Hello everybody and welcome to another PMP end of month review. What is this? Why this is where we go through the end of month submissions in the PMP event and this month's event theme is Monsters if you're interested in joining the PMP we welcome you into our positive hobby focused group We welcome anybody from beginners to master painters every month We invite people to submit one and no more than one submission into this event. I then review it here quickly Talk about where they can improve. I do ask that you write me a short short short is the key note about what you're looking to improve on I don't need a novelization of what led you to buy the miniature or paint the miniature anything like that Just what you're going for and where you want to have the feedback on So link is down below We'd love to have you remember if you do click the link to join you have to answer all three questions If for some reason you don't answer all three questions, you will not get in the group It's more or less that simple. So with that we're gonna jump right in here. We go so Sorry, I realize my light was in frame there. So Let's start off with Alex who brings us this big Tyrannid He says first forage rolled model. He'd like some general advice and feedback. Sure So it's this a big boy. He's interesting. I like the color contrast you've chosen. It's it's nice Part of I think what just jumps out at me is some of the Black parts of the carapace here could probably use a little more definition In some areas of light grays The purple and to brighter transition here feels a little rough in some places. My guess is that's forage world skin syndrome probably the fault as much of the The resin that they use it tends to be not very good and Forge rolled skin is a thing. It has this sort of roughness to it But yeah, I mean overall I like your color choices I'd say just probably smoothing out some of those blends and areas on the skin better defining those pieces So they stand apart better from the things next to them on the glowy bits The camera sort of blowing it out just a little So it's hard to tell but again, maybe a little smoothness of that like I can see roughness in here and in here That might be the paint that we're choosing something like that One thing I did notice. This is just a small note for you Avoid these like alien tufts if they're in a different color than anything else on your miniature. They're very intense pink They're more saturated than anything else up here If you had brought the claw tips up to the same saturated pink These would be a great choice, but without with everything on your miniature is extremely desaturated that is to say it has a high tint So that's gonna be a problem for you because now my eye is only drawn to the base and these five little strange alien tufts I like these color tufts too. They're super fun, but they can be distracting if they're not used carefully Okay, next up we've got Austin plague angel from creature caster. What would you do to take this up a notch? Yeah, so super cool Like the blood and the little goop and guts I mean my answer here is going to be a pretty common one throughout this But it's a lot of basically pushing the contrast the wings themselves feel especially flat Basically, they feel sort of dry brush to pull out the texture, but there's no actual Structuring of the wing there itself the staff is another example of something that could use a lot more attention It's a focal point. It's his weapon and yet. There's not any micro texturing on it. There's not a lot of contrast It's just sort of this dark thing with the occasional light spots that don't really seem to have You know a great deal of sensibility as to what go what's going on So more definition of the individual elements would be would be good You know bringing out some of these muscle structures things like that really separating it out I believe that Sam Lenz did a version of this a few years back. You could go check his out It's a great guide on how to really bring a lot of visual interest to this model really pay attention to what he did with the wings what he did with the The sickle and stuff like that There's a lot of different ones that have been done from from great painters So that's always sort of a guide for me. I start by just looking at other people's work And say, you know, what are the areas the model they chose to express and how should that influence my Take on it, but yeah, the wings the definition of the skin and the contrast is sort of my areas of feedback. I would give you Okay, next up stew with a beholder experiment with OSL nothing too serious, but took a long while Anyway, I could push this. Yeah, so the so here we have the traditional OSL problem I'm gonna make a video sometime called five things you just shouldn't do in miniature painting unless you know You can do it One of them would be OSL and I don't mean that in any insulting way. It's good to push yourself It's good to try new things. I really do appreciate that the issue here is we don't have any light to dark separation Like everything is being caught in this color So assumingly he's just in a complete blackness and he's the only source of light The problem is that would be casting these really really strong deep shadows You can't strike a light that's going to actually cause this amount of vibrancy without creating really deep shadows So like these colors would be interacting in lots of different ways and so having been a complicated OSL That's got like multiple shooting in various directions. It just looks like he's a purple beholder when I first looked at this He read as a purple beholder with green lights, right? But then I was like, well, where's the shadows that the green lights are casting? Well, then they're not present because Because effectively you've got the purple light right next to the green light right next to that That's going to create just a sort of mishmash lighting situation. That's very hard to read Because there's no shadows that separate the two areas and that's ultimately what you want when you create a really bright light Okay, notice the shadows they get put under my hand are much stronger, right like you see that see right here, right? Okay, if I pull that away see how dark at the top of my fingers are up here all right like when you make light you're making shadow and So OSL is as much about painting the shadows and the the light that's not there as it is about painting the light that is there So yeah, that's kind of my take on it's just there's so many light sources It's kind of hard to read my advice if you're just learning OSL is like you you tried to like you stepped up to the plate And tried to like hit a grand slam. Yeah, and you were saying I'm gonna hit it out of the park Find a miniature that has like a torch or a magic flame or something like that in their hands and keep it simple And straightforward with that right that'll let you understand the way the light is casting and sort of the cast glow Remember the number one key with OSL is the light cast can never be as bright and intense or saturated as the light itself The light on your wall is not as bright as the light from the light bulb This is the same thing this green is just as bright and intense the same with this purple as the light sources themselves That's another thing that makes it read is not OSL You have to have the light source itself being the most bright vibrant thing and then it's casting a softer lighter less intense version of that light Okay Next up Peter Kraken Eater All right, so yeah, that's a great model. You did a really nice job with him. He looks great Fun use of the colors really in theme, you know very ocean-y colors great base Nice textures over things. Yeah, I mean he looks really good My biggest area feedback for you would be if you know, I was gonna say here's one thing you would where I would work on I would continue to push the skin The skin feels like it could use a little more vibrancy Probably a little more tonal and very a tonal variation so variation of hue and variation of color More reds pinks purple stuff like that Creature the size you assume he's he's big He's gonna have lots of scuffs and scrapes and colors and things like that around on his skin I have a lot of color in my skin look at the reds and blues and purples that I have in the lighting situation on my skin right now Or you know make a fist with your hand real tight and watch all of the the blood You know pump in there look at all those pinks and stuff there in your hand Right, so that kind of stuff is what you want to bring forward into the into the miniature But overall you it's a super clean paint job. He looks really nice. It's very striking.  You didn't absolutely banger job This is really well done great stuff Okay, next up Daniel like to have some feedback on how I could have improved the contrast in the eye stalks in particular Sure, I mean contrast on these kinds of soft miniatures is tough because he is a pretty soft miniature like he doesn't have a lot of Really well sculpted detail But the answer is we've got to create it so each of his little bumps need to go in and we've got to pick out Little highlights and stuff like that on them create directional shapings to the to the lines You know whether to be through edges or texture or something like that on his eye stalks We have to have darker areas maybe toward the base the tentacle and getting toward lighter areas of skin up here Right where it's getting into a more maybe we move this into a lighter color up toward the top And then it gets quite light here And there's a nice dark ring around the eyeball and then the eyeball itself stands out as quite bright when you've got The white with the little irises in the middle those kinds of things what you want to think about is your progression of light Dark light dark you went for sort of a total volumetric That is to say the top of the beholder's light the bottom of holders dark and that's fine But then we've got a right each element has to have its own concepts of light and shadow as well The thing that actually sticks out to me quite a bit is not having the right level of contrast is something like the teeth Because the teeth are all very evenly equally done. They don't have the you know There's no striation to them or more plaque build up or color difference in the teeth that are more recessed As opposed to the teeth that are up front and it seems like the light is coming from directly on and above So those front teeth would be a little more reflective a little more white a little more shiny So those kinds of things are what I would recommend you toward hopefully that helps Daniel Okay, next up demogorgon. I'm not going to open this up. So it doesn't Go all big and stuff, but I'll let it replay So yeah Basic issue here is much like what I was saying. There's just not enough contrast not enough separation the elements cool miniature But he reads as basically yellow ochre like he just is that color We've got bones and stuff like that on the base and yet those don't really tend to be sticking out as white compared to the dirt around them We have the model and basically other than the teeth. There's not a lot of color variation there So you want to think how can I work stuff in? How can I make the main a different color?  