Marble Mayhem!

Today I was finishing off the rest of the statuary.  To do that, I had to get the pedestals painted.

First some generic colors on the 3 sections of marble on each base.

Using a smaller filbert brush, I quickly applied a slightly darker color, making sure to twist and turn the brush to make veins on the surface.

Make sure that each vein has a random shape.  If it's too regular, it just won't work.  So, be sure that some parts are much thicker than others, and so on...

The next stage was to put a slightly lighter color on the opposite side of those dark veins, using the filbert brush again.  There is a little more 'feathering' of the brush strokes now.  

That is, keep the edge next to the dark color sharp, but soften the edge on the other side.  You can even do that by wiping away some of it with your thumb if you work quickly enough.  Also, this rougher surface of the foam will let you get some very nice feathering using that method!

Working a little lighter, trying to keep the two edges hard and soft...

Final stage of feathered light colors.  I used a sharp #8 round craft brush for this part.

Using a liner brush, I started to draw out some lighter veins.  These not only enhanced that edge, but I started to 'cross over' the darkest sections as well.

The light sections are complete... time for some green!  Beginning with the filbert brush, I added some very broad strokes with a color slightly lighter than the original green.

I switched to the craft brush again to enhance those lighter swatches.  You can see that I am trying to create the same definition as the other color of marble.  Remember... keep it as random as possible!!

Getting lighter!  The veins become more and more defined.

For this final layer, I went back to the liner brush with my lightest color, following the patterns already created.

As a final touch, I added some dark colors in a few select areas.  These enhanced the lighter veins running through the green marble.

I hope this is useful for creating some quick marble!!!