[Kelsey]

Thanks! It’s a happy accident sort of thing. 🙂

PNW, coffee drinker, budding artist

[Kelsey]

Okay, might be done with Raphael? I might go over it with a matte coat instead of satin. I dropped the jewel at some point and lost it, so I used apoxie sculpt to make a netherstone (it’s a powerful item in the game that this character wants) and painted it. I ended up finding the jewel again last night(!) but I might just keep my homemade one. I’ve used museum putty to hold it in place for now.

Now I’m temped to do the rest of the BG3 crew…

Pictures include the reference image.

PNW, coffee drinker, budding artist

[Kelsey]

Update with this weekend’s work. Almost done! I repainted the greys to be color matched to the reference, pushed shadows and lights, and did cleanup. I will say he is good practice for learning to make gradients with dry brush and wet blending.

PNW, coffee drinker, budding artist

[Kelsey]

Thanks!
I’m using Golden Fluid acrylics so far, except the purple base scales. For those I mixed a friend’s paint, Master Series Paint HD? Gem Purple, with a few drops of Golden’s Vat Orange to desaturate.

I am now indecisive about what color to do for the feathering. I can continue with red, use the hair/horn grey (that is now on the dorsal scales), or, maybe more of a warm rich black like in the shadows of Raphael’s wings. I’m not sure.

PNW, coffee drinker, budding artist

[Kelsey]

Thanks for describing this. I ran into the issue of rubbing paint off during the antiquing process and wasn’t sure what I did wrong. I’ll try doing this order next time.

PNW, coffee drinker, budding artist

[Kelsey]

I love the pearlescent blue you added! It must look so nice when you walk past and see the shine. Great icy palette.

PNW, coffee drinker, budding artist

[Kelsey]

I picked the dark red and it’s perfect. I’m posting my progress so far and will add another pic with the eyes in after my session today. 🙂

I started with an idea of shadow and flame theme, laid down a cool base coat, then used procreate to test the colors. I didn’t like the yellow and gold together that I was trying out, so I fished through my art books to get ideas on a better color scheme. In the Baldur’s Gate 3 art/concept book, the image of Raphael (my favorite boss battle) was so striking. So my dragon is now Raphael, Master of the House.

I’m testing a different paint job, one mimicking light source like in a 2D painting. So the colors show most when viewed from the front, and the rest will be painted to fall into shadow. Might look dramatic, might be terrible and need repainting.

PNW, coffee drinker, budding artist

[Kelsey]

Thanks for the compliment!

Okay, good to consider re. limitations of the spray varnish. Thanks for the advice.

PNW, coffee drinker, budding artist

[Kelsey]

Finished! I got some Krylon spray to use, but later was shopping at Blick and found Liquitex varnishes with a variety of textures. So I got a matte and a high gloss and ended up painting on the varnish. It took a while, and I’ll probably just spray next time, but it was a learning experience! The strong light makes the matte look shinier than it is, but IRL the textures look really distinct.

PNW, coffee drinker, budding artist

[Kelsey]

Ah thank you for the advice! Glad to hear it can work that method. I’ll give that a go. ^^

PNW, coffee drinker, budding artist

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