Cloud WIP New Progress

Howdy folks!

Did some fun progress on Cloud from Final Fantasy 7 and wanted to give an update.

I didn't snap any photos before this step, but essentially I did the excruciating work on the sword.

I started with blacklining all the shading of the sword, which takes a good wet palette, a teeny pointed brush, and some infinite patience. Making sure your brush point is, well, on point, and having thin black paint is critical. Holding your breath before you draw the line and exhaling once you start also helps, and a big factor is confidence in your brush stroke. Committing to the line without stopping makes things so much easier for you in the long run, as picking up halfway is really tough when making the black line consistent in line weight. Also being ready with a wet brush with only water helps erase mistakes before they dry, but that's a last resort for only big mistakes as the result is unpredictable. Also keep in mind that your highlights can fix the majority of your mistakes in blacklining will help prevent unnecessary modifications that you can't undo.

For the tiny little squares in the blade I used a wash to line instead of paint, it gives you more leeway in application and you can always add more to darken the line, but with paint you're giving yourself more chances to screw up in such a small space.

I then had mixes of my greys and whites for the edge highlights, which is what makes the finished product look awesome. Until this step you won't see the fruits of your labor, but once you get done with this you really see your NMM silver come together. Without this step it just looks bland and unintentional. Here you have to keep in mind how the light will reflect off the edges, and to not just have a single solid white highlight on the entire thing, it has to play with the colors beneath and only be a step above where it's reflecting. Because the blade edge is on a different plane then the flat of the blade I stepped up the white so it looks like it's reflecting harder than the flat space. I also kept in mind that the hilt of the blade needed to appear as a different material so I kept the color closer to neutral gray than the blade to give the impression of a block of sturdy metal rather than steel.

Lastly I carefully placed a very very very light glaze of turquoise in select areas of the blade to give the impression of steel reflecting sky. This makes the grey stand out much more and gives more of an impression of reflection than just using greys and whites.

Here is where I completed the hair, eyes, and a very small touchup of the face. The hair was based earlier with VGC Heavy Brown. I lined the shadows with GW Agrax Earthshade to give it definition. I then highlighted with a 50/50 VGC Heavy Brown and VGC Heavy Gold Brown. The trick to painting hair is to treat it just like NMM, where your reflections are coming from the bends of the hair and concentrating more on the middle portions of the shape rather than the traditional top-down edge highlighting technique most are familiar with. Once that was done a tighter highlight of just VGC Heavy Gold Brown followed by another highlight of adding white to the mix finished the hair.

The eyes, as almost all my eyes, are a happy accident. Every time it's a gamble and likely takes multiple attempts until I feel satisfied enough to leave them alone, especially when a model like this has a tiny eyeball. My normal technique was applied here. Earlier I did a small wash in the sockets to guide me and give more contrast to the eyes. I then painted the entire eye black, and finally come in with two small dots in the corners. This is a much better technique than painting the eye white then going in for the pupil in my opinion, as it is very tough to get the bottom of the pupil to meet the bottom eyelid, and if you don't you'll either get crazy eyes or the model is always looking up/down. It's also much harder to get the pupils to look in the same direction that way. With two dots in the corners you get a more pronounced pupil that stands out on the table better and is more likely to be the same size and look in the same direction. Granted, when I zoom in on the eyes, like, super zoom, the left eye is absolutely perfect and the right is just straight wonky, so take the advice with a grain of salt. Like I said early, it's a gamble, and I usually just leave it alone if it works well enough.

Here I started repainting the base. Although the previous base looks okay in photos, it's under a harsh light. When in normal lighting it's just too dark and he doesn't contrast well. I decided to go lighter and stuck with grey. Even though this whole model is almost entirely black, grey or white, I figured it would look different enough, especially with some washes and grass.

And here he is as he stands today. I ended up redoing the base twice essentially. I drybrushed some grey and white to bring up the brightness after washing the base with Secret Weapon Soft Body Black wash, but it was looking super bland and remedial. So I then added GW Agrax Earthshade and GW Nuln Oil to various areas to increase the contrast. I think I'll go back in with more drybrushing of grey/white to pick up more detail now that the contrast will show better.

All I'll have left after that is to paint his clothing and add some details to the base and he'll be ready to continue not getting over Aeris and moping around with existential quandaries and whatnot.