Dark Knight Bust

[Citadelgrad]

Well, another started project.  I printed the beautiful Eastman Dark Knight Bust on my new resin printer.  The detail is amazing, at least to me, considering this thing was Grey goo in a bottle a month ago.  

 

 

of course, like many, i dont really paint figures, and what little figure painting i have done was 1/35 and years ago.  

 

So i primed him and considered just calling him done. 

 

 

But who doesnt like a challenge.  So I found a free human head model to practice on and printed a bunch, and taught myself to paint skin and faces.  i put on my big boy pants and practiced and watched a ton of videos and almost none of it worked.   It is a steep learning curve.  I will spare you the failed attempts.  Here's how far I got. 

 

 

but the Dark Knight is a perfect first figure, no eyes to paint and only half the face.  

 

Let's paint this guy!

 

 

[Citadelgrad]

I decided to do a black primer because, well, Batman. 

 

I also decided to try to protect the mask areas from my clumsy face work so that I have an even base to work with. 

 

I went with a dark and red heavy base, all of these are vallejo paints in the skin tone line, but this particular one is pretty red.   

 

 

I shot this with an airbrush, and tried to stay away from the teeth.  Then I went with progressively lighter highlights, starting with a dark flesh zenithal type coat, getting everything but the deep folds, shadows, and under the chin.  After the first coat, the other coats start at about 50% paint 50% vallejo airbrush thinner/flow enhancer, and as I go i make the lighter shades way thinner. I didnt make any effort to clean the airbrush until I got to the almost white lightest highlight, and all i did there was wipe out the cup with a paper towel and shoot the brush dry. 

 

 

Here's a natural light check. For me, and i have no idea what i am doing, once I get close to what I want, I go 80 to 90% thinner, and it takes many coats to make a visible difference. This seems to work for me. I will also just stop and clean the airbrush and walk away for hours to a day and then come back and look at it under different lights. 

 

Everything so far is airbrushed. 

 

When I am pretty comfortable with what it looks like, I sealed it with rattle can satin clear to seal and protect my progress. 

 

Time for brushwork.  I bought a nice set of nylon detail brushes from Amazon and 3 nice Sable detail brushes for this, although I haven't used the Sables yet. 

 

First I did the lips, taking it from a red leaning skin tone to that skin tone plus red to only red as I approached the gums.  I also hit the scars with some diluted red, like 10:1.  Thin the paint properly and it goes on like silk. I use distilled water because our water is so mineral heavy that it often frosts when it dries. If you thin vallejo, it often takes several coats but you'll never see a brush mark on your work. Plus you can ALWAYS just paint a different color or touch up, it never looks thick. You just won't see paint buildup. 

 

 

Now let's do something about those teeth. The goal here was to try to use very thin off white so that the black darkens them, and i hoped the black would show in the spaces between the teeth like a reverse highlight/shadow. But of course, thin paint runs to those areas and it looked bad, as the brightest white areas was the crevices where the paint collected, exactly where the teeth should look dark. 

 

 

So that looks terrible.  And while a dark wash would darken the crevices, that off white is so weak I was afraid it would turn the teeth too dark. 

 

No worry.  I mixed up a chocolate brown wash, about 15:1, and used a very fine brush to only touch the areas between the teeth. Very slow going, because the brush held so little wash, but as of quitting time tonight I am pretty happy with the results.  Please be gentle, I am going for "that doesnt look like a child painted it with craft paints and a 1 inch brush". 

 

He's not done but I think his face is close. 

 

 

Edited April 25 by Citadelgrad

[Citadelgrad]

I'm not sure what the photo limit is, and i am posting from my phone, so pardon the multiple posts. 

 

Teeth again:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the ever unforgiving and terrifying macro:

 

 

Thanks for looking.  Any constructive feedback is appreciated.  This is literally the only large scale figure I have painted other than those Mr Clean practice heads. 

 

More later!  

 

Bill

[Kagemusha]

Nice work, there's no photo limit anymore. 

[KiwiZac]

Love the book, loving the model - that flesh is coming out amazingly! I have to take notes.

[Citadelgrad]

49 minutes ago, KiwiZac said:

Love the book, loving the model - that flesh is coming out amazingly! I have to take notes.

Thank you SO much, Zac.  I think I sort of stumbled on what works, and I documented it, down to writing which color and what order on the labels so I can do it again.  I wrote a long post so I can look back when I need it.  

 

Our daughter studied abroad in NZ, South Island, University of Otago, she LOVES your beautiful homeland!

 

Take care and feel free to ask for anything needing clarification.  

[Citadelgrad]

So this appears to be the part of painting where "pros" block in the hair to see how the flesh tones work with that nearby different color.

 

Not knowing if this is a good idea, I ripped off the careful making job and snapped some photos.

 

I have got to say, although cannonically, this guy needs the dark blue mask and cape, I REALLY love the look in black:

 

 

 

 

ANY and all pointers are appreciated at this point.  I am pretty comfortable with the clothing painting, but I have to say he looks great in black. 

 

Thanks for looking and all the support.

 

Bill

[LSP_Ray]

Looks great to me!

I also like the look in black, but I think I would paint the bead or whatever you call the edging around the bat symbol on his chest a dark maroon. Just to break up the black a bit.

[Javlin1]

Not a deal breaker that upper notch(L/S) in the mask to the next lower notch I mask the face and touch up with a black marker maybe every thing looks really good just looks like it got missed on the masking first go round.

[Citadelgrad]

15 minutes ago, Javlin1 said:

Not a deal breaker that upper notch(L/S) in the mask to the next lower notch I mask the face and touch up with a black marker maybe every thing looks really good just looks like it got missed on the masking first go round.

Oh, yeah, there's a ton of touch up all along the mask/skin junction, plus I need to add some shadow to the areas.  This is very much a work in progress.  I just wanted to see the skin next to the dark mask. 

[Javlin1]

19 hours ago, Citadelgrad said:

Oh, yeah, there's a ton of touch up all along the mask/skin junction, plus I need to add some shadow to the areas.  This is very much a work in progress.  I just wanted to see the skin next to the dark mask. 

When were you at the Citadel? My nephew Chris Lemonis graduated back in the late 80's early 90's he played ball for them then coached for a few years,

[Citadelgrad]

3 minutes ago, Javlin1 said:

When were you at the Citadel? My nephew Chris Lemonis graduated back in the late 80's early 90's he played ball for them then coached for a few years,

Hi.  I graduated in 1987.  It was such an amazing time at an amazing place.  Made me the man I am.  I don't recognize the name, but I am willing to bet Mr. Lemonis is an upstanding citizen.  

[Javlin1]

4 hours ago, Citadelgrad said:

Hi.  I graduated in 1987.  It was such an amazing time at an amazing place.  Made me the man I am.  I don't recognize the name, but I am willing to bet Mr. Lemonis is an upstanding citizen.  

He's a good Guy HC for for the Hoosiers baseball took them to CWS 3/4 years  never went all the way but they did well .He was at MS State for some years won the CWS I think 2021.He went to the Citadel on a baseball Scholarship had a few offers but chose Citadel for the formal training/discipline he would receive,

[Citadelgrad]

I think I am liking the black mask and cape too much to cover it with blue.  

 

I am trying out vallejo luftwaffe uniform.  It looked like charcoal in the bottle, but, yeah, of course it has blue in it. 

 

I did put some color on the tunic, but it seems to have a lot of blue in it, what do you think?

Edited May 17 by Citadelgrad

[LSP_Ray]

Maybe a little darker blue? Honestly, it does look good just as it is.