Shadowseer - all done

I've finished painting my Shadowseer for the FLGS painting competition.  I posted earlier on my choice for the colour scheme and posted up the first stages of the painting wholly intent on chronicling each stage of the painting process.  Alas, this didn't happen as the painting deadline was the 29th July, and by Wednesday night (27th) I was still at the stage that you can see to the left.  In the end I just had to paint as much as I could in the two evenings I had left (thank you wife!) and see what I could manage.

I feel pretty pleased with what I was able to achieve considering what little time I had.  To re-iterate, the idea is that it is a Harlequin underneath with a suitably bright body-suit, but as it is the Shadowseer, the robes are dark, almost black to reflect the role he plays in the storytelling.  I chose a purple and yellow diamond pattern for the body-suit which extends over both legs, chest and pistol-arm.  You can see I've tried to achieve a highlighted effect to each individual diamond which was quite difficult and required a new, extra-fine brush.

To break up what would otherwise be very dull black robes, I chose to highlight the black base either with blue or grey so that it ends up with two different "colours" of black.  The highlights on both were built up by numerous combinations of extremely light drybrushing, washes and attempted blending of the highlight colours.  I think I managed this a little better with the blue (tabard, glove on the staff holding arm, and ribbon wrapped around the other arm) than I did with the black (hood, side robes and staff holding arm).

The weapons were a bone colouring, and the backpack and associated equipment I tried to get in a warmer grey colour by mixing in bleached bone to the grey for the highlighting.  Runes on the body and weapons were a red colour, on the backpack I used a blue, and used a blue for the tear on the face-mask that you can't see in the pics.

As a final flourish, I made my first attempt at Non-Metallic Metal for the face-mask, trying to achieve a chromed look reflecting the surrounding scenery (not particularly clear in the picture because the light wasn't too great).  Not perfect, but again I'm pretty happy with it for a first attempt.  I may even consider trying similar effects on other characters in the future.

Anyway, after all that, I didn't with the competition, I don't know where I came but the staffer at the FLGS did say that the competition was close, as well as the winner, there was another fantastic mini painted by one of the younger entrants.  I don't have a pic of that one, but you can see the winner below.

I'd love to hear back from any of you out there as to what you think of the paint-job, and especially what I should be improving as eventually I'd love to have a go at Golden Deamon, but just don't think I'm good enough at the moment.

Cheers - Andy