl. Lucky for me, he did indeed! Miklos did an absolutely gorgeous version for the show, which I think is an original 3D render and print. I had never painted an ogre before, and wanted to play with some different skin tones, making this an absolutely perfect piece to play with. Take a look at what I came up with …
Don’t mess around!
From the moment I saw this guy, he seemed like the kind of fella you wouldn't want to mess with. What better setting than outside a nightclub, keeping an eye out for trouble makers.
Painting green flesh for the first time was a fun challenge. I began with mostly pure green base tones, but started to add in natural flesh to soften the tones and make it look more lifelike. I really like how the two colors merge around the mouth, nose and ears. I was shooting for a mixed lighting effect, so the zenithal light from above right would be the primary source, mixed in with OSL elements I would add to the background (see below). The cigar glow was another little experiment, initially applied with an airbrush and then refined with brushwork to soften the effect.
Every bouncer needs a bar door to guard, so I built him one using some mixed balsa and styrene I had laying around the shop. The main element was going to be a neon sign that I could use as an OSL element, casting blue and green lighting across our ogre’s back and shoulder. All went to plan pretty quickly, with the exception of several puncture wounds while I was attempting to manipulate the paper clips for the sign letters. Talk about bleeding for your art! Once everything was built, I primed using Mr. Surfacer 1000 and then applied initial coats using an airbrush. The sign letters were base coated white, so the airbrush and subsequent neon paint brush work would “pop”.
Finishing touches
Here’s our friend freshly mounted to his base. You’ll see that had begun the OSL process across his right shoulder before he was mounted. I then went back and applied several passes of the neon washes to build up the effect to a point I was happy with.