Duel of the Fates

Before I start a note on paints.  All of the paints used are from the Citadel  Range unless I specifically mention otherwise.  You will also have to excuse the bad camera work.  It’s getting better but trying to focus on such a small area as the face was a bit of a challenge for my camera.

After I blocked in all the colours, I decided I would focus on each area in isolation and proceeded with the face.  This presents a real challenge because of the tattoos, which I knew in advance I was not skilled enough to recreate faithfully so would have to create an impression of the tattoos.

So I first washed the black areas with a mixture of Nuln Oil and Drakenhof nightshade to create the a slight blue sheen.  The red I mixed a wash using Blood Angels Red and Flesh Tearers Ref contrast paints, thinned down with Lahmian medium.

Then I took the original base colours to start the highlights.  For the tattoos, Corvus Black, and added small amounts of Fenrisian Grey to lighten it and build up layers of hightlights, especially on the jawline and ears.

For the skin, Mephiston Red which was then highlighted up using Evil Suns Scarlet, Wild Rider Red, Fire Dragon Bright and then the latter mixed with a little yellow (can’t remember which one lol).

Finally I painted the eyes.  Rather than using the standard format of black and white, I wanted a more yellow look so I used Ushabti Bone as the base, which I then put a very thin glaze of red over.  For the iris I painted a dab of Evil Sunz Scarlet red into the middle onto which I then used Flash Gitz yellow to paint an even smaller dab.  To do this you really need to thin the paint.  To finish off I used the smallest brush I could get my hands on, a Windsor and Newton Series 7 miniature size 000 and I put a tiny prick of black in the middle.  Normally when you paint eyes you would not paint the iris and generally you want to try and make sure there is no white showing around the top and bottom of the pupil as doing so tends to create the impression of a manic stare.  However in this case, if you look at the pictures of Darth Maul, he generally has tiny, contricted pupils, possibly a side effect of theatrical contact lenses.

And that left me in a somewhat scary position, one of those “do or die” moments.  I was really happy with the way the face had turned out, especially the eyes, even if the camera wasn’t particularly helpful in showing that off.  But it’s not really Darth Maul without those tattoos.  So I was faced with a decision, whether to leave it as it is – looking quite good but with a noticable absence – or to chance painting the tattoos and risk buggering up the whole thing and having to start again.  In the end, with some trepidation, I decided to try and paint some tattoos.  I think they came out ok – they’re not an exact match to the originals but they’re close enough to create the impression of the tattoos.

The last step was to paint the horns, which was done by painting them all with XV-88 and then giving them a highlight of Ushabti bone and tiny dab of whitescar at the very tip.

And with that the face is concluded and I am off to give my eyes a rest.

I managed to capture a better image of the face.  I won’t go into the details of how but I have definitely found a way to improve the photography.