Sure. Let's do that Demogorgon, am I going to get just stranger things stuff? I'm going to get stranger things stuff. Okay. Let's try dnd. There we go There he is All right So, you know, if we just look at the artwork, right, which is always a good place to start here Let me move my head out of the way here real quick. Oops There we go. We'll move me Right notice how this person has worked in oranges and blacks like really deep blacks to contrast There's bright yellows around his face, right? There's a lot of this is, you know, 2d art But notice how much different color is going on here. It's all in the same basic area But this artist has chosen to represent this in a lot of different colors with these bright yellows These oranges and so on and so forth, right And as you go along there's lots of different takes on demogorgon and kind of what he looks like You know, look at that art Right and get these concepts of where these things can be broken out Notice how even on something where he's all in this fur, right? There's still Coloration differences in the fur. So his fur has patterns and strippings and stuff like that It's got, you know, the lizard scales have a lot of strong definition to him So on and so forth, right? So it's our job to create that that kind of contrast that can't often be done Uh, you know Even when you've got similar textures, you still need to stretch it out right here Even when he's mostly orange We've got his bright sort of blue baboon face and red tentacles and we've got again patterns in the fur, you know, whatever, right? The point is is that you want to use those Things those tools at your disposal to create that visual interest. So there you go. Hope that helps All right, mawai, uh, just try to color scheme for the ternids Yeah, so it's got a big giant problem and it is this red Okay, um, the issue is you have a big red Uh Thing that shouldn't be here. So you're fine purple yellow and blue is a perfectly fine Uh color scheme, okay And it it works fine, okay Um, but You you can't like adding that fourth color of that red right there at his head doesn't do you any favors It's very distracting. So color composition wise get rid of that stick to the yellow ochre You've got a perfectly fine scheme. That's my answer. It's pretty much that easy Uh, so yeah, there you go Okay Next up, uh, eric with a mimic chest some feedback on the non-metallic metal contrast and color choices And if gloss varnish should look good on the tongue Uh, uh, no, I don't care. You had your hands in the shot. Um, this is great, man This is really great. Love the color of the flesh here No, I would definitely not gloss varnish the the tongue you so let's explain what the point of gloss varnish is gloss varnish I mean, it's a protective layer of one thing But it it's very smooth and so it reflects light all the difference between the different types of varnishes It's just the sort of way that they settle and do they create a rough texture at the micro level when they're done Or a smooth texture at the micro level when they're done Matte is just very rough. Hence it diffuses light light bounces in all sorts of different directions You don't get a single reflection Gloss is like my forehead. It's really shiny and and smooth and so it reflects light very brightly You've already painted in highlights. If you put gloss all this all over this You're going to get reflections where you have painted shadows. You do not gloss things that are painted That's why most people want things to be extremely matte because if you've already placed the highlights You don't want to add gloss now as the nometallic metal. It's nice. It's got some good reflections Your your jump to white is a bit precipitous in many cases here Like we have these hard lines. It needs to be smoothed out You need to bring glazes to that to kind of like the line needs to be not so like blue blue blue white blue blue blue right like you got to soften those transitions But overall it's a super cool looking job like you've got The concept down here certainly of the edges and your placement looks completely reasonable The light line going across the top is great visually draws attention to the big center eyeball So all that's just fine like your placement is good. You just need to smooth out some of the transitions Really really cool piece Okay next up so brian first time posting for review started paying this january a lot to learn Uh, this guy is from the carnomorphous expansion. Please. I turned out creating contrast and those are supposed to be covered in blood Um, yeah, sure. So, I mean I have a video on this of how to paint um Sort of muscle texture and like I so I just fairly recent issue videos So go back and take a look at that the issue here is we still don't have value contrast So you you did all this work with all the muscles, but you didn't create any value contrast And what I mean is this muscle structure here is highlighted in the same way as this muscle structure in here That's hidden or this stuff on the inside of his leg, right? So what you've got to do is you've still got to through the striations and work that you're doing on muscle texture You've still got to pay attention to volumetric highlighting your texturing here on the muscling and stuff is really nice But it's he still has to hey, he still has overall volumes He himself has more light at the top than at the bottom There'll be more light on every muscle group than there are at the bottom It's no different than when it's skin right and I see you pushed it a little here. It looks on on this shoulder It looks like that maybe there's a little highlight here Um, I think you need to take that farther Like towards the bottom of the knee the ends of these like there should be areas where his muscles are sort of glistening And that's kind of brought out by you tracing the lines in that bright or white That's how we sort of fake that glisten effect the bones themselves also follow victim to this to some degree Um being sort of very kind of flat honestly So, yeah, that's what I would say Okay, next up Uh xmil, uh, never been a so let's see Okay, so and you just wanted to do some general feedback which blood you like more blood for the blood god Technical enogers versus spirits down red. Sure. Um, yeah, I mean these are fun models I think you want to smooth out some of your transitions between sort of the wash that you use that you layered over You want to be careful with that you get this sort of tight standing effect in unnatural places In all these so you want to make sure you're kind of smoothing those back down Um, and then over here, uh, with the very rusty sort of armor You want to have it more texture to it if it's this heavily rusted so more stippling more stuff like that Now as to which one I like better, um, it doesn't really matter you can use either It's more about the application of it. I have several videos on blood application And so like the key is it shouldn't just be Like with this guy, it shouldn't just be this red on here Like it wouldn't show that bright red everywhere. There'd be variation to it Blood oxidizes within sort of a few minutes of its exposure to air Um, so you want that there's sort of different color variations you're going to want to achieve there So if you look at my video on blood spatter, I cover a lot of that in detail But both can be fine. It's just about how you use them All right, lucas, uh, best painted death guard model use quite simple techniques for it happy with the end result What can be done to make it better sure so big old great unclean one here And yet again the answer is going to be much the same. We've had it is tonal variation We need more contrast across the demon. Um, we're really going to see it in one of these shots here There we go This is the one I want because this is such an easy shot to show kind of the the nature of muscle structure The this guy is a big fat blob I mean, that's what makes him cool But and and I like the the way you have the holes in the skin and the muscles and stuff like that And his little boobos those all look good well picked out a plus like I've no issue with any of that I'm super fine with it. Um, I'd love to see a little more texturing on his butt flap Um, but you know, that's a minor thing The biggest issue I have is he's sort of the same green all over like this green up top Which is very flat and very exposed to the light that's theoretically above Is basically the same green as this down here that is very not Um, so drawing something like purple into your green shadows can be a great way to create a naturalistic shadow You can also use red to make it feel a little a little bit more natural a little bit more earthy Um, you can use browns similar tone. It'll make it feel more actual nature Um, maybe these aren't the things you want to go with so like something like purple can make it feel rotten And sort of dark in in your in your shadows But we need to respect that volumetric highlighting right bringing those shadows down into the lower areas on this guy Where he wouldn't be catching the light. So yeah, that's my sort of main piece of feedback overall looks great On the sword rust, I would vary it a little more You kind of have just these speckles and spots everywhere around where there was chips And then it goes to gray you want to work in browns light browns Red rusts orange rust like rust is a very complicated thing. So you want to do more than just kind of stipple that around It should be uh, it should have a little bit more color to it All right next up Zachary, uh This thing is painted almost entirely contrast and pale bone Uh metallics on the right or any feedback is appreciated. Sure Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a this is a great example of how you can use contrast to fantastic effect because he looks really nice um, again the uh, the biggest challenge I see is with uh, just sort of the individual variation of Value, uh, not hue. I like you introducing sort of the yellows and stuff like that into him. So that looks good Um, but you know again a little more color Could have done well in some places like the wings where we maybe bring a little more tones more red Stuff like that into the shadows a little more purples into the shadows But I also need to see more expression of value That can be tough when you're using things like contrast But one of the great ways to do it is just to apply more into the shadows So they like pick darker versions of the color and and work those in there Um into those kind of darker areas Down sort of underneath his jowls under the underneath his his neck there Those kinds of areas should be cast in deeper shadow and I'd love to see those expressed more Uh, so that it was easier to understand and kind of read but overall very fun. He's a great uh conversion I know obviously you clearly reposed him in a lot of ways to to get this going So I think that's super fun. And uh, yeah, hope that helps act really nice All right our first of a couple crag noses Uh So this is uh, he did this entirely in oils from start to finish I'd like to compete at some point in the future. Can you give me an idea of where I'm at the moment need to work on? Um, yeah, I mean there's uh, it depends on what kind of competitions you're talking about is my answer Like you there's you know high-end competitions require really high-end painting So where do we need to go from here? Well, we need to so you said you worked in oils I mean my first answer is never work just in a new medium or only one medium for for any project like for competition Um work in the medium that is appropriate for that space. I'll often mix oils acrylics You know airbrush enamel anything. I'll use anything. I need to if it's the right thing for that The other answer is we need to have more controlled use of contrast I like the skin variation, but it's not universal So like we have the light and the lighter tones here, but there's none on the top of his arm This area isn't lit here. His fingers his knuckles these kinds of details