Danger in a shell

[squirmydad]

For boosting the color, it's exactly what I do, I boost the brightness by about 20, then the contrast by 10, this makes the colors pop, and the blacks are true black. These settings are just for my software, so your mileage will vary, but I usually boost contrast half as much as the brightness.

One thing you may do to give your figure you just color some dimension is to shade the far legs a lot more than normal. I shade mine really dark to give the figure a more 3D look. Since the figures are so small, you have to over exaggerate the shadows and highlights for them to be clear on the final printout. Sometimes we get fooled by working on such large images that we try to do subtle shading and highlights, but they get lost when shrunk down to and inch tall.

This is why I always recommended doing test prints, just to make sure the shading and highlights, and tonal differences show up.
JIM

[anitangel]

Thanks sis!

Magpiestear: An other eager daughter to play with turtles? The complete set is coming up. I find it easier to color these guys so it should be fairly fast I just get distracted.

Beau: It's the color wheel's job to decide what colors to use. I would have never dared to use purple with oranges. Especially because I for myself don't like the color combination. I've just tried my hand at it. Give everything a chance. I'm surprised that it didn't fail

Jabbro: You know you were the one pestering me about contrasts. I had a good teacher ;-) And I like your soft brushing! No need to wonder about the way I color, because on clothes for example your technique looks tons better. I cannot make soft brushing look decent.

Jim: Oh, I haven't read this advice from you with the darker further legs anywhere else before. Or I missed it, or forgot about it? I was used to more subtle shading too, it is hard to get yourself doing high-contrast when it is blown up. But it really pays off on paper. Thanks for the tip!

And the last turtle for today is not that daring, the color wheel wouldn't be happy with it:


Hope you all like it!


Anita

[brynbrenainn]

Wow!

Words fail me...
I love your stuff!
;D

/B

[Sirrob01]

Liking all the colours, they all look very nice ;D.

Jim thanks for the bright/contrast tips i've been going 10/10

[anitangel]

Thank you SirRob and Bryn for the comments! They are always welcome!

Here are the update (the cutest turtle in the bunch --imho):



Anita

[xtea]

Wow! I love that skeleturtle. It is really cute! :3 And I like how you color it, especially the bones. ^^

The grignak looks cool too.

[anitangel]

Thanks!

Here is a new color experiment on my part, nothing wild:


Anita

[Sirrob01]

These 3 are all very good;

I'm going to have to build a double size or triple size grignak he looks to intimidating to be small .

The colouring on the shell on the camelback looks good reminds me of mother of pearl.

[anitangel]

Sirrob: Grignek is bigger than the rest of these turtles. He is short but wide. That is a 40 mm base under it. I hope that is big enough, it would just save you from working on him. I had to look up the term "mother of pearl" how sad.
Iridescent effect wasn't in my mind when I was making it, but nevertheless it is pretty. Thank you!

[droffset]

These are looking great, they'll go well with the reptilian army I'm making.

[anitangel]

Droffset --> I'm glad they will be useful for you. Thanks!

Todays only update. It has been a weird day, nothing major got done. Just nursing our sickly cat. But I can still show up a turtle for today:



Cheers,
Anita

[djlittle]

All I can say is WOW!

These are FANtastic!!!

These will work great as 'mutant' turtles for my Gamma World and Metamorphosis Alpha games!

[xtea]

WOWz! I love them! ;D Especially the Mithritoise. Looks sooo amazing. I love his colors too.

The camelback turtle came out really nice. *nod*

[WaffleM]

Excellent turtles! Any chance of making one with a saddle, pull cart, or "beast of burden" packs?

[anitangel]

DjLittle, Xtea: Thank you for the comments!

WaffleM: if I've made riders I'd have made the skeleturtle into a pack carrying animal, but Jabbro got outvoted. If I feel up to it I'll update the set with gnomes to ride it, but that is not in the near future. When I'm getting close to finish a set, I get sick of the theme. And need to do something else to not to burn out. I don't know how Jim pushes the townies set It is really quite amazing.

Turtle for today:


He is supposed to be magenta, blue, yellow Like on the color wheel. He is a bit funky looking, but I think he will make an okay paperfigure.

Anita

[Dave]

These are so cool!

Seems to me that giant turtles would be great mounts. They may not get there fast, but you wouldn't have any saddle sores.

[Floyd]

Mithritoise for the win!

That's the coolest paint job yet!

