Jarl goes PLAID

I didn’t do any painting on Thursday, but I painted for more than 2 hours yesterday. I am not going to post every step in detail because it takes way too long to upload all of the pictures and it interferes with my work to stop and take pictures every few minutes. Here is Jarl before I started painting


It was easy to complete the armor. First I applied a coat of “Pig Iron” Next I did a wash with pure “Armor Wash”( I want the armor to be shiny) third I dry brushed some “Quick Silver” and lastly I dry brushed some highlights on with “quick silver” mixed with “Glorious Gold”.

Next came the difficult part. I pictured Jarl with plaid from the beginning. I pulled out my little boy’s red plaid pajama pants for reference. Using my reaper master series 30-0 brush and Vallejo Game Color paints I went to work. I like the Game Color paints for painting fine lines because they are thinner than the P3 paints. We don’t have these paints in stock at Phoenix Games, but they are available for special order. I always end up with paint on my hands when doing detail work, because skin is the best thing you can use to wipe off excess paint.

before after

before after


Not that I am really good at painting small straight lines, but I’ll give you some tips that help. First and foremost keep an eraser near by. The eraser should be a small wet brush with semi-stiff bristles, I use my old worn out dry brushing brush. as soon as you make a mistake rub the wet paint with the eraser brush, you need to be quick since the tiny amount of paint will dry fast. A good quality detail brush is crucial. The other thing that helps, or maybe hurts is having a high resolution camera, or a good magnifying glass. After taking pictures I zoomed in and found that the plaid looked crappy. That’s why I say maybe it hurts. So I spent another half hour touching up the plaid. It still looks far from perfect, but I don’t think anyone will be inspecting it with a magnifying glass.

Purple Skin

Today I pulled out Old Jarl to work on him for one hour (my goal is to work on him for at least one hour each day until he’s finished). I began by finishing up the washing, which included the base and just a couple spots I missed. Then I decided to work on his skin. I wanted it to be a dark charcoal-ish purple. I included the paints and brushes in each photo that I used for each step.

Step 1:
First I brushed a coat of purple onto his skin.

I watered it down so the black wash would show through.

Step 2:

Next I mixed grey and purple and applied a light coat,

keeping it out of the deeper cracks.

Step 3:
I added some black and mixing medium to the purple and did a little wash.

Step 4:

Then I added some grey and white and dry brushed it on.

Step 5:
To bring out more detail I did a second drier dry brushing with more white in the mixture.

Well that wasn’t the look I wanted. It was too light and chalky. So I did a wash with the P3 armor wash. I almost always add some water to any of the inks I use, because if I don’t they dry looking really shiny, which I don’t like. At this point I was starting to get sick of stopping and taking pics of each step, but it is a great illustration about how much trial and error happens in my work. I rarely get the figure looking right the first time, but the layers of color give my work a unique look of depth. The best example of this is the Larris figure I painted. Check out his picture in the post “Epic Kaya and Larris” look at him closely, There were at least 20 steps, and at some points it looked awful, but there was no other way to get the end result.

Step 6:

After the armor wash Jarl looks dark indeed.

The purple is present but not so dominant.

Step 7:

So next I did what I’ll call a wet/dry brush. Using a flat tipped brush loaded with just enough paint to go on smoothly, I lightly brush the figure. Sorry this picture is a little fuzzy because it is a dark cloudy day, my camera does not have a super low f stop, I don’t want a ton of grain in the picture produced by a high ISO and I have no tri pod to stabilize the slower shutter speed.

Step 8:
Finally I added some white and grey and did a couple of dry brushings. Sorry I didn’t take pics of each dry brush step I did, but it was basically the same as the dry brushes in steps 4 and 5. This time I used less white and made sure there was not too much paint on the brush.

When the skin was done I did a little detail work on the mouth, adding a golden tooth for fun! Don’t worry, I plan on doing the rocks on his skin a different color, I just haven’t decided what color to paint them yet.

A Good Wash

The first step I do after priming is a wash. In the beginning I used black, to bring out the details and make sure all of the nooks and crannies were dark. I later discovered that I could bring out the details and darken the cracks while at the same time getting down the basic color scheme to make sure it was going to work. Since the paint is watered down so much it is easy to change my mind about the colors at this point if they are not looking good on the figure. I think Jarl's basic color scheme is looking good so far. I love using the P3 mixing medium along with water when doing this first wash, because it really makes a difference in how well the color stays in the cracks. Without the mixing medium the wash will dry with air bubbles and other undesirable effects, leaving some of the regions of the model that you want in dark shadow white.