make a big difference His eyes are just flat turquoise Holes I I need eyes. I need expression. I need life there pupils irises light dots the Uh horns need to be a lot smoother I need the individual lines and stuff picked out of each individual horn with controlled contrast in between there I need the fur itself to have more of a texture to it So that is a thin lines showing the striation But this is really expressive on the tail by the way. You can really see that it looks quite monochrome The front is better, but the tail is very monochrome But even with these I'd want to see more thin striations to make it look more like panting pro v beautiful or whatever The individual don't don't sleep on small elements competitions thrive on small elements Finger nails teeth having more contrast to them His face and the facial expressions and the color and the tone worked into his face These little strappy things here. This is just red. You just did this red. We just phoned this part in Right and like if I was a judge, I would notice that immediately I didn't I noticed it five seconds into looking at this right somebody else is going to go in and pick out These details create value separation between them show me what the material is is made of right Uh, these are the kind of things that sets you apart in a competition and make things really stand out Um, you have to make the piece your own in a big way Right and a part of that means finding that home of expression and how you really create that light Like here the tail just feels like it was you know, you got this dark And then we did the orange on top of it But that's not how it would be some of the this upturn stuff the recesses are still upturned toward the light So they'd be darker, but they'd be a darker version of the highlight color Whereas the ones directly in shadow this down here wouldn't be the same orange as this it would be a deeper tone Right that kind of stuff is what you have to think of you have to think about the the volumetric highlights Of the whole thing and really bring that that lighting scheme to life So I hope that didn't sound harsh, but if you want, you know, that's kind of where it's at Now if you're talking about some local competition that's you know, like a game store or something Sure, you're you're getting toward the right place, but the higher you go In competition the more you have to be able to express those kinds of things. So hope that all helps All right, next up Steve just looking for some general feedback tabletop quality with eye catching It's contrast. It's all in the contrast. That's literally my one piece of advice for you I hate to say it so much during this but it's but it's the number one thing I see in people and the things that get submitted to me like this bone is flat The face is flat the fur is flat this armor is flat the hair is flat Like that's as simple as I can make it your color composition is fine. It's quite interesting actually I like the sort of pink peachy orange On the hair along with this sort of blue gray. I think that's a really interesting choice that works very well So you have a good eye for color Okay, but again, we have to like light, you know darkness in between the individual braids We're not even going to get into like texturing and stuff like that that we could do to really really go Because you said this is going to be tabletop That's fine, but I do still need some kind of contrast on the horns to show me a transition some kind of contrast on the fur You know lighter on the bottom or lighter on the top darker on the bottom of that kind of stuff So, uh, you know having things like the toenails picked out, you know, all the details filled in that kind of stuff is Is what I would say so that's my main feedback for you. Hope that helps Uh alec general feedback on this bust I did for a competition. This is really great. This is really great Alec I saw this. I really love this. This is spira Spira's Ball bust. I don't remember what the actual name of it is, but yeah Beautiful bust Super fun. Um, the I think you did a fantastic job with it. Love the contrast of the the ball here in the green blue yellow Against the yellow orange red of the rider The nature of your unified lighting scheme him being an extremely yellow light just reads so very well So I think that's really wonderful. I love the cast shadow here on the little guy You captured that really well. We're only sort of that side of his face is lit And then we come over here and clearly we have a more purple slash blue light on this side It feels like it should be maybe a little bit Dimmer in the dim parts and the shadows What I mean by that is like I would love to see some of the things that would be deeper in shadow over here Actually have those deeper shadows That's the the sort of thing that jumped out at me and then I noticed here on his hand.  It didn't feel as smooth as maybe would expect Like the value jumps are a little too high On the hand like this red spot here is really getting me because I don't know what's creating that like certainly There's a you can I get the red line Here, but it's a bit deeper darker and of a lower tone than I would have expected Um, so like that one feels like it should be softened or the transitions to be softened a little I don't mind it as much up here at the wrist because the nature of his little thin bones his little bones Um, but but that part that one jumped out at me, but overall is really good I the final thing I'll say is I really love how you caught the light catch in his eye as he's clearly looking toward Whatever this light source is that's creating this very yellow light. I think you did a really masterful job Without that light catch you would look like your brain wouldn't even comprehend it But you would it would break your immersion, but you did catch it and you put it there And I think it really really sells the overall lighting scheme. So yeah cool stuff, man This is great great use of this uh this bust all done All right next up, uh, tenku, uh, so he said the base is blank and Uh tips how to do how to highlight black flowing hair properly Sure All right, so I have a video on this on doing black hair. So my first advice is go watch the video My second advice is yes, this thing needs more contrast On the leathers and stuff go back and watch my leather texture video because it's That you you got kind of the right direction, but you're not capturing at all Now these board game managers are all really soft and I don't ever love them I don't paint board game managers intentionally because I think they're just Generally not great sculpts. Um, but that's not your fault. That's just you have to fight through that unfortunately A bad sculpt can can just you know be hard to paint um The uh now as to how to highlight black sure I mean you have to highlight it up to white. That's the key But in a very small volume 50 of the surface should still be black. Okay, but uh, let's just look over here and say Woman with long black hair.  Look at how little of that hair is actually black right Um, because it's catching these big reflections They're pushing it into gray, but your eyes resolve it to be black So if 50% like again, this is one of those things where like how to do it is to make it look like it really looks in nature Um, there's a million million million images out there, right and the real world is always your best reference So you have short volumes that come to a very bright light As i've said a hundred times that the way to do this is you go look at your panting pro v Hair dye bottles because those are photoshopped to be like light perfect And so they're actually a really great reference because they're real people But they've been digitally manipulated to be like in a perfect lighting situation So they will they will show you the sort of perfect light of how it should look So the point is is that like it has to be these It's mostly black 50 of the surface and then it shrinks to be just Like to gray to gray to gray thin white highlights striking across the surface Hope that helps All right, jason, uh, hopefully this counts the monster. I mean, yeah He the megabus on mark rusher most certainly does Um, just curious if you think this could win a painting contest general question presence of composition if we execute it properly um I said, I don't know a squad about wormers and no lure applies here. Well, no lure applies ever to me I don't believe in lure and think it is all silly. It is your hobby. You do what you want Um, well, what I'll say is he's certainly eye catching. You have no issues there One of the challenges here is he's probably so bright. He's kind of hard to read Like this is really intense Um, as far as like all the hyper bright colors you've used Could it win a painting competition? Maybe it depends on the the competition, of course as always What I'll say is there's a lot of roughness to the paint and and maybe that's what you're going for Um, but like he's so bright and so intense. It's actually hard for your eyes to resolve Now I understand you probably wanted him to be this kind of like really bright intense guy With all the bright blues But I would have done things like taking the wing folds here and de-blue them because it's just like it's so much Intense blue blues are really intense color for our eyes to resolve Especially when it's way up in this this part of the value spectrum and I would have still controlled for some of the lighting like part of the problem is you have no volumetric Lighting in here whatsoever because it's in more of a cartoon style, which is fine You know my real answer could it win a competition is how much does the competition allow for this sort of like More cartoon style painting. That's not a judgment. By the way, that's just like that I don't know how else to say it comic book style. I guess I I have absolutely zero negative judgment on that It's just a nature of a thing So but because there's no volumetric lighting here Like the light on the top of his armor is the same as the stuff on the bottom of his armor And it's all resolving at the exact same intensity across the miniature It makes it very hard to read Right, and there's just not a lot of actual contrast like you the orange and blue Are really all that resolves from this distance Like I lose the orc because he's not value different enough from the blue around him and everything else is so intense I can see the orange that resolves really easy like looking at this thing from a distance Right. It's just a big blue Orange like that's what I resolve Right like things like the teeth his eyes the other individual elements don't really stand out Because they aren't sort of resolved enough, right? Here's sort of uh, um, you know Midway through something i'm working on that's similar, right? And you know, he's You can see how he's much more green and stuff like that. That's not gonna show up at all So it's a bad reference. I happen to be working on the same model But um, like mine's in much more naturalistic colors, which isn't at all the point The point is just that the individual elements because the the skin is muted than the things like the bones stick out more When everything's bright nothing's bright. So that's the challenge so Uh, overall I think one of the ways you could do it would be to introduce a little bit more neutrality into this scheme Um to kind of bring things in line The one part that really doesn't work for me is whatever's going on with the skull and little This thing on the back of the megaboss. I don't know what material this is all supposed to be or why it is this color That's the only part that my brain couldn't resolve and I was like, why is this yellow? So there you go. All right, uh Michael i'm just gonna say Michael. That's probably wrong. Uh Awesome general opinion about this bust light if colors work contrast. So do the colors work? Yes, the green yellow and pink is a perfectly fine thing Um, that's no issues at all there.  