Tenacious Techniques #1 - Painting Ethereal

    Welcome to the first ever Tenacious Techniques, where I pick a painting technique and attempt (sometimes foolishly) to use the technique or style on one of my models. These post are going to be a short series, and I'll keep posting as long as I have ideas(bah i'm such a noob)! Just a little disclaimer, though; Some of these are merely attempts at styles and techniques, to better my skills as a painter. If you have other ideas of what I could do for Tenacious Techniques, shoot me an email at slaphappysid@trollbloodscrum.com.

    This week I have been dabbling in two techniques, but I will only talk about one of them: Ethereal style.

Ethereal Painting Style

    This was my first attempt at it, and I wasn't quite sure of how to go about it. I picked a typical pallet of colors that match that ghostly look.

   My next problem was what model was suited for this kind of style. I being a poor college student, I didn't have many models to choose from. Fortunately, I had some Cryx models that I got from my brother; And it is also unfortunate that I actually own Cryx models. Ewww!

    I chose Deneghra as the model for this attempt, because of her swaying cloak; I thought it would be appropriate to paint that cloak very ghost-like. So, Here comes the steps the steps that I used.

1. Priming and Base Coating

    I first primed her white, and based coated her cloak Arcane Blue. I tend to use white, because it makes colors brighter, and I can see the details more.

2. Ink with Turquoise 
    I love using inks. They are the best things in the world for painters. I use a 3:2 ink:water mix when I use them; I used that same ratio for this painting scheme. Other times I might add more water to thin out the ink to get into the recesses.

    This next step I branched off, so that you may see the difference between two brush blending and dry brushing. I am not comparing them to each other, but more as to show two different preferences to get the look you want. i did the front of the model with two-brush, and the back side dry brush.
3. Two-Brush Blending/Dry Brushing
    For both techniques I used mixtures of Arcane Blue and Frostbite, to get that eerie whitish blue hue. The pictures don't do it any justice. I probably should have gone a little heavier on the frostbite to make it more white, but this was also my first time using the two-brush blending technique. Anyways, I thought that teh model turned out pretty good for a first time.

    That's it! In hind sight I should have painted a little more Frostbite on the cloak, so that it would show up in the picture better. I really like how it all turned out for both techniques; I won't, however, use it on any ethereal styles with my trolls, but still a good style to know nonetheless.

    Thanks for reading and next week I will be posting my progress of the Family Reunion tier list, and all that fun jazz. I haven't decided on the next Tenacious Techniques topic yet, but I will think it over the next week or so. Cheers and Good Luck!