Ares Draconia series Queen Cristal in 75mm or 1/22

[MarkVerploeg]

Hi guys
So while am at it i may just aswell place the second figure that i will be working on here
It will be a bit different from the Lilith figure but it still belongs in the fantasy genre
Basicly i only have figures that belong there
Except for the ones that i used on diorama's and the ones i have for my armor builds
But i want to get into figures aswell
Just to break up things and add more variaty to my modelling
At this point i only painted 1/35 scale military figures and a couple of 120mm or 1/16 military figures
This kind of figure painting is new for me
But i do know a few figure painters that can help and i got me 2 books as reference aswell

But before i wander off
Here is the main character of this thread

This is the Queen Cristal figure
I picked it because i like the pose but also that she is fairly well covered
I found a lot of figures that show more skin then anything else
That is not what i want to paint ,i think that a figure still can show some class and style ,for me it shouldn't be about a almost naked figure


The box content
There isn't much in terms of parts
The base will most likely be replaced by something home made
The small tabs under her feet where cut off and i will either make some small holes for a metal wire or i will glue it on to something to make painting a bit easier



There is a lot of engraved detail in her clothing
I am not sure what kind of material it should be but judging from the boxart i would say it could be leather
Wich makes sense as you can engrave leather


The left arm with the somewhat bulky dagger or knife





The clean up was minimal
I only found a few tiny seamlines and with a single scratch of my modelling blade they where gone
I then assembled the figure ,yes all 3 parts of it
Just for the photo's i used some white tack ans stuck her on my tub of brush soap

As far as i know i have everything i need to paint this figure
Allthough i do need somethingh to place it on during the painting
But i will figure out how i will do that
I have some bottles of Vallejo primer that i don't use so maybe those will serve as paint stands
But this is all i have for now
I hope to get started soon and hopefully i can prime this figure and the other one tomorrow
Thanks for stopping by and having a look
Untill next time
Cheers

[MarkVerploeg]

Hi guys
So time for a little update
Today i started to paint this figure and i think i made some good progres
I painted the eyes and most of the skintones
I only need to paint the last highlights
For this figure i used the Andrea paintset with skincolors
They are really nice paints with a lot of pigments so you can dilute them much more then most other paints

But this is the progres so far

I painted the eyes with vallejo ivory and then i used prussian blue to paint the iris
Once that was dry i the dark base tone for the skin


Then the shadows where applied
The ones on her belly will dissapear for the most part so maybe i need to get some inks to get the line in between the muscles back


Then the light base was applied and as you can see those shadow lines are gone
But i haven't got "the touch" with the paints yet


And then the first highlights where applied
At this point i allready think it is going pretty good but i'm not there yet
But i am still new to figures so i'm not too worried about that

And that is all for now
Once i made some more progres i will be back with more
Thanks for stopping by and untill next time
Cheers Mark

[Lysus]

Great work with the eyes. That flesh looks perfect so far. Seems harder to get right than metal armor or airframes

[trekfanj]

Great work, Mark; she's a beautiful looking figure.

I agree with you on female fantasy figures, or really just female figures in general; it seems that sculptors have this mindset of "more skin=better." And while the argument could be made that it's artistic nudity, i still wouldn't be comfortable with that much exposed skin.

I don't care if this sounds prudish; it's just what i think. Besides, what good is armor if it reveals more than it covers up?

Alright, climbing down off my soapbox...

[MarkVerploeg]

Great work with the eyes. That flesh looks perfect so far. Seems harder to get right than metal armor or airframes

Thank you very much
I didn't post that picture yet but the last highlight was sprayed on
It makes it all look a bit smoother then my brush work
And i agree with you , skin is much harder to paint then armor or a planes skin
But i think that counts for everything natural versus man made

Great work, Mark; she's a beautiful looking figure.

I agree with you on female fantasy figures, or really just female figures in general; it seems that sculptors have this mindset of "more skin=better." And while the argument could be made that it's artistic nudity, i still wouldn't be comfortable with that much exposed skin.