It's really big. We've got to go busts are you work until you're almost insane and then you do twice as much after that That's the key to busts. I've said it a lot. I'll say it again um So like the point being is that we don't have enough texture stippling things happening around the skin to separate it out Um, the the bust itself doesn't have a huge amount going on But it also doesn't have enough contrast and value jumps and little tiny touches like around his eyes seeing different tones The the the variation of hue as well as the variation of value So we need more value variation as well as like texturing stippling things We'd expect to find on the skin of a weird alien monster. I like that you picked out some of the stuff like the um You know his little veins and stuff, but they're they're a bit too strong You need to like green those over so they feel more subtle And then have other things like spots or or texture or something like that on the skin The leather knapsack thing he's wearing feels really really really boring That needs a lot more attention a lot more contrast a lot more texturing stuff like that Like with busts you have to push yourself because the scale is blown up so big That you would now see all that detail those minor shifts in hue in value and in Texture would become very visible and so you've got to bring all those to life So there you go. I hope that helps All right next crag knows looking could be done as the next step the model's a little flat I do not have an airbrush. Um, yes, you said I think there could be more contrast in the skin If you think something you're definitely right Okay, when it comes to like if you think something is wrong with your miniature Then you're right So when it comes to this guy like yes, he's just way too flat so more variation of Tone and value Or sorry of hue and value throughout the piece We need more colors working into that skin reds pinks things like that We need more maybe purples down in the shadows. We need more high highlights soft Deeper greens things like that more texture and things like that brought out into all especially like the horns and those kinds of elements More more attention to volumetric value highlighting all of those kinds of areas are what I would Recommend I would also look at what's going what are we going to do with the gold? Are we going to leave all of his metals really nude? We want to maybe darken some of those again the true metallics just look like they've been kind of applied And they're just there, right? So even if you're not going to weather them or something I would still recommend taking them applying some shade and you know gaining back control of the light So that something interesting is going on there treating your true metallic metal like non-metallic metal another thing I have many videos on so check those out All right, next up re right I don't know Luminous spear of the mountain as fast as he could while still aiming for a higher quality any advice on what I could do To further improve while increasing overall painting time minimum minimally Minimum um, um, um, um, um, okay Sure, um the stone the number one thing that jumps out to me is the stone This mountain pieces love the green worked in good. Yes. Love it But it doesn't have as much texture and highlight as I would think Maybe a little bit of reds into the stone for some value or sorry for some hue variation And then a little bit of stippling very light stippling with almost all the paint off your brush a small round brush To create a little more spot texture on the stone to make it feel more rough Things like that you could do that in literally a matter of seconds and it would be a huge add The other thing I would say is some variation of value in the horns and the staff both of which are flat black and flat brown So whether it was tracing a few thin lines down those or working a slightly lighter color out toward the edge Or something like that, um, just any kind of value change on those horns and that staff stick would be probably a huge upgrade So, yeah, there you go Hope that helps All right next up allen Did a dank old trog boss for his gitz army first time painting such a large model. There's another thing We're gonna look at multiples of We'll love some feedback on the skin and blending overall. Yeah, so the skin looks good. I like the green and pink It's a solid Combination teal and pink. I'm in for it. Um, it does need to have more contrast We need more light more dark. I think the pink to green transitions actually look really nice I think you did a good job there for in most places making them feel pretty naturalistic in their transition So on that blending for the most part i'm a buyer There's a couple rough spots in here and in here and stuff like that But really for the most part he looks quite nice Uh, so I think he did a great job there bringing those two together into these areas This one's a little rough but around the arm and stuff that I hear really nice Great stuff. Either you ended on a muscle or you transitioned it really well into shadow and things like that The contrast on the stuff growing on his back feels quite flat So definitely more variation there as to exactly what's going on Same with the bug and the club So overall I like the skin good variation of hue for sure Not a piece of feedback. I'm going to give you you have the appropriate variation of hue Now we probably need to bring in some more contrast of value And then also, uh, the same bring a little more visual interest into these other elements of the piece These ancillary elements that aren't basically the main troll himself is sort of back to lag growth Uh, his club and his bug friend Okay All right Next up travis tried to make a rotting promethean for my vampire army really happy with the Kit batch inspired by peat the mini painter. Oh, yeah, sure I've done lots of dry brushing colors to make it look worn But I'm not kidding exactly what I'm looking for feedback on how to make the ship Would look a little older in the shit and look also older going for a dungeonous crab orange would still dead Thanks for the feedback. Sure. So I mean the crab itself needs. Yeah, it needs more variation of of of value That's number one. It doesn't have nearly any and then variation of color. So, you know, let's look up giant crabs so giant crab So when I look at big giant crabs here Like this is obviously a very different color than what you're going for but it's very similar. Let's look at this guy Here we go All right, see all that variation spotting natural coloration like this, you know crustaceans generally have really interesting sort of color schemes They tend to have a lot of this, you know, really interesting stuff going on And I think you want to try to bring that to the fore. It's not just sort of orange Now, how do you make him look dead? You know, you can introduce things like more grays and purples into the skin and stuff like that That'll make it feel Dead because those are sort of what gray and purple or what we sort of universally Resolve in our mind as being something that's dead So that's the way to help there now with the wood. It's much the same story. I've actually made that boat I've used the heck out of that boat for lots of basing and stuff like that and to make it look old I have a ghost ship version go back in my Twitter or insta Hit the gram up and find me and You'll you'll find I have a version of an old boat like this in moonlight with a vampire lady standing on top of it and The key with it is you You have to introduce grays into the wood old wood goes gray So that's how you make then you have to do that through tracing those thin Lines and striations on there and that will make it feel older. So there you go. Hope that helps All right, next up Kelsey looking for feedback on my resin beast made the top 10 and one staff pick any advice What have might have helped push me into the top three? Yeah, so Kelsey, so I was one of the judges for resin beast So I can give you very direct feedback on what I saw when I looked at this And what I'll say is that I really did love your piece here. I thought it was a fantastic We're going to zoom in here what we can because I think this did I think you did a really wonderful job This was one of my absolute favorites. I will tell you right now that like You just got edged out In my mind, I thought you were really really strong on a lot of different elements Here, um, there were, you know, three pieces slightly stronger than you Mainly because they did some more interesting things with lighting or texturing or patterning or coloration They just kind of told a more interesting story through the paint But yours was really strong the magenta undertones here and things like that. I caught that immediately Really love you using the the magenta for the shadows. That's really nice One of the things I didn't see quite as much of was sort of microtexturing Um, so this is uh, John Nina's also did an emperor dragon and his had a lot of like microtexturing into the scales Um, whereas you have some really nice highlights and you're certainly paying attention to the volumes But I didn't see that micro detail that that he had that really pushed his sort of upper level Same thing with things like the horns like I like you resolving them quite dark Uh, I have no like love the introduction of the orange But again some slight microtexturing very thin lines and visual interest that stuff Is you know is noticed and then it really shines out Um, those were kind of some of the stuff the wings themselves Scan up here to the wings. You did such a beautiful job of of rendering these but again They're rendered in the broad sense, but then I does it doesn't have the sort of micro detailing There's a lot of texture here That I would love to see you like this this part of the wing is where it really shines But it's it's up here as well. I would have really loved to see you resolve some of these with just very faint Uh, uh Sort of uses of that magenta as well Like it's a really thin filter into those little cracks and crevices and things like that Same with these little horns on the edge of the wings again Same stuff like maybe some striation or some texturing or something like that that has drawn that out This was a very very strong piece Kelsey. I do hope you come back and enter again next year I would love to look at more of what you do. I think you should be extremely proud of this that staff pick really does mean something Uh, this was a beautifully resolved piece. You had a wonderful color choice Uh, you know, this is the it's always the challenge of top three competitions You can you can paint your heart out and paint something truly amazing Which you did you absolutely did there just happened to be three people whose Picks were or whose pieces were slightly better than yours But that's the nature of top threes, right? So please don't take that as a negative judgment You did absolutely wonderful and uh, I really thank you for for sharing this with us. It's absolutely gorgeous Okay, next up jasper Uh First time that we got another big old troll here Uh gave the skulls on his necklace more swampy looks that fit in the color tone The rest of green he didn't conflict with the face and belly feel the next step of skin would be more textures and details What should we start? Yeah, so well, this is