Pieces of Eight.

Now that the Deff Koptas are under my belt, tonight sees the return to Njal Stormcaller.

I have to admit, it's quite difficult to come back to a character miniature after a little while away.  Even though I knew I was doing it, I simply couldn't help procrastinating, considering and - quite frankly - putting off starting again.

When I did eventually get around to beginning work on him, it started with a bit of repair work.  You see, where I'd carefully pinned and glued Njal's arms into place (certain that they were stuck fast), Njal seems to have had other ideas and decided to move his arms, leaving a rather unsightly gap between his upper arms and the inside of his shoulder pad.

Luckily, I managed to fix it fairly seamlessly with some very careful putty-work (or, I'll be honest, Blu-tac work) and a black undercoat.

After that, I started to paint the Psyber Raven - quite a good bit I felt, as it was completely independent of Njal, so I didn't have to begin immediately with any sort of continuity of flow or brush-work, and also because it is a fairly simple but large part of the model.  I'm hoping to finish the raven tonight and thus give myself a bit of a morale boost and kick up the backside to hopefully get the whole model done in a few days.

I started by painting the raven with a 1:1 mix of Chaos Black and Regal Blue, gradually layering it up to pure Regal Blue.  To try and give it a bit of shine to its feathers, I then did an edge highlight of Fortress Grey, toning it down afterwards with a thinned Badab Black wash.

I'm now waiting for a heavy 1:2:2 (very approximately) glaze of Regal Blue, Liche Purple and Chaos Black to dry before contemplating the beak and claws.  I'm hoping that firstly, the glaze will just give a hint of atmospheric colour to the feathers, distinguishing them from the much flatter beak and claws, and secondly, that it won't dull down the grey highlight too much or I may have to re-apply it.

I just have to tell myself, 'Don't make the highlights too bright.  Subtlety, subtlety, subtlety...'