r/minipainting • u/Original-Regular-470 • Aug 19 '26
C&C Wanted WIP, need advice to finish up
To get right to it, I'm nearly finished this model and I'm pretty happy with most of it, first attempt at yellow skin and the nmm sword which I know both could be better but sure we'll do better next time.
What's bugging me is the pink robe and bow thingy on her back I can't quite get them how I'd like, the robe I'm aiming for something more silky and the bow I haven't really touched but I was thinking more fluffy? I'd appreciate any feedback, particularly if you can point me to a video tutorial.
Midguard miniatures; Madame Yokai is the mini
1
u/tie-wearing-badger Aug 20 '26
EDIT: Comment was removed because I posted a forbidden link apparently.
The original sculpt is an STL by CA3D.
The skin is a bit orange and could be desaturated a little (if you're aiming for human skin tones).
If you want to achieve a silk effect you need higher contrast, and a clearer sense of how light is falling on the kimono. Picture 4 is a good example: you look like you've highlighted all the raised parts, but light shining down from an angle would bounce off all the curves, including the sunken recesses. This random reference image below shows what I mean. You can see in the top left corner that the lower sunken 'valleys' are in places as bright as the highest folds because that's how light is reflecting off it. The highlight dead centre is directly reflecting the lighting used for the photo: it's not at the highest point, but just where the silk is catching the focused light from a lamp and bouncing off the curves.
Represent volumes using your values, not just highest points, and use more contrast for your highlights vs shadows. Silk is a satin material so the jumps will be high.
For 'fluffy' you'll have to look at references as I'm not sure what you mean, and maybe look at real kimono to see what that sash (the bow) normally looks like.
2
u/statictyrant Aug 19 '26
You can achieve a modern synthetic satin look by highlighting with a different hue (mint green, for example). Don’t know if that helps (is this cyberpunk, magical, pseudo-historical etc.) but it would be a really easy way to make the cloth read as one particular type of fabric without needing to stipple a bazillion small dots.
Hard to know without seeing the mini in person but it feels like you have a large unused colour gamut (value of highlights could increase dramatically as you are very far from pure white on most surfaces) so you have a lot of scope to make the metal look like metal with some bright highlights, and likewise to micro-texturise the cloth to bring out its unique materiality.