Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Dragonfall 2


This beastie from Mierce Miniatures was an interesting exercise in the full range of greens!

As I have tried to show in a number of my painting videos, these can range from blue green to almost yellow from cool to warm.


Saturation is another added element to this difference in tones.  You can even have the same kind of yellow green or blue green, but if it is toned down with even a little bit of red, it begins to read as more grayish to the eye.


You can see in some of these images how the yellowish intense green on the underside of the wings contrasts with the more muted, blueish greens on the back of the wings.  This is a subtle way of getting that contrast without resorting to radical differences in how light or dark the colors might be.

During my tutorial videos, I like to turn off all saturation at a certain stage to show how you can get "sneaky" contrast like this.

If I were to make this a black and white image, the two sides of the wings would look identical!


I also incorporated some reds in certain places to get one extra level of contrast.  So, the reds are placed where the green and the yellow of the two sides of the wings joins.  This is also a bit darker than the rest of the wings, adding one more type of contrast.


I already have a number of tutorial videos on painting greens available to the patrons of my Patreon Page at: www.patreon.com/JamesWappel


11 comments:

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    1. Thank you so much! These big guys are a challenge, but always fun! :-)

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  2. On this, Dragon Appreciation Day, I am LOVING this one! Did you give it a nickname while painting? And did it demand a blood sacrifice?

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    1. I think we did... something tells me we called him "Limey" ;-)

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  3. This is masterful! I have been looking at quite a few monochromatic dragon schemes and this the best.
    Why did you put the patterning on the underside of the wings? It seems that when one looks at these models on the tabletop, the wings dominate. The upperside is beautiful, but the underside has the more complex pattern.

    Also, this brings to mind Stephen Quiller's watercolor books and how he talks about how the neutral tones make the higher chroma colors stand out even more.

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    1. Many thanks! That effect was requested by the buyer, which means that it is one of those where you don't have complete say over how something look :-) Having done commission things for soooo many years, it is a thing you just get accustomed to.

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  4. I don't know what is more impressive; the quality of your painting or the speed with which you complete them!

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    1. Hehe, I suppose that you could say hunger and homelessness are quite inspirational... but it is also like wanting to see the end so you know how it turns out :-)

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