Friday 19 June 2009

Alpine Miniatures - Grenadier, 558. Volksgrenadier-Division, East Prussia 1945


Whilst taking a short break from the workbench to ease my concentration and relax my painting hand, here is an early kick start to the weekend with some images of the painting done so far.


Whilst taking a short break from the work bench to ease my concentration and relax my painting hand, here is an early kick start to the weekend with some pictures of the painting done so far.

Right from the onset, I decided on a palette of cool colors to depict the cold atmosphere of the scene. I also made a point to avoid using straight black for the rendering of the shadows; choosing in lieu a dark blue mixed from flat black and Prussian Blue for a softer and more natural result. For the more perceptive, you will notice some subtle hints and nuances of violets, blue and pink painted within certain areas of shadows and highlights. Unsual as it might sound, a couple of colors from the Vallejo range of fantasy paints such as Squid Pink & Warlord Purple served this purpose. These colors were not used straight from the bottle but rather incorporated to cool the temperature and cut the saturation of the local colors which are predormantly warm. Consequently, this application of complementary colors lends greater dimension to the visual texture of the figure when compared to monocromatic and analogus schemes.

Currently there are still many painting concepts that I'm trying to attain with this piece but due to the lack of time due to an impending deadline, I must conclude my report for now. Hopefully if time permits, I do hope to furnish more updates and share more color notes to this painting project later this weekend.

And before I forget, here's wishing all fathers a Happy Fathers' Day!

Calvin



10 comments:

Radek Pituch said...

Calvin
The paintjob looks just beautiful. Love the colors. I was anxious to see how you paint this figure and now I'm in awe. Taesung did a terrific sculpt too.
Congrats to both of you

Radek

Jim Johnston said...

I never cease to be amazed at the quality of your work or the speed with which you achieve your results. I anxiously await seeing you're continued work on this gem.

Andreas said...

glbs O.O WOW


speechless


Andreas

marinos1985 said...

Hi calvin beautiful painting job i doing a simular project but with Fallschirmjager Figures can tell me what clours use for Splinter Camouflage and how liting and shading....???

Marcin Skrzypek Miniatures said...

Hi Calvin
Congrats to you and Taesung. The figure looks very cool. Looking forward to seeing more progress pictures.
Marcin

Markus Lack said...

Hey Calvin,
this is another piece of art.
Thanks to the internet, I´ve seen a lot of beautiful work from modellers around the world, but your stuff is just pure art, nothing less.
I love the new way of painting you are using now (not that I didn´t love the way you used before) and it is really inspirational.
For me, you are the worlds best painter, period.

Have a nice weekend
Markus

P.S. Any chance to see you and your figures in Germany some time?

Unknown said...

Calvin, hey brother, really like what you're doing with experimenting with tones. I've been doing the same thing with some guidance from my buddy Anders Heintz.....its fun to tweak your style and find better ways to better results...can't wait to see this done. And on a personal note, thanks for being such an inspiration over the years. Take care brother.

cleopatra said...

Hello Calvin...

I´m a big fan of your work, simply amazing and it´s for you the reason to begin to paint big figures (120mm) and IIWW subjets.

Could you tell me the colour mixes of the splinter camouflage you did with the fallschirmjager bust, and volksgrenadier?, both are atonishing!!! I´m trying to paint a fallschirmjager in Montecassino, and it wold be a great help to get more on less the tones you painted... Thanks a lot for your art, greetings from spain

cleopatra said...

Ups...Cleopatra it´s the name of my kitten, my name is Javier. Sorry....

CALVIN TAN said...

Thank you all for the encouraging support. I'm now in the midst of trying to finish up the second head as well as some parts of the groundwork.
Unfortunately due to a lack of time on my part, I can only try to furnish a rough guide to the colors of the splinter camouflage; the base consisted of a mix of Vallejo Sick Blue and Khaki, Brown patterns a mix of Flat Brown, Prussian Blue and Flat Black, the Green Patterns are a mix of Medium Olive, Prussian Blue, Squid Pink and Gory Red. And these are just the base colors and not to mention the other colors used for shading and highlighting.
I know it sounds complex, but there is a reason for this madness when I blog again.