Blog Aginor's Painting Blog

Red glaze? Even thinned down.... I think I don't dare to.
I have to think about it.

 

Do a test on a piece of scrap

 

@Aginor

 

Hmmm some good points there, thanks!
I'll do a paint over on a picture and see what could work visually for me.

 

While I am working on the Carno overpaint, here is a fun little thing I did:
I threw this image (white noise) into Google DeepDream.

The result was..... cool!
Here is what DeepDream saw in it:

 

Ok, here we go:

This is a (bad) overpaint of the Carnosaur, both sides.
Keep in mind that the spiky scales on the back will be considerably darker in the end (like on my other Carnosaur), so it will not have the same very high contrast it has now.
Also I think I will do those stripes with shade (several layers of dark shade I think), although I could also a thick drybrushing technique to paint them on.
I don't think I want to straight up paint them on with black or dark grey.
And I am not sure if I should try to make them sharp or blurry. If I make them too sharp then they will look weird because of the structure of the scales.


As you see I just added simple stripes. I tried to make a few that split, like on a tiger, but I failed so I kept it this way.


...and then I looked at my cat and decided to also make a version with the same stripes, but a black dorsal stripe connecting them.



Not sure which one looks better or how to further improve the concept before painting.
Any opinions on the technique, style, and color are very appreciated.

 

Here is one of the pics, with less opacity. Maybe that helps.

 

The black stripe down the spine is a really cool idea it does 2 things.

1. It ties the colour scheme together.
2. It adds contrast.

Now looking at it and how I would tackle it.

Paint it black and then inlay a mid grey as your back spine is currently grey plastic but that works so go grey, but fade the grey, really dark at the spine then highlight up and same with the stripes really dark at the spine highlighting down so you have a dark to light gradient.

 

Actually the spine is painted middle grey. It looks a lot darker in real life.

Your recipe sounds good so I think I will darken it with black shade, that is one of the things that have worked well for me in the past.
As for the gradient in the stripes...
I will try, but that kind of thing hasn't worked well for me in most cases. Especially on such a rough surface.

 

So...
Here is the current state.
I am.... semi-happy.

First I shaded the grey areas (they will receive a light grey drybrush but otherwise they are done.
Then I started to put the stripes on there using shade as well. I quickly stopped with that though as it just didn't look right.
So back to plain old matte black. First I was very sceptical, but after I had painted two or three of them I saw that it actually looked decent so I continued a bit more

The stripes are less dense as in my paint over but they are OK I think. I like most of the shapes and the black line on the top looks OK as well. I always struggle with natural shapes, I tend to paint too straight.

I also highlighted some of the white areas with pure white but it is practically invisible.

Now I wonder:
Should I shade?
I am really not sure if the stripes will look better if I blur their edges by applying a but of black shade all along them.
Any opinions on that?

And how should I highlight the black. Maybe a soft drybrush with a medium grey?

 

Meanwhile the rider is getting impatient.
His backup mount is just.... not the same.

 

In fact I did shade the red, but... the red shade didn't do a lot.
Maybe I should have used dark shade but I feared it would become too dark.
I'll probably increase contrast on the red parts a bit by a soft drybrush with a bright red.

 

That's because it is.
I haven't started on the face yet.

 

I just noticed that four days ago it was my second hobby anniversary!
October 14th 2016 was the day I painted my first model.

 

And look at the improvements you have made.