The Great Figure Forest and the Great Elk.

We continue with the Elk from Wild West Exodus.  With the general value pattern established, I want to get into certain areas and see which ones I want to emphasize more with a variety of contrast methods.

I also want to see how I should render the fur on the haunches.  Usually, I want to paint in some kind of subtle hints of fur strands, even if the sculpted surface is completely smooth.

This is where one of the more pristine of the #8 round brushes comes in!

I will use that to paint in subtle fur marking of various lighter colors.  These will also be "directional strokes", or brush strokes that follow the grain of the fur.

Again, I am not trying to make them too obvious... I just want to have an indication, especially since the mane has such an intense texture.

Working my way around the figure, adding a hint of warmer tan here and there...

Since he glows with the blue energy of the Great Spirit, it's time to break out the Vallejo fluorescent paint!

They are very transparent on their own, so you have to mix other colors in with them if you want them to be lighter.

Since I will be using lots of cooler blue colors on the face, making the horns more of a warm color is a great way to get some contrast without having to make them too bright.  So, some yellow, auburn and blue are mixed together.

The horns will be built up lighter than the final version, as usual, for the Shaded Bascoat.

Getting lighter.  Once the darker glazes have been placed over this, I will make more additions of greens and such...

The glow on the face is now as bright as it can be... so it's time to add darks around it!

Makes a big difference, that's for sure!  Instant contrast :-)  A blue/brown glaze mixture.

This is carried all around the mane, until it reached the shoulders.  At this point, I added some sepia into the glaze mix.

Set aside and left to dry out so that I can do the same process on the lower legs and horns!!

The Great Figure Forest.  All of these pieces are essentially in the Shaded Basecoat phase.

Wanna be scared?  There are three more "forests" just like this which I had to leave in the home studio.

And seedlings have been planted, which have already become hundreds of little saplings!

Be afraid, be very afraid.