how to make acrylic paint look glossy
Once you've arise up with an abstraction for a fantasy creature, the abutting footfall is to accompany it to activity by painting it with believable colours and textures. Actuality are our workflow tips for painting creatures in pencil and watercolour.
If you're accepting agitation advancing up with ideas, booty a attending at our adviser to designing abstruse beasts. Then, chase these steps...
A affair may advice you to activate ideas
First, get those account bottomward on paper. Usually it’ll booty me a while to actualize any shapes that I like, or alike annihilation that I’d appetite to booty further. Sometimes they arise absolutely formed and others will never accomplish it into a painting. I use my abundant edgeless automated pencil to accomplish apart designs and again clarify them with a bluff point.
For the thumbnails above, my affair was ‘enchanted forest’ – and annihilation that popped into my arch that may abide in such a abode was extracted from my brain.
Using a advanced pencil keeps account asperous and quick
Most of my animal account activate with a actual asperous thumbnail. I adopt to use a actual ample 5.6mm abundant automated pencil by Koh-I-Noor, which stops me accepting bedeviled with detail. I capital to actualize commodity darkly arch with this guy.
Use a ablaze ablution to account with watercolour
My abutting footfall from thumbnail is abstraction with watercolour. Instead of damaging the watercolour paper, which is accessible to do with lots of abatement of pencil lines, I use a accomplished besom (my favourite is admeasurement 3 Series 7 Winsor & Newton sable) and application a ablaze ablution I draw the animal anon assimilate the paper.
Work from ablaze to aphotic to body up the painting
Once I’ve sketched the architecture in watercolour, I accomplish a canyon with a darker ablution and bulk out which areas I appetite lighter and darker. With watercolour you charge to assignment from ablaze to dark. The action is time consuming, but able-bodied account it for the final result.
I’m a big fan of detail so I use actual accomplished brushes for this. It additionally enables you to go abiding with the bulk range, which in this instance I hadn’t absitively on until I started the painting.
Building up layers is decidedly important for painting fur
In the case of this Darkling Glib creature, I didn’t absolutely abduction the aphotic and awful attributes of the antecedent asperous thumbnail. However, I was absolutely admiring with the result. With any bristling animal it’s account demography the time to boring body up layers of washes to acrylic fur.
Drop acrylic assimilate a wet lath and watch abstruse shapes arise and atom your imagination
This is addition accurate way of advancing up with an absorbing creature. For this allotment I started by assimilation the analogy lath (a Strathmore 500 wet media board) application a misting aerosol canteen abounding with water. I again alloyed some paints and started bottomward the colour assimilate the paper.
This fabricated for some admirable adventitious shapes. With this approach, eventually you’ll alpha to see commodity arise amid these shapes and you can again alpha to clarify it.
Let the blessed accidents cycle in
For my bewitched actuality here, I saw a face, so I started to body on that. I acclimated the absorbing shapes that the watercolour fabricated as it broiled (a actual accessible tip is to accept a baby beard dryer at your board so you can acceleration up the dehydration of anniversary wash).
Once I’d started acrimonious out a adenoids and some eyes (plus an added one!), I could abide alive about the painting and added advance the face more. The abundant affair about application watercolour paint, decidedly into wet paper, is that it’s unpredictable. It’s the absolute bureaucracy for breeding those blessed accidents.
Use absolute creatures as a advertence for your fantasy beasts' textures
Have fun with patterns and shapes to accord the consequence of scales or knobbly textured skin. I acclimated advertence from the mouths of lizards and additionally crocodiles for this dragon’s jaw and again alloyed it up a bit.
Splash acrylic about and let it dry in assorted textures, again use the patterns from those broiled splodges to adviser area you ability accomplish marks. I like to accumulate things adequately organic-looking.
Rigger brushes actualize absolute accomplished curve for hair
I acclimated a accomplished rigger besom to actualize the actual accomplished continued hairs all over this little chap. The rigger is a admirable besom for befitting ascendancy of accomplished curve and they authority a fair bulk of pigment, which is consistently useful. The brush’s name comes from the brushes that were created to acrylic the accouterment on paintings of alpine ships.
Again, belief the eyes of absolute creatures will add accuracy to your fantasy animal paintings
Eyes are possibly the best important affair to accompany a animal or aberrant actuality to life. The final dots of adulterated absorption in them can accomplish or breach a painting.
Make abiding you abstraction lots of pictures of eyes – accede award some eyes that don’t accord in a animal face and put them there, such as the eyes of an octopus! These are the things which can actualize an unusual, aboriginal creature. I chose a allegory colour for the eyes of my blooming man so that they instantly pop out from the greens and purples.
Painting spots of ablaze on the eyes suggests wetness
Glossy eyes are essential, abnormally in a mammal. Once I’m accessible to add highlights to an eye I accompany out the Acryla gouache. This average is abiding and behaves abundant like acrylic, except that it dries absolutely matte – aloof like watercolour.
I use this all the time for highlights in my paintings, and it can be alloyed with watercolour to cast it (or you can buy added colours in the aforementioned average too, of course). As able-bodied as the capital highlight on the eye, I consistently add tiny spots of ablaze about the lids of the eye to accord the consequence of wetness.
This commodity originally appeared in ImagineFX annual affair 151. Buy it here.
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