So we left off finishing up the knight. Well, now it's time to break down how I did the dragon (his main areas at least). I started by pushing the mid tones that were started in the airbrushing phase with the colors above. Very watered down. Let's see how that looks...
Next I pushed the highlights with these colors:
Again keeping it thin so that they blend well, but not too smooth as it's supposed to look cartoony.
Pretty stark right? Not to worry, now we start to shade it back down and add some real depth and contrast using these colors first.
Thin, over lapping glazes. Like working with water colors.
And a bit deeper with these colors.
Again lots of wet blending and glazes all very thin so you can force the shadows where you want them.
Then it's one final glaze to pull everything together a bit more with these colors.
Almost a damp brush rather than wet.
That's good for now. Let's move onto the wings, spines and tummy. Base coat with this color.
A few thinned passes. They don't have to be super even either because it's an organic surface and will look more natural with some tonal variation.
Once again onto the mid tones with these colors.
Thin, uneven, force the highlights to where you want them.
Not too much of a difference. Now again with a lighter set of colors.
Keep it a bit sloppy to make it more natural and maintain the cartoony aspect too.
Yeah that looks awful right now. But then we start to shade down with thin coat of this color in certain areas.
Now we add some more shadows with these colors.
Again very thing and controlled. You don't have to push them too hard at this point.
Okay, it still looks kind of chalky and weird, but there's one more glaze with these colors.
Nice. And while we have this color mixed we should hit the skin in a few places to tie it all together and force the eye to certain details like the face.
This is a great place to stop. Here area few detail shots to give you an idea of where I pushed the shadows and highlights.
Now this was all done over several nights, but only in about 30-40 minutes at a time. It's very important to let each layer dry completely before deciding if it's enough and when to move onto the next set of colors. It's also okay to go back and forth with the colors to adjust any areas you don't like. Luckily purple is the most forgiving color to work with outside of blue ;) I even did some while making the Thanksgiving turkey last weekend and had time for a little bit of this:
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| Ah, fall in Canada. Pretty. So pretty....ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........... |
Next post: A little side project for a friend at work. Please hit me with any questions, comments and critiques you may have below. Thanks for stopping by and remember, you can't spell paint without a little pain ;)
