"Combat Tinkerer" - Johannes

Johannes is too humble and focused to admit it, 
but he is one of the smartest engineers of these dark times. 
His native tongue is science.

Zombicide.com


Greetings, brave survivors, and welcome back to The Art of Caesura!

Today we have a very special survivor - he's my fave - the absent-minded professor: Johannes. 

It's funny, in our games even though he's my favourite character (or, more accurately, because he's my favourite) I play super conservatively with him because I don't want him to die. While this is probably thematic for being an engineer / inventor, rather than a soldier, it means that he doesn't usually get up to too much in our games. 

Painting this mini was a lot of fun. I like his pose, he's kind of in an awkward, closed position which suits his character. Impressively, even though his belt is as busy as can be (with daggers, sextants, scrolls, an hour glass, pouches, belts, buckles and more!) his upper body is much less cluttered so those details do not detract from his focal point (face). I emphasized this even more by painting his chest red and face relatively pale to draw the gaze up to his face. 

I had A LOT of fun with this guy's cloak. I'm trying to get a bit better at "volumetric" highlights rather than straight up edge highlights. What I mean by that is really trying to see which areas (of his cloak, for example) would be the most in a "realistic" light shining from above (or maybe a 45 degree angle from above). This would not always be the "edges" of the fabric that would get picked up doing straight edge highlighting. 

Let's look at an example: his cloak, in the images above and below, has a lot of nice soft folds. If I was edge highlighting, each fold would be given a similar degree of highlight. The benefit of this (at it is done supremely well by Games Workshop's 'Eavy Metal painters) is that it really shows off the details of the model.  

Whereas, the volumetric highlighting that I am trying to portray gives more weight (more levels of highlights) to the areas of the cloak up around his head and hardly any in the concavities of the cloak. The benefits of this technique is the effect (if done well) can create a bit more dramatic realism. 

Anyway, my journey into volumetric highlighting is only just beginning, but it is always fun to keep right on learning!

I started Johannes from a Wraith Bone undercoat and kicked off with some contrast colours: Flesh Tearers Red for his shirt, Militarum Green for his cloak. From here, I painted his metal bits Leadbelcher and then painted his arms, hair, legs and metal bits with Black Templar. I then layered up all these colours with "conventional" paints. 

I spent a lot of time on his face, using the skills I had honed on the bigger scale of the Blood Bowl Ogre a few weeks ago. I think these techniques really bring some life into his face. 

In the game that my wife and I are currently playing, Johannes is in a bit of a sticky situation: he and Seli are staring down a couple fatties and runners. Hopefully he doesn't go the way of Rolf...

See you next week on The Art of Caesura!

Reading: Hungry Hill - Daphne Du Maurier

Gaming: Disco Elysium

Next Week: 

Ready, (don't bother aiming), FIRE!!