I don't care if this sounds prudish; it's just what i think. Besides, what good is armor if it reveals more than it covers up?

Alright, climbing down off my soapbox...

With a lot of figures i can hardly call it artistic
There is a difference when you look at the old school pin up figures but with most female figures i find them to be showing too much
This figure actually has some parts exposed that would be usefull to cover like the belly but then again it does show the lines of the figure
And she is showing everything
But some figures are just over the top in that department

[MarkVerploeg]

Hi guys
I think it is time for a little update
I managed to get some work done on Cristal today and with the excwption of the metallic colors she is now completely base painted
I will have to order some paints for the metal colors as i don't have any decent brush painting metallics at the moment

But here is what i have so far

The armor was painted in a mahogany brown and then i painted all the raised parts with red leather
This makes the lines and details in the armor a bit easier to see but still not up to the point that i want
So i will probably use a brown wash to make the effect even more visible and some brown oilpaints to get a pollished leather look in the end
The hair was painted grey as is on the box but i still need to add various shades and highlights to make it look more intresting


I also painted some leather straps black and i painted the cape with panzer aces dark mud
This is a nice base color for a canvas colored piece of cloth


On the upper part of the cape there is some sort of fur
I decided to start with a black base and i will try to make a sort of dark wolf fur from it
The handle of her weapon was painted with leather brown
But i can't paint the rest of it at the moment so that will have to wait for now


The back looks a bit boring at the moment
But once there are some more shades on there it should be okay

And already is all i have for now
I hope that the paints will arrive soon but last time i ordered at that shop it only took 1 workday so i will have them soon enough
And there still are enough things to work on untill then

Thanks for stopping by and having a look
Untill next time
Cheers
Mark

[MarkVerploeg]

Hi guys
I have been away from this build for a while but today i finished it
It's not the case of not working on it but i thought i had a bit too little for a update
And i forgot to take a bunch of in progres pictures aswell

But anyway last time i had most base colors on it so let'sstart from there

After the grey base color for the hair i used black and some grey tones to add more colors
As a last high light i even used some white but on grey that is a very strong color so i had to be carefull with the white


I then started to work on the metal colors
I used chrome silver and brass from the mr metal color range
I picked brass because it was the only gold like color i have
But it looks good enough for me


The metals on the belt and blade


At first i thought the red leather fron Vallejo would look okay
But the box art has a much more red color
So at the LHS i picked up some red paints the other day
Not only for this one but with some future builds in mind aswell
One of those reds is the black red wich is a very nice color actually
I thinned it down and after several layers i got this result
I think it looks better then the still brown looking color it had before


By mixing some black to the black red i made a wash and apllied that in the recessed details


Then it was the capes turn to be painted
I started with a shadow color ,i picked german camo black brown for this
Then with medium brown and English uniform i added some tonal variation
But the camera doesn't really pick it up a


At the last moment i decided the hair could use some.more depth
So i made a wash by thinning black with a lot of water
I go for a ink like thickness when i do this
When you drag the brush over a piece of paper it doesn't even cover it any more
And any spills can be corrected with water
If you react fast enough ,it does dry very fast


And i used more black red on the armor
It wasn't red enough for my liking
But because i thin the paint so much it starts to work like a filter so you can change it if you want
I also added some of the black wash on the recessed detail to make it stand out more


I also gave the skin a coat of the patina paint
I did make a mistake in the name of the color
I thought it was called candy aplle but it is apple butter brown
I do need to buy a new bottle though
And i used some future on the armor to make it look shiny


And some future was used on her hair
I didn't use it on the fur collar because the 2 would look too much like they are the same
Even though i used different shades of grey paint on them


And then she was finished
I will keep the full set of reveal shots for the figure gallery so this is just a sneak peak of the end result

And that concludes this build and this update
I hope you like it and maybe it helps to convince others to give figures a try
It really is fun to do and it is a nice change from the subjects most of us do all the time
So just give it a go

But as always
Thanks for stopping by and having a look
Untill next time
Cheers
Mark