Brisket Bust by Broken Toad: Lawnor's first ever bust (& a cheeky attempt at winning the Spring Cleaning comp)

The NMM has been a stumbling block for me.  As has ending the 4 day weekend and having to stop painting and pretend to be a functioning adult.  I’ve had no idea how to paint the large flat surface of the axe head, and I’ve not been overly happy with the gold so far.  I’ve also been doing a bit of heavy duty gardening so my hands haven’t always been reliable for high detail work  So across the week I’ve been painting something lighter as a palate cleanser, as well as watching youtube videos on NMM.  By giving my mind something else to focus on, I was hoping the back of my brain would absorb the information andcome up with answers while I wasn’t looking.

I really think my brushes are on the brink of death now. I possibly shouldn’t paint anything until I can get more, but who knows if anything will turn up if I order some? I’ve one brand new size 1 Game Envy Spear I’ve never tried. Looks a little longer and bigger than I’ve previously been comfortable with.  I’m gonna do what I can with what I’ve been using and experiment with that when detail is required.  I hope I like it.

I was also able to find a gold cylinder in my house that I could take photos of with the light source exactly where I wanted it.  This should let me see how the light should look on those things.  If I decide to go back on them I’ll use this as a guide.

As for the axe, I’m currently seeing it as 3 surfaces.

1. Theres the cylinder of the handle.  I have an idea how to do that.  Just fade from dark to light, with the light being about 1/3rd or 1/4 of the way down on the front and back.
2. Theres the blocks above the axe head.  I could paint them dark grey and just edge highlight.  Suggets they are a denser, less refined, less polished metal.  or I could repeat what I do wiht the blade up here
3. The blade.  Do you know how hard it is to google for a picture of an axe head at this angle thats not rusted, painted red, or covered in whatever that black coating is?  I’ve been watching videos, googling for photos, flicking through my guides, and staring at Avicenna’s work trying to work out how to even begin and where to put my lights.  In bed last night, around 2-3am, I decided it was simpler than I thought and I just needed to fade from white down to black, but with the black at the top and the white at the bottom, keeping the midtones dominant.  I think this is an over simplifaction and I really wasn’t sure where the light would hit the axe and how it would change at the edges.  Then I realised all that is already mapped out for me by the Zenithal preshade.  I have taken lots of pictures of the axe for reference later.

As for the paints I’ll be using, I was considering grabbing a wide selection of all my greys (I own quite a few!), but I saw Angel Giraldez’s NMM guide in Volume 2 and he only uses 4 paints.  He did it through an airbrush, which I won’t be doing, but I see no harm in taking his advise, and seeing what I can do with a brush, wet palette, and hopefully a lot of patience.

I have gone in and fixed the skin inside the white sleeves using the paint already on my wet palette.  The palette is full so I needed to do this now so I can change out the paper.

Hmmm

Wet palette

Palate cleanser

Pallet truck

There’s no wonder I can never spell that word without googling it.

And that’s NMM successfully postponed for another hour.  I am king procrastinator!  Time for the loo, a fresh coffee and a clean up of my wet pa..  *Scrolls up to check*…  palette, and then see how much more time I’ve wasted before actually picking up a brush for this.