I like what you are going for in the Pike turtle. And the beveling looks good in the shell. But I don't think it and the texturing are quite right for the skin. I think it needs tweaked. Maybe less chisel and depth... something. Again my subjective crit.

All very good.

~F

ps. off to build some Angels.

[anitangel]

Hi everyone,

Yesterday it was quite late and I've lost my senses or something. Funky turtle was bothering me, so I sat in front of it again to change how he looks. The result is here, please vote:


Dave: Turtles are pretty fast if they want to be, unfortunately you can't make them go fast if they don't want to. But even if they run they cannot gain the speed you are putting out your building sets with ;D

Floyd: I see what you mean with the skin, it looks too rough to me too. Hubby said when it is scaled down it will look smoother, and to give it more depth. I'll see it test printed, and follow the advice which suits the paper mini better (yours or jabbro's).
I am glad you like the angels enough to print them ;-) and mithritoise.

Anita

[onemonkeybeau]

Anita,

I like your second Pike Turtle much more than the first.

onemonkeybeau

[anitangel]

Beau: Then the conclusion is that "Better to finish projects when you are full of with energy." Thanks for the vote.

Next turtle in line, pretty simple colors:


Anita

[xtea]

Oh wow! The pike head turtle's erm.. I dunno its name in english so sorry I will write it in hungarian: teknője looks very awesome. xDD This sentence looks really strange. The 3D effect sooo great on it!
I wote on the second version two.

The charger looks cool too. Great! <3

[anitangel]

Xtea: shell. The 3D effect I thought was barely visible, I'm surprised someone noticed it. It is a hand made texture. Thanks for the vote.

Is somebody bothered by the green of the charger turtle. Now when I look at it at night, I am not sure I like it

The biggest work so far was the following turtle:

Insane amount of spots. I like this one, and I'm sure that my opinion about it won't change by tomorrow!
This was the last turtle, pdf-ing and test-printing follows.

Anita

[onemonkeybeau]

This is one of my favorites!

And now that you mention it... the turtle above this one does look a bit out of place color wise... hmmm...

onemonkeybeau

[brynbrenainn]

Whoa...

That Sea Turtle is awesome. It was worth all the work with the spots.
My favorite of them all - IF I really must choose one...

The Charger Turtle:
The shell looks great, I really like the texture on it. It looks grown, like the rings of a tree.
You could try mute the green a little bit, and make the red a bit deeper (purple perhaps?).
But I think you should try to keep it green in some way.

EDIT;
I like the eye on the Sea Turtle, it makes him/her look old and wise. - And sad.
This turtle got the most personality of them all, I think.

[Floyd]

Great work in these. The fixed lighting adds
a realistic quality or maybe more approprietly
the appearance of volume to these shell laden
testudines.

The color and texturing are excellent.

-f

[anitangel]

Thanks for the comments boys!
Today I've made the charger turtle RBG color. I have chaned the base color on his shell to blue. I think it looks better now, and at least CMYK have someone to race with Thanks for the nudge from Jabbro, Beau and Bryn who has found the turtle's color out of space. Just like me.

Bryn I have kept the green on the skin, and the stripes on the shell. It looks better. I've finished pdf-ing the files, and it is on test print. It is going to be a free set, so you'll see the change is for the good. I'm lazy to get a photobucket load of it to show him just yet.
I'm also surprised by the choice of your favorite

Floyd: You do great recolors yourself so thank you for the compliment. And you wouldn't believe that a photo of a cantaloupe was used for giving a texture to the steel jaw turtle and grignak. Do it yourself tricks


I've just noticed that the lighting is not that fixed on the skeletoise. Oh, well I'm not going to edit it.

Anita

[bobrunnicles]

*Another* freebie? Wow....whilst that's totally awesome, when are you going to start charging for these things, Anita? I'd pay good money for this

[werewolf8]

Sept 29, 2009 16:05:30 GMT -9 bobrunnicles said:

*Another* freebie? Wow....whilst that's totally awesome, when are you going to start charging for these things, Anita? I'd pay good money for this

Keep that on the dl man! Some of us like free stuff! ;D

[xtea]

So shell! lol xDD I am so stupid to forget this word.
And woow! That giant spotted turtle looks really awesome! I love it. Great colors and amazing coloring. Wonderful job! <3

[anitangel]

bobrunnicles: There is going to be a payset this set was only for fun though, so you guys can enjoy it for free.
werewolf: Yeah freebies are nice, but supporting an artist is nice too
Xtea: Thanks sis!

Thanks for the comments!

Anita