Pingo essays 77102: Ebonwrath

[Pingo]

So.

 

I tried painting some minis without WIPs and found myself having a hard time keeping track of what and how much I had done. So I'm back, although these may be sporadic and really slow to update. We'll see.

 

Anyhow, after painting a lot of tiny figures for the January Bones Beauty Pageant, I decided to move in the opposite direction and tackle some of the big figures from Bones I to clear out room for Bones II.

 

So I am painting dragons. Five of them, if you count the Frost Wyrm. Each one gets its own thread, though, since I don't know how I'm going to progress through them.

 

Dragon number two (going alphabetically) is 77102, Ebonwrath.

 

I wasn't trying to make a specific "look" for any dragon. When I asked my husband the GM what colors he would like to see in dragons, he said "variety."

 

Looking at this figure's shape, I thought of alligators and malice and green swampiness. So I figured I'd try -- or at least start -- painting it green.

 

My painting method is pretty high-wire without a net, so I don't know what it will look like finished, only a region that I'm aiming for. It may not even be green, in the end. We'll see.

 

At any rate, my first painting session I was doing five (count 'em) dragons, all with wings detached for ease of painting. So my first order of business after a layer of Reaper's Brown Liner, the wonder primer that Buglips identified, was to make sure each dragon and its matching wings had an underlayer in the direction of the color I was thinking of painting it.

 

So here's Ebonwrath, first with a layer of Brown Liner, then with a wash of transparent warm dark green mixed from Phthalo Green and Burnt Sienna. Its color at the moment is a very deep green, like seaweed or badly overcooked spinach. This is only an underlayer.

 

The other dragons I'm painting concurrently are Deathsleet, the Fire Dragon, the Shadow Dragon, and the Frost Wyrm.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Pingo

[Pingo]

I just painted the crudest sort of lime green highlights on the figure.  I still consider this an underpainting.

 

I think one of the wings may have gotten somewhat flattened and needs to be warmed and re-curled.

 

 

[Pingo]

I have had a mad idea.

 

If I paint all those little knobbly bits on the dragon's skin as illusionistic gemstones, I will have an Emerald Gemstone dragon.

 

(Plot, scheme, steeple fingers together ...)

[Dontfear]

I like where you are going with this. Nice job!

 

The gem idea would be super cool. so much painting.....

Edited March 3, 2015 by Dontfear

[terminalmancer]

I have had a mad idea.

 

If I paint all those little knobbly bits on the dragon's skin as illusionistic gemstones, I will have an Emerald Gemstone dragon.

 

(Plot, scheme, steeple fingers together ...)

That would be a gorgeous dragon.

 

Also, you're insane.

 

(These two things may or may not be related.)

[Lochar]

There's a fine line between genius and insanity.  Painters just know how to blend it!

[Pingo]

I noticed something funny about the wings.  They are awfully flat, and the left one in particular was almost a little inside-out.  I put it in a pot of hot water and shaped it to a curve, but there are still a couple of odd dimples in it that look like it was handled too roughly with rectangular tongs when just hot out of the mold.  It wants to pop inside-out, and I am hoping to keep it behaving.

(These are where the dents can still be seen on the upper side of the wing)

 

So anyway, I am painting all the little knobs on Ebonwrath's skin like illusionistic gems.  The technique is one I used on my spelljammer and looks like this (really, really close up):

 

You start with a black or dark disk.  Then you paint a softly-blended white spot at the bottom, sometimes a bit to the right, as here, or left.  It also helps to add a bit of white fog just outside the gem opposite the white spot.  Then you glaze your gem color over the whole thing, including the fog.  When it is dry you paint a tiny, sharp, brilliant white highlight (or two, as here, or more) opposite the now-colored white spot.

 

Voilà, gems.

 

I am probably going to use a slightly more complex method, with corrections and additions and effects of different lighting around the dragon.

 

So, I have mixed not a stark white, but a soft cold very pale grey, and am adding white spots to the bottoms of all the knobbly bits.  In some cases I am fudging, or as it is called around here, freehand.

 

This is how it looked as I started:

 

All these spots are going to have green (and possibly also yellow or blue) glazed over them so they look like the luminescent interior you see when light passes through a cabuchon gemstone.

 

 

[Lochar]

Pingo, you are my hero.  Or gem dragonmaster, your choice.  That's going to be AWESOME.

[Talae]

Amazingly inspirational! Go Pingo!

[smokingwreckage]

Jaw, meet floor. Floor, jaw. I'm SO glad you two have hit it off, as you're going to be spending quite some time together...

Edited April 11, 2015 by smokingwreckage

[klarg1]

I have had a mad idea.

 

If I paint all those little knobbly bits on the dragon's skin as illusionistic gemstones, I will have an Emerald Gemstone dragon.

 

(Plot, scheme, steeple fingers together ...)

 

That's a wonderful idea.

 

The idea of starting 5 dragons all at once terrifies me though. I'm not sure I'd ever finish.

[Corporea]

oh wow! Great idea!!!  Also- I remember this dragon's skin and I think I might have hated it.  Good luck!   I don't think mine had the bumps in the wings.  Can you fill them in with paste?

[Pingo]

The wings have slowly flattened out again and the dents remain.  I will live with them.  You can see how they bend in on the back of the wing and bulge on the front.

 

 

I started by glazing color over what will be the luminescence inside the gems.  I imagine the color as brighter and warmer above, cooler and bluer below.  The upper-facing glaze is a semi-translucent chartreuse green mixed from Hansa Yellow Light and Phthalocyanine Green.

 

The side glaze is a mix with somewhat less yellow.

 

And I glazed the shadows with pure Phthalocyanine Green, which is quite bluish.

 

I brushed almost pure Hansa Yellow on the underside of the wings to show the effect of sunlight shining through them.  Hansa Yellow is semi-opaque, nothing like the old Cadmiums, but enough to partially cover the blackish green with useful results.

 

Next I used Burnt Umber, which is an intensely dark brown with a subtle purplish cast, to paint the shadowed "fingers" on the underside of the wings.  Purple is the chromatic opposite of chartreuse green, so it should give a subtle boost to the shadowing effect.

 

I decided to wash some Burnt Umber, mixed with a little Red Iron Oxide to give it a little opacity and more contrast, over the dragon's form to emphasize the green and to give a little more richness to the darks.  I did it with the figure upside-down so the wash would settle at the tops of the knobs, or gems, making them darker in contrast to the luminescence inside the gems.

 

And here's what the washed dragon looks like dried.

 

[Corporea]

fantastic color- it truly gives that iridescent feel like starling or grackle plumage.  I love it!

[Auberon]

Very nice Pingo!  After some initial failures I now like to let my bones sit for awhile after boiling to see what keeps its new shape and what doesn't.