kind of like a pretty terrible picture. So let's start there We got it. We got to take picture without this kind of direct lighting But yes, we need more value contrast more than anything else like his skin is very flat I like the variation of hue. You're trying to work in reds and purples, which is good But we need to like separate the elements these ropes need to be done. These things need to be picked out Um, I don't mind the bones having that sort of green color to them But at the same time they still need value contrast on them to to separate them out Same with the club same with the stuff on his back should be set aside and some kind of different thing The mushroom should have more texturing. So yes, you're partially right. I don't actually think skin texturing is your next stop I think skin Variation of value is your next stop. There's a lot of flatness in the skin Uh, like there's hue is good But if I shifted this into like a value spectrum, I really wouldn't see the The the variation I want When you take pictures in the future, please try to do it through indirect lighting Like you see if I can see this kind of cast shadow Your lighting is too direct too strong. Also, don't do this whatever whatever this is. I don't know what this is But don't do this Um, you definitely don't want to do this. Just get some soft indirect lights I have a video on taking photos games workshop has a great article links to their main community page on how to take photos Go read that Okay, but yeah, there you go. That's my advice. Good stuff Sebastian, uh Okay, he said this is the this is my queen of ruin from uh creature cast this was this was another Absolutely one that was right near the top. So I had looked at this one again Sure. So this is providing me a nice opportunity to give feedback to folks who who uh, didn't quite get there So one of the this was a really nice piece. Um And I really liked it a lot No, don't worry my my, uh, natural inclination towards not liking gross things as in no way influences my Nature as a judge. Oh might be able to separate these things Uh, and I think you did an absolute great job with this This was another one that was right up at the top that you know, these are really hard decisions this year. I will say um Overall the so what kind of let me zoom in because that's really going to bring it home Um, what sort of sunk you down was the paint wasn't resolved as smoothly as I would have wanted So you're using like your coloration and you've got a lot of great texturing But some of it doesn't feel as naturally organic as I would have wanted What I mean by that is some of the weathering and things like that on the metal parts of the armor I couldn't quite see the narrative. Like there's a big slice through it, but that isn't the rusted part It's not leaking rust. Some of this has a lot of just like Specs and stipples, but they're not in places that I would expect rust tends to gather sort of cracks Edges places where water gather not just sitting open on top of the flat surface on top um The things like the red of the tongue in the front were not resolved as cleanly like I can really see a lot of harsh Uh, not blends here and stuff like that. Like things are pretty rough pretty Um unrefined and I think that really held you back You clearly have a great eye for composition the addition of all this like sort of skin texturing stuff was was Uh, really nice Um, the lighting scheme that you were going for like I understand it, but I'm not sure it really sold like this This turquoise light was being cast in here Which I got and then you're sort of resolving a turquoise light here But I couldn't tell what was casting it because nothing else over here Is lit in that same light and things like the ropes and this kind of stuff don't really have it And those felt kind of flat as well at the same time There's a lot is more like the little details of it didn't feel as finished and polished as the other pieces When I look at things like this horn resolution, right? This is really rough in here That kind of stuff is what I thought held you back from you know being in a in a top spot. All right So there you go Sebastian. Hope that helps Okay, next up Nicholas. Uh, oh wait absolutely. That's flesh. That's what that is Things like input on composition freehand on scales gold true metallic metal. Yeah, sure So the gold looks really nice. You've done a good job of capturing especially on these areas The the the top parts still a little flat. We can use a little more variation here In these top ones, but I really like what you did with the Uh, the lower part of the machine here Uh, there's a really nice shadow as you've taken control of the light good stuff Now freehand on the scales. No problem with it. It sells for me lots of just little stipples and a pattern Yes, fine With the the the circle ones the line ones don't sell as much for me because you don't have enough lines If you're going to do that that scratchy hashy thing, which is cool. No issue You got to do more of them. Okay, so sell me with more of that Uh, and then what was the other thing? I'm sorry the gold the pattern the scales and oh overall composition Overall composition is great. Love the skin of the skinky dues being kind of a very nice neutral light color Um, the green of their scales being the same as the green of the gem the the green gems work for me I have no problem with that. You know green blue and purple. It's a great combination together It's three great tastes that go great together. So overall compositionally Wonderful work. I don't and like I love that you've managed to use the two purples in interesting ways here Sort of so you've got kind of a uh more violet and uh traditional sort of magenta purple. So that's great Um, that all looks nice. So There you go. Nicholas. Hope that helps really nice Keep pushing it on the flat areas with that that managing, you know, create area planes where the the light is Planing across it. So areas of reflection where it's brighter and areas of shadow And so with that that's just got to do with those flat surfaces Amy general feedback on the bellicorps and especially the color scheme anywhere you can improve Well, you definitely made it more interesting than the base Bellicorps so well done there really like the wings the resolved texture is very interesting So that's exciting. I don't love the red that you made the ruin in the center of his chest that that's compositionally challenging Um, I would have rather made that the blue this red is resolving in balance with the wings There's your color triangle this blue. This is often the problem with bellicorps. He's really poorly balanced What I would honestly do is go blue blue and then put blue magic Hidden under his hand. So that way you create another light line across there And that helps balance that out Um, but overall the biggest problem I see I notice with him is with his chest and the sort of muscle structure You resolved some decent Volumetric highlights with some of the other areas of muscles like down here, but his chest just feels so broad and flat and and Lacking in contrast So I need to see a lot more like a contrast of value and hue there at the chest level That's the part that really jumped out at me as being kind of flat And needing some love really like the variation on the sword that looks good They're like blue to purple and then back up to blue again that that sold for me. So I had no issue there Overall very cool piece. I think that the challenge is the center of the piece is really kind of boring I would turn that Cast star blue and then create a lot more like value and hue variation on the chest All right next up david, uh, all right third ever monster a colis steged on from shyish To a decent tabletop standard the feedback on textures contrast of color and light and general light placement So I just wanted to say first off. I know you didn't ask for it, but I really did like the base on this one He looks he looks great. Um, I love this base. You created. It's really fun and interesting Um general contrast. Yeah, you said so this is going for a tabletop standard, which I think you absolutely achieved The general composition is interesting because you kept the orange and stuff up top You really are kind of in a riot of color mode here But it works out okay because it's relatively balanced your yellows and oranges tend to be along this plane Your blues and greens tend to be along here turning the ground purple was a master stroke I don't know if you did that intentionally to color balance it But it was a very strong choice because then it takes the purples of the skinky dues and it creates a nice Sandwich effectively of the bright blue, which is very eye catching So that looks really good The green then kind of bounces out through lots of little pops across it acting as a pop color through the triangles The scales and then these little whatever they are balls up here And this is a great example. You're trying to find another place to hide a color. He just decided these things are green great Perfect like that's exactly you can just you get to decide things are colors And you should like that should be the primary motivation is when you're trying to balance a piece Something like oh, but it looks like a metal texture. So I have to paint it metal You don't have to paint a metal make it a color go for it Shields look really nice. Those have fantastic contrast. I know it was the shields from a mile away Thought those worked really really well Great stuff. I don't know if you were inspired by maybe like the goober town hobbies video for that or whatever But but I think you did that's one of my favorite videos from gobs because He really shows the how these shields can be such a great learning tool And I think you really brought that into life the horns could maybe use a little more variation Those kind of jumped out of me. You know, even if it was just a couple soft washes of agrax Like really like glazed on not washed on sort of drawn toward the the base of the horn I think that could go a long way But overall this thing good. This guy looks really really cool. We're very well done. I think he's great He's definitely above tabletop All right. Next up carlos manticore from miirce miniatures how to make brown not boring And the interesting insect looking farts. He is quite boring.  