The “Lu Shang” Project

Building "Lu Shang"

Part 5: Painting

In this particular instance, I won’t be going into a step-by-step explanation of how I painted Lu Shang as I didn’t have the opportunity to take photos of the painting process (look for a different painting project on this site at a future date). What I will do however is briefly discuss my approach to painting this miniature in general and in the final part of this series, share some ideas on how to display a competition entry.

As a bit of background, I almost always use a white spray primer on my miniatures as I prefer a cleaner, brighter look to my colors. Also, I think it is much easier to paint black over white for those times when it is necessary to have a dark basecoat. A lot of painters use a technique called black-lining in which color is applied over a black basecoat leaving a strip of black between colors and in the deep crevices. This really makes the figures “pop” on the table but in my opinion, can look a little harsh when viewed close-up.

I typically aim for a more naturalistic style on my miniatures. Usually, my colors are shaded and separated by a mixing a darker shade of the same color or one of its component colors. I use a lot of inks but mostly as glazes and not in the traditional method of basecoat-inkwash-highlight. I rarely use black as a basecoat even for darker colors and I never, ever use it as a shading component for any color other than gray. As for highlighting, I primarily use Skull White, Bleached Bone or Space Wolf Gray to lighten the base color. Which one I use is entirely dependent on the color family of the base color. My extensive use of ink glazes restores the richness of the colors that can be lost when mixing colors with white, and it also allows me to keep my highlights crisp and my colors more pure.

The colors chosen for Lu Shang were not all chosen ahead of time, but mostly along the way. I knew for instance that I wanted his armor plates to be red but didn’t know whether it would be more burgundy, or crimson, or what the contrasting colors would be.  Sometimes the choices are obvious but other times picking the right color can be like pulling teeth. I often consult my color wheel for ideas on contrasts, color harmonies, split complementaries, or other principles of color theory.  In this instance, I decided to stick with a basic primary color scheme of blue, yellow and red, but to use variations of these colors so they wouldn’t be so obvious. The blue used on the shirt and boots is the color Deadly Nightshade from the previous generation of Citadel paints. It has a slight tinge of green to it, especially when mixed with white and I thought this would make a nice complement to the red and also look unusual enough to carry the idea of a “Cathayan” color. The furs and straps were kept neutral with brown and black but I purposely kept the browns more to the yellow side both to add the third leg of the primary color scheme and keep the colors lighter.

The inside of the cloak was one of those areas that looks so simple but can have you tearing your hair out trying to make it look “right”. First, there was the choice of color which I eventually decided would be a light yellow-green, both for contrast and again that “Cathayan”  look.  I knew that for competition purposes, large flat areas need some extra detail to get a good look from the judges, so some sort of pattern had to be applied. In keeping with the oriental theme, I originally wanted interlocking dragons or something organic like vines. This is where completely assembling your model before painting can sometimes come back to haunt you. Realizing that the proximity of the cloak to the body would not allow me to do anything too sophisticated and not wanting to risk damaging the shoulder pads by removing the cloak, I decided against the complicated dragons and instead went for the leaves and vines.

Unfortunately my freehand illustration skills were not very good on the night I attempted this and the result looked really amaturish (and not at all Chaotic!). I was really worried at this point as I was down to only a couple of days before the contest and I still had quite a bit of work to do and a whole day’s drive. Reaching waaaaay down into my bag of tricks, I decided to apply a thin coat of Easy Off oven cleaner to the offending area with an old paint brush and see how much of the paint I could remove. My intent was to strip the paint off of just the inside of the cloak and repaint the whole thing. In a stroke of luck, I was able to remove almost the entire pattern while still retaining the base color. It took about an hour to get it all off, but the result was that I didn’t have to repaint the whole thing and more importantly, didn’t have to replace the cloak altogether and risk damaging the completed shoulder pads. I then decided to try something more simplistic and went with a modified 8-pointed star. This conveyed both the oriental “pattern” element and at the same time each symbol was reminiscent of the Chaos star without actually being one.

For the position on the base, I wanted it to look like Lu Shang was moving quickly and very light on his feet. This would convey the idea of a martial arts expert, leaping from place to place and constantly in motion. As for the actual terrain, I decided to incorporate some large rocks and strange crystalline spikes similar to the ones on the base of the new Archaon model. Perched atop this base, Lu Shang would surely look like he was sweeping his way across the Chaos wastes, ready to engage his next opponent.
 

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