Painting a female Storm Giant

Introduction

Our Storm King's Thunder campaign features more than 3d printed giants! I do have a couple of proper minis, including this one from Reaper. The description says it's a cloud giant, but the campaign is centered on prominent Storm Giants, so... ssshhh! (Although the players first met this mini as Zephyra the cloud giant.)

Painting

I purchased this miniature half-painted, as seen here. I was influenced by both the already laid out color scheme, as well as the featured works of art on the website.

Skin

I wanted to tone down the skin, having it become less saturated. I also liked the way light reflected on the blue surfaces (see the picture above), and I wanted to preserve that with my highlights.

First, I pushed back the darker blue with a diluted glaze of Sombre Grey.

Wash Drakenhof Nightshade.

Follow up with a smaller coverage of Sombre Grey glazing, then highlight up to Wolf Grey along the lines where light would reflect.

I thought the contrasting lines way too harsh, so I diluted Drakenhof with Lahmian Medium and applied 2 soft layers to tone the colors down.

Turqoise hair

Storm Giants have green/turqoise hair (as opposed to silvery/white of Cloud Giants). Basecoat Dark Green.

Highlight raised areas with Turqoise.

Highlight up from Turqoise by mixing in Jade Green...

... up to Electric Blue.

Mesh the colors with a healthy dose of Coelia Greenshade wash.

Highlight with a drybrush of 1:1 Turqoise/Jade Green.

At this point the hair was getting close in tone to the skin, so I stopped working on it. It might look funny now, but the color scheme was getting fleshed out in my mind: a mix of cold colors on the extremities, with warm tones in the middle.

Gold breastplate and jewels

This also includes parts of the bracers.

Basecoat Bright Bronze.

Layer in Glorious Gold, leaving the bronze only at the edges.

Wash Seraphim Sepia.

With the colors toned down by the wash, I could achieve more color variation with another layer of Glorious Gold.

And a thick edge highlight of Polished Gold.

Dilute Seraphim Sepia with Lahmian Medium and wash again.

Final, thin edge highlight of Polished Gold. I felt happy about the gold gradient leading up to a very shiny metallic.

Silver bracers and the mace

This follows the silver metallic painting tip, starting off here with a Gunmetal basecoat.

At this point, I was wavering on how to do the staff/mace/cudgel. The original grey basecoat suggests a marble column, but I found that just plain silly (imagine hitting someone with a fragile marble stick), so I switched over to metallics. Since I already had the Gunmetal out, I mixed in black to get a darker base color (and to look different than the bracers). Then, since I had the black out, I mixed it with Bright Bronze (again, for a different look). The result was this brassy color and a dark silver.

With the silver bracers and ornaments finished, I turned my attention back to the mace with an edge highlight of Gunmetal and Bright Bronze.

I diluted Agrax Earthshade with medium, wanting to provide a unified feel to the implement, but avoiding the dirty, worn look undiluted Agrax usually gives to silver.

And a final, thin edge highlight of Gunmetal and Bright Bronze, again.

The final touch is provided by tiny amounts of Nihilakh Oxide in the recesses, giving just a hint of age.

Warm white loincloth (skirt?)

Follow the painting tip. Although, being a larger surface, I strung out the steps, doing several color mixes going from Bonewhite to white.

(Yes, I had to dig out and older mini for the painting tip, as I thought that I already had it and did not take photos here.)

Gemstones

Follow the painting tip. 

Leather shoulder guards

Initially, I wanted to do blue leather, but I decided against it in light of the color scheme I was going for: warm colors in the middle. I took advantage of the already in-place basecoat, and did a thick edge highlight of Leather Brown.

Wash Agrax Earthshade.

Selective and thin edge highlight of Leather Brown. Not worn leather at all, as that wouldn't go with all the polished metal this lady prances around in.

More blue details

The bracer on the left hand should look like a shiny blue stone (corall?). Basecoat Heavy Blue.

Darken up with Drakenhof Nightshade.

Edge highlight with Heavy Blue. I also painted the fingernails, eyes and lips.

I painted the eyes white.

Then I had the brilliant idea to have glowing eyes, so I tried a glaze around them. Unfortunately the white paint I have is actually a primer, and covers way too well.

The first step in repairing that was a bit of Electric Blue. I also edged the bracer.

The eyes still looked funny, so I slipped in some Drakenhof Nightshade to reestablish contours.

And then it looked like the lady has white eyeliner. So I applied Guilliman Blue. I also did this on the bracer, to mesh the abrupt highlight.

Now the eyes had kind of a blue glow, so I worked with that. Magic Blue into the eyeball, and also to highlight the fingernails and lips.

Heavy Blue around the eyes.

And Electric Blue for the pupils. The glowing effect, being blue on blue, is not very noticeable. But it's still better then having "regular" eyes, white eyes, or some contrasting glow like orange. I'm OK with the result.

Basing

I imagined her standing on a shore, admiring her own reflection in the water. First of all, I created a raised area behind her using home-made putty.

Add more rocks and paint the ground as per the wasteland painting tip.

Add sand to the seabed.

Add some bushes. This is not a wasteland, after all - more like a lakeside shore.

Water effects

With some tape creating a "bed" for the water to sit in, I mixed some Vallejo Still Water with Guilliman Blue and poured it in.

The gel solidified and reduced quite a lot,except in some places where it hardened into a blueish mass.

It looked awful, so I ripped/cut it off. It damaged the terrain.

Which I repaired.

I re-did the tape and poured in more water. Several layers.

Even added some leaves to complete the vegetation. I also made sure that the bottom most bush is half-in the water.

This time, it dried in two a white blob:

The struggle is real. I cut it off again.

I repaired the terrain. Again. Applied tape. Again. Poured in water effect mixed with Guilliman Blue. Again. This time, it went well.

Finally, I painted Guilliman Blue over the edge of the sand and the transparent solidified gel (no way I'm cutting it off again). It looks OK and the illusion of water is better.

This is actually the second water base that I did at this point (the other is not yet published, as I painted the mini after this one), so I tried my hand at "advanced" stuff like mixing in plants and bushes. Honestly, I am still in the dark about how this water effect gel is supposed to be used properly. Nothing else to do but to keep experimenting.

Finished!