On The Desk - The Nurse Part 1

New project time! A few weeks back I did an unboxing of 'The Nurse' by Thirdman Studios (link to article). This is a slightly intimidating miniature for me, it has a lot of detail and a very large area of skin (one of my greatest areas of weakness) If you are to improve as a painter you must challenge yourself so here we go! As always I started by researching, I wanted my skin to have a very unhealthy, pallid look to it. I was inspired somewhat by the nurses from the Silent Hill movie.

I zenithal primed the miniature with black followed by white from above. I like this style of priming because it gives you a good guide for light and makes it very easy to see all the details. Base coat was a mix of GW Kislev Flesh and P3 Thrall Flesh.

I immediately decided this looked far too healthy! More thrall flesh, Dark Sea blue (VMC) and a little white and glazed over the top gave me a colour far closer to what I wanted.

More Dark Sea Blue glazes were used around the ribs and the lower areas of the back and other areas of interest.

I then started to bring more colours in to add interest. Glazes of thinned GW Druchii Violet underneath the breasts, around the armpits and across the base of the stomach. I also started to add white to the base mix and add the lights to the upper chest areas and arms.

At this point I decided I wanted to add some veins around the neck area, moving out towards the breasts and down the back and top of the arms. If I had been a master painter I would have decided this earlier but oh well :D Again I turned to the Dark Sea Blue (I've spent too much time watching Ben Komets apparently...) slightly thinned down and using a brush with a good point I started sketching veins onto the flesh.

So that looks pretty stark, veins don't look like that! Next step is lots of thin glazes of the base colour over the veins (focussing towards the end of the veins) to help tie them into the flesh, making it look like they are below the surface.

More glazing of dark sea blue near the neck and lighter base mix glazes towards the upper areas of the breasts, shoulders, top of the head and arms. This is really a matter of trial and error, I'm just trying to push the contrast as much as possible. I think I could take it further but I might stop here and go back once I have other painted areas to compare to. At this point I also painted the lips, I used several glazes of Dried Blood wash from Secret Weapon with a highlight of white in between the glazes to give some light. I also did some watered down Dried Blood glazes at the top of the head where the mask meets the flesh, what is beneath that mask...

At this point I would call the torso area (90% complete. I think the arms and exposed leg still need some work and the top of the head (which you can't see in these shots) might get more work once the straps of the mask are done.

You can also see I've started sketching in the colours for the coat, I'll discuss that more next week so treat this as an early preview!