More Astorath the Grim

Last night I did some more work on Astorath for the painting competition at my local GW store.  I have finished all of the red areas now, so I feel like it is all downhill from here, even though there remain a lot of things to paint.  It's just a psychological thing.  Once again, I hate looking a pictures of my models because it ruins my misguided belief that they are perfect.

Looking at it here I'm pretty pleased.  I have a hard time line highlighting so I think all in all this was one of my better efforts.  I think i will try to touch up the lines on his right thigh (his right, not yours).  I mentioned taking your time last post, but another real key to painting well is paint consistency.  If you don't have the consistency right it will flow off the brush too fast or too slow or not at all and you end up with messy highlights.  The thigh pad is an example of an area where I think my paint was not thin enough.  I couldn't get a nice crisp line because I had to press too hard to get the paint to come off.  So not only is it not clean, it's also kind of faded.  I have never seen any good tutorials on thinning paint, only ambiguous comparisons (it should be the consistency of skim milk?  I don't drink skim milk, how is that helping?).  If you know of a good explanation on thinning paint and best practices for doing so, leave a comment.

Back later this week with some bits and bobs done hopefully.  I've only got 2 weeks left before the deadline.

Brandon