They're very distinct. They have these weird different parts Um, I mean the key with brown is you don't paint brown. So I have a video on Uh leather if you go watch that I talk about how we're going to paint all in leathers Um, but I'm going to use all variations of brown and we do that by working in color At the same time we have to bring out the various pieces and the piece really lacks contrast You're right that you said that maybe the wings should have been different color Yes, you're right. I mean you knew all the right things to do here, right? He feels very universally highlighted In the way that he's dry brushed and stuff like that When really what we want to do is we want to create those volumetric hides and the muscle structure His mane could be a brighter different color that helps him to set apart His face needs more value contrast more more variation of value and hue The wings absolutely need to be different color to create a striking frame for him as to the insect parts You you know, you can have them blend in they don't need to be so shockingly different But you don't want to unbalance it from the rest of the piece And one of the ways you can do that is by integrating those colors into everything else So whatever you're going to use for the insect parts make also other bones or horns or nails Those same colors that way it feels like there's a harmony there Of what's going on. Okay All right Okay. All right. So let's keep going. All right. Next up Mike Smith Blood maw from Meers Miniatures The sculpt so detailed with deep cracks I found it hard to know how to approach in the end Most of the skin is dry brush lots of watches and then some highlights painted on Sure Okay Sure So yeah, this guy's a real big dude and and again the the the trick With these kinds of pieces and and you did a nice job with it But the trick with these kinds of pieces is you have to work from work from the macro to the micro So what I mean by that is we start with the whole piece Let's let's start over here We have to think about the whole piece and the topping in light and the bottom being in shadow, right Or something like that like the this this area at the top the top area is going to be brighter than the bottom That sets our sort of base tones Now I think you did a really nice job with like the spittle and the blood effects and the interesting color variation throughout there Then you work into the micro as you start to pick out in the highlight areas you pick out more of those little textures Overall, I think you did a nice job Getting at those the problem is with things like just washes and dry brushes. That's fine You can go that direction, but then you need to have make sure you're dry brushing in a in a intentional way Where you're you're like suddenly we're using smaller and smaller dry brushes and just hitting the tops of muscles instead of the whole thing Right, and then you can resolve that value contrast up And that's sort of the number one thing that jumps out at me is I need a little more of that value contrast I'd also love to see you vary your washes on things like the skin a little more or the colors you're working in Again, this is a guy that could have benefited from maybe some purples or very deep red Into the lower parts where his skin is stretched and stuff like that to make it feel like there's a little more life underneath that gray skin So I hope that helps mike Okay, next up Joseph Phillips work in progress, but I appreciate your input. All right, Joe I'll do it this time, but so you know for the future. These are for finished works finished only Uh senior video on faces recently, but I'm struggling with this one. Is there anything you'd suggest? So it's interesting conversion for this big giant monster Um, you know, one of the things I noticed is that again much like I've talked about our contrast is quite universal It's very obvious with the fur So we need to respect the volumetric highlighting more like the top of the fur would be brighter than the bottom of the fur You know that kind of thing when we come around to the the skin Sure, he's got like this dude has a very derpy sort of ugly face But the same sorts of rules apply right here. We need to work in more color and and life to him He's not a great example of it because his face is so all over the place, but he's still going to have a lit t-zone He's still going to have redness to his cheeks. He's still going to have defined lips You know things like that can go a long way toward Bringing out that kind of texture or bringing out that kind of I'm sorry that kind of like those the What do I say to resolving how you read the face? Okay?  Think of it like one smooth surface Right, where is the light falling and then again you work from the macro into the micro? Okay And that's how you that's how you kind of help that resolve So I hope that helps there joe All right christian smith Archeon Centerpiece for my first 12 months of journey looking for general feedback, especially on color composition high-end tabletop Sure. Yes. He is definitely too large for any lightbox overall. He looks cool for such a tackle a big piece like this a year in He looks really nice. Um, you know, what sort of what what kind of could use more attention Again, it's going to be a lot of the same things that we're we're dealing with here. Yeah very reasonable Overall light set up there. That's that's quite funny So like one of the things that I would say let's zoom in on him here so we can Things like variation in the wings, you know, like again, it's the usual story Of a little more tonal variation throughout the piece. I think this is well done I like the your variation of hue. Um, you did a nice job of working like color The you know purple into the claws. You've got some blues into the the skin It's not all just resolved in black. You did a great job of creating Variation of hue there. So I think you've taken that lesson on strongly Now we've still got to resolve those value variations of the individual muscle clusters and things like the wings are a big place You can express that because as he's lifted up like this The these tops areas of the wings that are in, you know On each striation is going to be very much in deeper shadow And you're getting part of that for free because it's sort of the cast light But I can tell where the light is shining here like this side. It looks like oh, this is really dark But that's because he's turned away from the way your light was in the picture Whereas over here. I can see it's not there. So again bringing those shadows to life and putting them up there Is really one of those things that's um That can make a big difference. So uh overall super cool. I hope he goes forth and and brings the apocalypse Uh Lowl lowlal. Okay repainted this beat here three times the last time is mostly with metal colors best sense so far I'm still not satisfied. I'm struggling really hard with color composition here Especially the base is driving me nuts. No color seems to fit. So I've right with this grayish Dark with some dry brush dark sand highlights. Yeah, so this is kind of tough. The picture is very bright I mean this kind of thing is a really hard thing to paint my honest answer Lowlal is pick a different fig and move on with your life It's not a very good fig like it's badly sculpted and the texture is really shallow and it's just not going to take detail Well, like you'd have to do so much work to bring this to bring any quality to this sort of thing The sculpt is letting you down Like what you're trying to resolve ground texture that's effectively just there was a clump of clay that somebody just stabbed a whole bunch It's not anything Right So it's it that's why it doesn't look good with anything because it isn't anything like the sculptor didn't put any effort into it for the ground You shouldn't either Like i'm not trying to rag on whoever sculpted this but like these are the kind of things that drive me crazy When I see scales like this and stuff like this like it's it's it's just not worth your time Okay, a be here is such a cool monster and Like I really love this monster from d&d. I mean I played d&d for 32 years I fought my share of v here's and You know, this is not what I pictured in my head and that's not because of your paint job at all I'm not making any judgment on that You know, what you'd want to work on is You know resolution of these details, but the thing is I'd say okay. Well, you know apply a wash to the whole Body, but this texture is so shallow. It's barely going to take the wash Right, so you have to actually go in and manually hand paint every single scale The the muscle structure needs better defining, but the muscles are so soft and ill defined You're going to have to reconstruct what the muscles should be and should look like Sometimes it's just best to say no to a figure. I I know we really get like something but crisp detail Is I am a miniature elitist absolutely in a thousand percent if A miniature company can't make a miniature that has a crisp detail. I don't want to paint it They didn't feel it was worth it to invest time and resources into making something of high value I don't feel like it's time.  So check that out All right, Joel Who was a daylight? It's not really acceptable, but I'll let it go this time Uh diorama featuring a traugoth and four small stoutlings first time painting a big monster Sure. So compositionally the the stoutlings are super fun By the way, I like the overall composition of the thing. It's too big as a diorama Like you need to shrink it way down even smaller Uh, like it should be them very much tight around this big giant thing Love the very pastel bright blue colors like the the colors on this are fantastic I really it's a super eye catching to me and I love it This cannon feels very out of place because you you resolved this cannon Like you probably deployed your normal techniques of like rusty metal And then but it just feels so weathered and realistic compared to everything else Which he feels like he walked out of an 80s cartoon Like he jumped off the front of a cereal box And so like I think you could have popped the the rust on this like way up Made it bright and sort of overdone Um, the skin is good the normal the normal rules. I've said many times here apply There's not enough contrast of value or hue so more tones reds Uh purples and things worked into the skin bringing in more naturalistic shadows to the much muscle structures Things like that are the main areas you need help with the one thing I don't think is um, we we we you have great you great use for the textures Between the mushrooms on the top and things like that You really did a really nice job of bringing out the individual textures of this guy So that's uh, that's an a plus for you right there the from the nose and The these mushroom striations up here and stuff like that that you did out of the the wood grain These little the sort of miniature micro cracks in his skin. Yeah, you did a great job picking all those out That I really really love compositionally strong Uh, all that really just value contrast is probably the biggest area I notice Okay, and then last up, uh William Thompson, okay Uh, so main focus was the face and the skin Uh, all right, so sure Same thing I had said before on painting busts. We just didn't go far enough here more Microtexturing damage chips things like that into stuff like the horns bringing those to life Um, the face the muscle structure need more individual Kind of attention and value if we zoom in here I like the dark circles under the eyes, but we can resolve more of it more color into the cheeks The the wrinkle transitions are actually too strong right here on the front of him Like those those wrinkles would be a million miles deep like they're too strong So you've got to watch to to not overemphasize certain values You'd like you need to soften it here and deepen the shadows here. Okay Um, so you really have to control the light and then finally the hair Um, I again, we've done some work But we need to do more to pick out those individual textures the clumping The striations that are going to be there to create those individual shadows the place where he did it the best Is right here on his beard. Um, that looks really nice I I wish everything else kind of felt and looked like that because that I think you nailed I just wish the rest of the hair had that same level of detail and attention So there you go, William So that brings us to the end of the month Next month Which is august the month we're currently in is units So, uh, we'll take a look at those then for all of you who submitted. Thank you so much. Remember if you want to submit Your own work if you want to join us here in the pmp You can do so the link is down in the description This community I I founded it to be a positive place Where painters reached out and helped each other We all have to recognize that no matter where we are on this journey Somebody at some point returned around and gave a hand back to pull us forward And now hopefully we'll turn around and give a hand back to someone else So we always lift up. We never push down. We always Build never destroy and we always support never attack. So stay positive. Stay hobbying And as always, we'll see you next time


