Post 200: Painting Lylyth's Cloak

This one is a bit rushed today – pics aren't terribly sharp – but I am overdue a post. I've also had a report that my blog throws up a malware warning, so if anyone else experiences this please do let me know.

Ok, on to the post.

This lovely lady, as you may have gathered from recent posts, is Lylyth – warlock of the Legion of Everblight. After she was given a quick paint job in time for last weekend's tutorial games I wanted to go back and lavish some time finishing off the details. Not too long mind you as I have TWO alternative versions of this character, both better sculpts, waiting in the wings.

Today I will concentrate on her cloak, which was a joy to paint thanks to my recently acquired pot of P3 Coal Black. Now let's be honest, it's not black at all. In fact it's a gorgeous deep sea blue/green. With the plethora of paints I currently own I never thought I'd need to buy paint again, or rather I couldn't imagine a colour I'd be missing or couldn't match. Coal Black is the colour I've been missing – it's amazing, and it gives great results.

I have made today's photos a bit bigger to retain the original colour as much as possible. The camera doesn't catch it exactly but it's pretty close.

Lylyth's cloak was given an undercoat of Black then a thin base layer of 60/40 Coal Black/Black. After that had dried thoroughly I went back in with several layers of 100% Coal Black, thinned with a lot of water so I could build up highlights slowly and gradually.

Once these layers had reached a point where they weren't having much more impact I started to add white to the mix, still very watered down. It tends to look very harsh when first painted on but dries to almost transparent.

This process continued until the mix was probably 70/30 White/Coal Black. At this point I mixed some white with a small amount of Coal Black – probably 90/10 – and watered it down a lot to add a brighter highlight to key edges. I then went back in with a thicker version of the same mix (i.e. less water) and added tiny amounts to the same key edges. In this instance I didn't feel a final highlight of pure white was appropriate as it is meant to be a cloth surface.

Under normal circumstances I would probably have spent more time getting the layers smoother, and it could do with some shadows re-applying and then a wash to unify the layers. However, as I said earlier, this is a quicker paint job than normal and I'm happy as it is.

As you can see she still needs a few details finishing, and I'm due to get my delivery of snow flock today, so she should be complete by the weekend.

I have made another test video, this time showing me painting the wooden bow on this model. It didn't make it into today's post as it takes an age to upload to YouTube and the wife needed the internet for work today – keep you eyes peeled for that any day now.