Empire General. Step-by-step by River. Part2: General.

I continue my step-by-step tutorial of the Imperial General. Now it's time for the General. I used the same recipes of several colors (red, white) as in the first part (Horse) so I'll not repeat it here.

   Face.
1. base - GW Foundation Tallarn flesh
2. I added to the base GW Dark flesh, purple. And I added of little bit blue in deeper shadows
3. highlights - base + GW Elf flesh
4. glazing cheekbones areas with orange and final highlights by Rakham Pearl flesh
5. Bleached Bone  - in the eyes
6. Pupils - I used dark blue and white for the speck in the pupil. Then I rounded the eyes by mix from step 2 and painted the eyebrows.
7. Hat was made ​​by analogy with the bridle, the white ribbon on the hat - as a blanket, a skull - like skeleton.  Hair: base GW Scorched brown, lightening - with the addition of GW Vomit brown and orange to the desired color. I've decided to make earring with blue stones - I don't know why.

   Face came out too soft and not "generals", so it needed some additions. For this I drew a serious unshaven. Now it's hard to remember exactly all paints, but I started with a face base + blue + purple, on the protruding parts more solid, in the shadows - more blue and purple.
 At the same time I did white sleeves with a red inside. There is nothing new here.
 I started a first lightening of the armour with my favorite VMC Bronze green +a little bit of  GW Bleached bone.
   Belts, gloves - I did it as the saddle. I think here is nothing to write too.
  Pants! They will be with strips, so I did a basic stripes.

  

Further development of armor and clothing:
1. armour: gold and steel - the same principle as in part1.
2. Gloves and belts. I've decidet to try here a tutorial "Painting a cracked leather"  from Thor's blog.  I did such kind of  leather before, but with other technique - at the Goblin sailor:

 I don't know, don't know, I'm not happy with my result on the General's gloves. Thor does it much better :). May be I need more practice and a proper selection of colors.
   3. And I've finished the pants. I used a quite simple technology: first, I highlighted the strips (the colors are the same, that our usual red and white) and after I glazed black-brown-purple shades.

   So, I've got the result:

   Shield. I wanted to create an effect of a peeled paint. The main surface of the shield was covered with Red gore with rough spots around the edges. Next, those spots  were rounded with dark which broke some of them  into smaller patches. The upper bounds was highlighted.
   Mace: I added a colour emphasis here and it purple (Codex grey+ Lich purple).

 

  Feathers:
1. base  - GW Fortress grey. Pouring in recesses Fortress grey + GW lich purple + Chaos black.
2. Highlight the feathers with Fortress grey, then VMC Silvergrey
3. Highlight the feathers with pure white. It seemad a little boring to me so I added black and red on the ends. Black - Chaos black, lightening - Chaos black + Fortress grey; red - Red gore - Blood red - Blood red + Golden yellow + a bit of white. 

  The base.

1. I used: a cork, a piece of twigs and homemade tiles. Those tiles were made from the remnants of Magic Sculpt which was rolled out into a thin layer, and broken down into smakk pieces. The cork was covered with Valejo texture paste. Then all this was painted base: land - P3 Battlefield brown, tiles - VMC Medium grey.
2. First drybrash: land - Graveyard earth, tiles - Fortress grey. Second drybrash: land - VMC Goldbrown + GW Bleached bone, tiles - VMC Silvergrey
3. Pouring earth and stones with VMA Olive green and GW lich purple + Chaos black 
4. I did a third draybrash of the tiles by Fortress grey and then again VMC Silvergrey after a good drying of the previous stage. And then there is my favorite stage - to put plants. I covered the ground with PVA and planted grass, bushes, flowers, distribute more pieces of wood and stones. Finally took a little bit of pigments - green and "dry dirt" - and paid a little on the rocks.

My General's got the base:

 

Cloak.

I didn't want to blend it, smooth out, etc. As one of the famous said, if you don't want to blend - draw freehend. Well, that is what I'm planning to do - to draw a background texture and a picture. Now I'll tell my thoughts about a picture choice a cloak, because usually the coat has a lot of folds in contrast to banners. Of course, there are different cases and different cloaks, but the principles I have are:- Because I am not a real artist, and there are problems with the painting, it is best to choose a picture as possible schematically- Folds may not keep the symmetry, so we have to choose picture where the symmetry is not important.- Folds require a certain distortion figure, which is why I threw out the variants with lady and a hammer with a ball - so if the lady's face collapsed into the fold, or sword or hammer will do it  - I think it would not look good .- Color choice - we need a contrast. I remember that a golden figure is not very readable in our red, so I threw out  all the gold skulls, hammers, etc. Now I only have white.So I came to the conclusion that a white tree is the best option in my case. Schematically, at ease, you can not keep to a strict symmetry, contrast and on topic. What more do you want? Now it's time for work. The main thing will heelp you a lot - do not be afraid to paint, you can wash it by alcohol and start again :). In the end, the General fit on his horse perfectly and without his cloak.As usual, stages are mutch the numbers on collage:1. Base - GW Red gore2. Shadows - GW Red gore + GW Lich Purple + black3. Paint a basis for a background texture with GW Red gore + VMC Silvergrey: first diagonal lines - diamonds, then I did wavy vertical lines4. I draw a simple figure in each diamond.5. Glazing: on the tops of folds - Blood red + Golden yellow, midtone - Blood red, in the recesses - GW Red gore and GW Red gore + GW Lich Purple + black6. I've decided to make some gold rim on the bottom, so there is Scorched brown.
7. I painted a picture of the tree with GW Codex grey8. The coolest part - coloring! It is necessary to monitor not only the volume of the figure, but how it goes on the folds.
9. Refinement: inscriptions, gold, etc.10. Glazing in shadows with VMC German cam.black brown + GW Lich Purple. Thus, the whole figure in the shadows just got purple.

Well, that's all-all-all. So my General is ready for battle!

--------------------

 So, the guide is complete. I don't claim to what is written above is the truth. This is just my own experience and thougts. I hope that someone will find any useful information in the process of reading this rather big work :).