tudent because we really feel like these values are ones that should be instilled in all law students so quick admin our information session is on Monday the 5th of March at 1pm at the law school and we'll post that on our Facebook page if you want to give that a like and we'll be closing applications a week after that so congratulations and hopefully we'll see you there Hi everyone, my name is Rachel and this is Charlie and we're here from the mooting society you've potentially seen us in first year with the first year moot but excitedly now that you've gotten to part two there is heaps more opportunities to get involved and we encourage you all to sign up and participate we help you develop your advocacy skills and really put into practice what you've learnt at the law school so far so our first event for the year is the pop-up moot this is the first time we've done this we've teamed up with the pop-up globe which I'm sure most of you guys have heard about so we're having some actors some of their actors come in to the law school they're going to perform the trial scene from the merchant of Venice and then we're going to have some of our mooters actors the lawyers and debate a legal problem so that'll be heaps of fun really encourage you guys to come along to that and then also the junior moot which is the first sort of formal part two moot that you can do that'll be in April so sign-ups are free and you can sign up at the same time as you sign up for AULSS cheers guys actually also here for the public policy club which isn't specifically a law club but it does tend to draw mass numbers of law students so I'm here to talk about it today so basically we're a non-partisan club which encourages students to get involved with politics we help students to make their mark encourage education and also provide opportunities of professional development in the sort of political and public sphere we have a broad range of events you potentially saw them last year we did what's it called the baby back benches so a public policy brief competition we've also got this year we're starting a political forum which will run every second Thursday so you can come along and there'll be a topic and you can discuss it openly with everyone there and also in the beginning of this year we're running an event around the end of life choice bill and we've got David Seymour coming in and then someone on the opposite side of the debate will discuss it openly and educate you all about that our values are impartiality, fairness inclusivity and access so no matter who you are we encourage you to get involved and we'll be in Albert Park for the club's day so come find out there hey everyone sorry I'll keep it short and sweet so my name is Anusha I'm from Salsa which is the South Asian Law Students Association and we're very excited for this year our next stuff planned our first event is next week Friday which is the Hawleyette Law School it's going to be a huge water fight with colour and hopefully some food as well it is completely free to join us so please come see us have a yarn, have some salsa and chips we're not Mexican but we do love a good salsa so yeah we'd love to see you guys and congratulations for being here Nefrica Gazelle wakes up it knows a mist run faster than the fastest lion will be killed and the lion wakes up it knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle or staff it doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle, when the sun comes up you better be running I'm Nadia, I lead ALSRC the Auckland Law School Running Club we're a casual club that caters to all fitness levels we're a casual club that caters to all fitness levels and we have twice weekly runs after lectures around Auckland City more details, check out our Facebook page and we'll be down at Law School after this so come say hi so guys, so my name is Sundarish and this is Mohammed and we are from the Law Association for International Students and we are basically a Law Association for International Students we do both social and academic events and so if you're like paying 40 grand a year tuition fees you should come hang out with us thank you Hi everyone, I'm Tariqa from Not Your Average Law Students or Niles for short obviously there's no such thing as an average law student but as you've heard people come to law school from all different walks of life with different experiences and through different paths so we have people who might have been working in a different career and want to change or people who've been raising a family and still have parenting responsibilities or caring responsibilities and other people who've just been doing other things with their life before they decide they want to be a lawyer and so Niles is here for those people who have those other life experiences and didn't follow that typical pathway of just coming to law school straight from high school we all understand that law school is really stressful so it helps to know that there's other people here who have similar experiences and understand the kind of pressure of trying to juggle law school with the other parts of life that you can't just put on hold while you've decided to return to study so Niles is about creating a way to make connections with those other people who understand what it's like if you get together during the year and one of the things that we've done and we'll do again this year is bring in guest speakers who've come to the law from different pathways so for anyone here who doesn't think they want to just go to a big firm and follow that kind of path into their career obviously we'd welcome you to come and learn about other things that you can do with your law degree after a few years of study so check out our Facebook group and I'm looking forward to meeting you Hi I'm Mike, I'm from Veritas and Veritas is a group of Christian law students and we get together because if you're a Christian and you're a law student we have quite a lot in common so we meet weekly in the law school and we've got some stellar Bible studies planned and I think as law students it'll be one of your best times in your life to get to understanding the Bible because we get quite good at understanding a text in light of its purpose sound familiar? so you don't have to be a Christian to come along and that's because the opportunities to openly and honestly discuss are really rare and we also host bigger events in the past we've hosted talks by prominent lawyers and judges but really Veritas is just an opportunity to take a break from the really highly competitive nature of law school make a few friends and sort of explore your faith so if you're interested we'll have a stool set up at law school after this and you can also like our Facebook page so that's Veritas Christians at Law School


Hello, everyone. Like the last two speakers, I'm also presenting work from my thesis. The difference is I'm currently in the process of finishing my thesis. And so what you're seeing is actually work that's in progress rather than something that's finished. But what I want to talk about today is modularity, permutation, and open form. These are three ideas that I'll define here in a few minutes. But first, I want to start with the premise of my thesis. So what I'm looking at is visual identity design and type in the service of visual identity. And so there is a movement, I guess, of foot in visual identity design to think of it more as a flexible system rather than sort of the late modernist idea of a repeatable thing that is static and always appears the same in every instance. So in 2008, one of my heroes in design, Hugh Deverly, wrote an article called Design in the Age of Biology. And he talked about, at sort of a 30,000 foot view of design, that design is changing as a discipline from something that is dealing with more technology-based ideas like information flow and networks of actors rather than more traditional ideas of form-making. And so part of that is this comparison of what he calls a mechanical object ethos versus an organic systems ethos, which is what he claims that we're moving toward. And so some of the things that I found interesting here were the idea of something that's self-organized or grown rather than something that's made. Designer as author, or designer as facilitator versus designer as author. And then the idea of client as a steward of the thing that is designed rather than an owner of that thing. And finally, a stocking condition that is good enough for now and that can continue to adapt and evolve rather than something that is almost perfect and complete. These are things that challenge me because I feel like I was educated in the more mechanical object ethos. And so trying to break out of that and really try to understand what these other ideas mean. So thinking more specifically about visual identity design, there's this notion that designers are going to be creating visual identities that have perpetually updatable databases and generative archives rather than perhaps a minimum kit of parts that is turned over to the client. And so there are these three ideas that I've come across, modularity, permutation, open form. I see them as sitting on a continuum from something that's less complex to something that's more complex. And so the three prototypes that I'm going to show you today that I've been working on run the gamut from modularity to open form. Speaking specifically of modularity, this is the idea that parameters are fixed. There's a low bit of complexity and the designer is exerting the most control at this point. And so there's this idea that was first, the term was first coined I think by an architect, Peter Pierce in the 1970s, minimum inventory maximum diversity. So this is the idea that you're starting with a small number of things and you're creating a large number of things from that. And so I think an example that we could relate to is type cooker. This is breaking a typeface down into various parameters and then fixing those parameters. So you hit refresh, you get a new set of parameters, but the idea is that you're designing a typeface based on those parameters. Permutation deals with constants and variables. So you're still talking about parameters, but now the parameters are less fixed. They're allowed to fluctuate a little bit. This is moderately complex and the designer is releasing some of his over control over the final outcome rather than trying to control that. So another tool that we might be more familiar with, prototypo is something where you're not necessarily controlling all of the variables. You're allowing interpolation and the code that the application has control some of those things. You're simply sliding a slider and allowing it to do what it does. And then finally, the idea of open form deals with data flows. This is highly complex and you have very little control. So rather than you controlling those parameters, they're still fluctuating, they're in flux, but you're not necessarily the one inputting the data that controls what those variables do. So then in order to create something, I needed content. And so what I did was I sort of looked for something that was of interest to me. And since I was a child, I've been interested in lunar astronomy, astronomy in general. And so I found this fairly obscure process that was named after me, Tom of Athens. He realized that 235 lunar