SPark's 2014-2015 PYOs

Hey SPark! great to see you here again <3 Missed you bigtime! *hugs* I see you're painting is as beautiful as always!

It’s good to be back. Though I am kind of planning on mostly hanging around the PYO section. Venturing out into other parts of the forum is a good way to get all frustrated and emo about being too poor to buy production Windstones. 🙁 But it is really fun going back through the posts and seeing all the amazing things people have been doing.

Wowzers ! You have some amazing work !

I love the kirins which have the lava-like scales, and the other with lava-like body and black scales, both very impressive. I also really like the kirin done like a koi. And the griffin that looks like a lava leopard, just awesome !!

And the dragons …. all I can say is wow ! The red/black one and the lava one are both stunning! And yes, I would love to see your step-by-step pics !

So have you sold these all already? Id be surprised if they havent sold, if they were for sale that is 😉

Thanks! (The koi kirin seems to be a lot of people’s favorite.) And yeah, they’re long-since sold, these are from years ago. I had to sell off almost my entire collection, including PYOs, back in the day. So the only ones that aren’t sold are the memorial kitty, which of course is not for sale, and the willow kirin that I just did, which I have no idea what I’ll do with. I’d probably sell that one if somebody wanted it. 🙂

I’ll post up the step-by-step on the lava dragon later today, probably. The forum keeps timing out on me right now, so I’m not sure I want to try writing up another long, pic-heavy post if it might not post correctly.

The willow kirin is very pretty, and I cant believe you actually painted over the gold horn… it was gold was it not? That would take guts to paint over that… for me it would at least, lol! It does look pretty awesome like that though 😉

Yep, it was gold. I didn’t want any gold in this color scheme though, I wanted just green and silver. So it had to go! I actually sanded it lightly first with very fine sandpaper, to give the paint a little grip, (otherwise it’ll come off if you even look at it funny) and then just painted it the same silver as on the hooves and the scale trim. Very easy to do!

Okay! Here’s the step-by-step on the lava dragon. It’s one of those things that really anybody can do, it just takes patience, but it’s super-easy.

Step one, get a dragon. I like using yellow eyes for this. If I do one again, though, I want to buy pupil-less eyes, so it just looks like the yellow lava is glowing through from underneath. You will also need a small sponge (I like a real sponge, I find that sponge brushes and makeup sponges leave too regular and small a texture, a natural sponge is more interesting and splotchy.) And of course you need black, yellow, orange, and red paints. Maybe a little purple, or some very dark red too.

Step two, paint it all the lightest, brightest yellow you have. (I am so glad I don’t have to tape off eyes anymore!) Let this dry completely. (You should let the colors dry completely between each step.)

Step three, mix a little orange into your yellow to get a nice marigold color. Take a sponge and dab that all over. Be generous. You don’t want to cover up the yellow completely, but you want it to be mostly marigold at this point.

Step four, take the orange, without any yellow, and sponge that over. You want to use a little less of this than you did of the marigold, but still be generous. Make it irregular, don’t splotch it evenly.

Step five, mix a little red into your orange to get a nice poppy color. Sponge that all over. Use less of this, you want to make sure lots of the colors under it show through.

Step six, sponge on some red. Make it very irregular and splotchy, and don’t use too much, you don’t need a lot. I actually also used a little very dark red, very sparingly, to add some final texture. Now you’re done with the easy part, time for the hard part.

Step seven, paint on bits of black. Only paint the “tops” of things, leave the cracks in between scales. Also, when the scales are really tiny, you may want to join some of them together, or if they’re really big, break them up and leave cracks in between. This part isn’t actually hard, but it takes FOREVER to do.

Step eight, seal it with your sealer of choice, and you’re done!