Conan the Barbarian

By Ceremonial Studios

Bit of a J R Hartley moment for me (remember the Yellow pages advert? or am I showing my age?) when this ebay purchase arrived the other day. When I was a kid my brother and father had a family business called Ceremonial Studios (I wonder where I got an interest for the hobby from?) and they used to manufacture scale miniatures, mostly Napoleonic but they started a Fantasy range way back in 1982 with a Conan figure and princess based on the comic book cover art by Earl Norem and sculpted by Richard Almond. It was probably one of the best selling models they ever produced. Ceremonial Studios have long ceased to exist and with my father passing away over 13 years ago and a long estrangement from my brother I haven't laid eyes on this kit for some time. Although I still have the single Conan figure that I painted as a teenager I never got around to painting the full two figure piece as it was intended.

This is how it arrived, still mint in box.

This is the artwork it was based on

And this is the single Conan figure that I painted aged around 16/17 in oils. It was one of the first (in fact I think the second) large scale (this one is 110mm in height) figure that I ever painted.

Should be fun to paint this again and see how much I can improve upon this first attempt.

Native American Indians

Pawnee Bust

Finished this off last night. Here are the pictures.

Native American Indians

Pawnee Bust

After force drying the oils under two halogen lamps I revisited the flesh using the same oil mixes and increased the contrast between light and shade, this was over three or four brief sittings with force drying with the lights inbetween. After the last session with the oils I had a few hours of bench time ahead of me so I proceeded with the hair, feathers and beads, this turned into an early hours of the morning session before I knew it and resulted in most of the work being completed. I finished most of it off today.

A few touch ups here and there and the shield to finish and this ones done.

Native American Indians

Pawnee Bust

Started with the oils today over the top of the Jo Sonja base.

With Jo Sonja acrylic basecoat roughly blended

The oil mix is made from the same Jo Sonja colours used for the basecoat.

A master recipe of Venitian Red and Burnt Umber is added to Jaune Brilliant in icreasing quantities to create the mid 3 tones.

For the 3 highlights a base of  Naples Yellow with a small amount of master recipe and Cadmium Red represents highlight 1 and is progressively darkened with the master recipe for highlights 2 and 3

The 3 shades all begin with the master recipe with a Cobalt Blue/White mix added for the greyed shade, Burnt Umber added for the warm shade and a Viridian Green/Mars Black mix added for the dark cool shade.

The oil mix

I keep these in an airtight container after a painting session to prolong their life.

Below is the first stage of oil painting. All of the colours were applied to the appropriate areas (aided by the pre-painting of the Jo Sonja's) and wet blended together. When dry some further wet on dry highlighting and shading will begin.

Oils are still wet on these two pictures, more to come when it's dry.

Native American Indians

Sioux Indian Completed

Finished this one off in the last few days, here are the pics.

Native American Indians (a kind of SBS)

Sioux Indian

Been a busy week so far so little brush time on the bench. Managed to get some in tonight though and made some fair progress with the Sioux. Really enjoying painting this figure so far, nice and colourful with some detail work on the patterns which gives it a good variety each time I return to the bench.