cycles is about the same as 19 solar years. And so by adding a few days of the year and some leap months every so often, you can sort of synchronize the lunar and solar calendars so that you don't sort of have this slipping of the seasons through the year if you're simply staying with the lunar calendar. And so this was fairly influential for a while until the Julian calendar was introduced. And so I used this metonic cycle as sort of the content of the three prototypes that I created. And so what I'm doing is I'm creating three visual identities for three hypothetical companies or entities and using various aspects of the metonic cycle as the content for each one of those. So the first one I came up with in lunar geology, zircon is one of the most common elements on the moon. And so I sort of combined that with this idea of these things called zomes. I'm not sure if you guys have ever seen these, but they're these structures sort of like geodesic domes that are built out of a single shape that just sort of fluctuates. It's a diamond that either gets wider or narrower as you get toward the top or the bottom. And so it's sort of the tagline I came up with for this company was moon bases for planet Earth. So it's these sort of unusual dwellings that are structures that can be built. And so I wanted a visual identity and a typeface that represented this that was along the same lines. So I started working with these paper models of the element zirconium. And I started building these three dimensional forms out of them that took on these sort of interesting shapes. But then what I wanted to do is I wanted to take that and flatten it into two dimensions so that I could then generate a typeface from that. And so what I first came up with was this pattern that represented the way that these models would sort of interlock with one another. And then if you connect the center points of all of those shapes within that, you get a more complex pattern that looks like this. And so kind of similar to what Joe and Ryan presented earlier, this typeface was generated from the shapes found within this pattern. And so I isolated all of the various shapes and started to put those things together, rotate them in different ways. And I had no idea whether or not I could sort of discover type from these shapes. So I started piecing them together. And I started seeing these stems start to come together, serifs that were forming at the bottoms of these things. And so then ultimately came up with enough material to create this typeface based on the matrix that I showed a couple slides prior. So these are some sort of minor variations of that. And then sort of a final resolved letter mark based on the shapes found in that two dimensional matrix. So then the next prototype that I created was for a hypothetical hotel, Hotel Meton. And what I wanted to do with this was look at sort of the way that the Metonic cycle actually works and to be sort of influenced by the culture that Meton existed within. And so I started looking at images from Greek antiquity and objects as well. And also sort of patterns that were being used on various things. But I also was interested in the fact that even though visual identity design has been sort of preached as this thing that is static and repeatable, there were some modernists who were doing very interesting and flexible things. This is Alexander Gerard's identity for La Fonda del Sol. And it didn't have a single logo. It had an idea of a logo that you could sort of create these permutations of. So he had about five faces, about five different sort of sun rays. And then these various colors that you could recombine in new and interesting ways. And so sort of combining those two ideas with a Metonic cycle. There are these leap years in the Metonic cycle every so often that add an extra month to the calendar. And so thinking about that in terms of the way that that would look visually. You have this 19 year cycle where there are seven long years and 12 short years. And so that sort of rhythm was what guided me to create a tight-faces sort of flexible and can get wider and narrower. And so I worked in glyphs and I found this sort of simple couple lines of code that you could add to the tight-face that depending on where it was and what it was next to the letters would either be the normal width or they would stretch to indicate the sort of the longer years of the Metonic cycle. And so taking the words hotel, meton and applying that sort of rhythm of the 19 years, 12 of which are normal, seven of which are longer, you sort of get these different permutations of the logo. It's all from the same tight-face and so it sort of all looks like it belongs but there's a variation there that happens. And I'm sort of releasing some of the control I have over that. Whatever letters come next, they decide whether they're going to be wide or narrow based on the sort of algorithm that I've created. And so when you add that to this marker that I made for this fictitious hotel that also has some parameters that vary. The owl's eyes either open or close to varying degrees. So here you can see on the wings there's a pattern and those patterns are derived from the letters and the words hotel, meton. So there are these various elements that recombine at random for a total permutation, there's 288 possible permutations of this logo and I'll just keep moving. So this last example is the most complex. This deals with open form and the idea that there are external factors controlling the variables rather than a designer. And this is also the one that's least resolved at this point. I only have some examples to show but the fictitious organization here is this sort of ancestry or genetic sort of company like the DNA service that's offered by Ancestry.com or 23andMe. And this idea comes from the fact that a calypic cycle is for metonic cycles plus one day because Calypus decided that the metonic cycle would still sort of cause problems over long periods of time. So another day needed to be added every 76 years and 76 years happens to also be about the life expectancy of a human being. And so I started thinking about typography as a living thing, a thing that was born sort of young and immature and grew to something more mature over time. And so what I wanted to do was use the different parts of this cycle to govern parameters of the typeface. And so the lunar rhythm governs the weight of the letter forms, the solar rhythms which are longer govern the width of the letter forms. And then finally the position, which metonic cycle you're in of the four that exist within a calypic cycle determine the sort of ends of the letter forms. And so here you can see a simple example of a waxing and waning sort of thing like from a new moon to a full moon and back to a new moon. But if you'll notice as this goes from left to right the letter form is actually increasing in width slightly because it's also moving through the solar cycle at the same time. So that you get this sort of over a year span of time you get this letter form that goes from thin and narrow and sort of waxes and wanes but also gets longer as you get toward the summer solstice and then would get narrower again as you move back toward the winter solstice. And it's difficult to see because it happens over such a long period of times but the terminals at the bottoms of these letter forms would go from this sort of young looking rounded sans-serif typeface to something that's more serious looking as it matures over time. And so the terminals would gradually shift. And so over the course of the formatonic cycles you would get something that goes from like I said something that's a sans-serif with rounded terminals to a more serious looking sans-serif to something that sort of sprouts these slabs sort of at the midlife crisis point of the typeface. And then ultimately those serifs are connected to the strokes by a bracket as it grows more mature over time. And I believe that is all I have. Thank you.


It's very, very important for the consortium board to really appreciate what the centers are, get a firsthand feel for the work that's going on, get a little bit of a chance to interact with the scientists, so that the board has a personal identification with the centers that make up the system with people who make up the system, and also get a little bit of a flavor of the constraints that we face. We have the capacity to have engaging conversations about critical issues. Not everybody agrees on everything. It should be very clear that, from my perspective at least, that we share a very solid, common platform of departure. We also share a common vision of where we want to end up, and not to bolster how we get there. Yes, we definitely share love for robust conversations. I think people who know us know, and I think that's necessary to move us forward. I would say that only situational reforms are difficult, but I think Anas has no exception to that. But I think that during the course of the last three years we have been building trust and confidence, and I think that now we are looking at common objectives and working together towards them, which I think is a significant change from the first days in which there were tensions and uncertainties and a number of things. I'm very glad we're not there yet, but I think we're moving in the right direction.


In the study of language, Description Award-Descriptive Linguistics is the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is actually used or how it was used in the past by a group of people in a speech community. All academic research in linguistics is descriptive, like all other sciences, its aim is to describe the linguistic world as it is, without the bias of preconceived ideas about how it ought to be. Modern descriptive linguistics is based on a structural approach to language, as exemplified in the work of Leonard Bloomfield and others. Linguistic description is often contrasted with linguistic prescription, which is found especially in education and in publishing. Prescription seeks to define standard language forms and give advice on effective language use, and can be thought of as a presentation of the fruits of descriptive research in a learnable form, though it also draws on more subjective aspects of language aesthetics. Prescription and description are complementary, but have different priorities and sometimes are seen to be in conflict. Descriptivism is the belief that description is more significant or important to teach, study, and practice than prescription. As English linguist Larry Andrews describes it, descriptive grammar is the linguistic approach that studies what a language is like, as opposed to prescriptive, which declares what a language should be like. In other words, descriptive grammarians focus analysis on how all sorts of people in all sorts of environments, usually in more casual, everyday settings, communicate, while prescriptive grammarians focus on the grammatical rules and structures predetermined by linguistic registers and figures of power for those who are under the control of said authorities to use. An example Andrews uses in his book is fewer than versus less than. The descriptive grammarian would state that both statements are correct, as long as the receiver of the message can understand the meaning behind the statement. A prescriptive grammarian, on the other hand, would analyze the rules and conventions behind the statements made and determine which statement is correct according to those rules. Andrews also believes that although the majority of linguists would be descriptive grammarians, the majority of public school teachers tend to be prescriptive.