There Be Dragons 2!

So I took a little more time and started working on some color and texture tests. I've decided to stay away from oils, at least for now and go with either watercolors or acrylics. I'm extremely comfortable with watercolors, but I'm not sure I can get the end result I'm looking to get with them. Acrylics will give me the results, but I'm not as comfortable with them as I am with watercolors.

In the image below I took a pad of 140 lb Cold Pressed Watercolor Paper to do some further thumbnail tests but this time with color. I quickly re-sketched the 2 original thumbnails I preferred, this time with a black colored pencil. With watercolor paint I did simple washes over the sketches to see a simplified version of what I'm looking for color wise. Along with the color tests I decided to break out some acrylics and see how they did doing some scale texture tests. I wasn't happy with the initial tries (the ones in the middle) but did like how vibrant the colors were. I decided to give it another try (lower right) and found that this was more, texture wise, of what I'm aiming for.

The green "palette" in the photo is my first time using a Wet Palette. This is a homemade one and I was very happy on how it worked with the acrylic paint. I will defiantly be making a larger one now that I know it's something that works for my style of painting. I went cheap, only spending $3.00 on the materials to make them. I was able to make 3 small wet palettes from the materials I purchased. I'll be posting a full tutorial and a possible video on how to make one and what materials are needed.

Till next time!

George