I've been working on this hobbit figure from Andrea Miniatures (Olfo Fastfeet). It's 54mm scale, though as a hobbit that still means only about 30mm tall. One of the things that drew me to this figure was the lamp he's carrying. It's a great opportunity to work with Object Source Lighting (OSL). This is my first serious attempt at painting lighting effects. Last year I tried to do a glowing plasma pistol, but that's the extent of my experience. This figure really centers around the lamp as the primary light source.
You can see the progression of this figure below. I began with the face, painting the highlights from below and shadows above. As I worked on each section of the figure I used the location of the lantern to determine the direction of my highlights and shadows. I also increased the intensity of the highlights the closer I got to the lantern. The toughest parts were the face and the NMM dagger. My first attempt on the face was a disaster. I went from the dark shadow tones to the highlights without using those reddish midtones. It did not look good. So I stripped the figure and began again. For the dagger I wanted to do NMM, something I've very little experience with. When my first attempt went awry I couldn't strip him so instead I carefully sanded off the paint on the dagger and started that section over.
If you want any details on how I've been painting this figure or my paint mixes just ask, or you can check my painting blog: [URL="http://powellminipainting.blogspot.com/"]http://powellminipainting.blogspot.com/[/URL]