Kingdom Death: Painting the Phoenix
The first step is to assemble this guy into the smallest number of easy to paint pieces.
I start off the skin with a pale purple mixed from P3’s Rynn Flesh, Frostbite, and a little bit of Beaten Purple.
I begin shading the skin with a thinned down mix of Beaten Purple and Bloodstone. Varying amounts of the basecoat are used to blend the shadows into the surrounding flesh.
I keep adding shadows, darkening them with Umbral Umber in some areas. I also add some highlights made by mixing some Frostbite and Morrow White into the base color. The beak gets a basecoat mixed from Cygnus Yellow and Bloodstone. Then pure Cygnus Yellow is added as a highlight. I paint Frostbite inside the mouth to get the area ready for the glow effect I want to have going on in there.
I add some scorch marks around the beak by blending Umbral Umber and a little bit of pure Thamar Black into the Cygnus Yellow. I also mix some Cygnar Blue Highlight in with the Frostbite inside of the mouth to try to create a blue flame effect. Since I want this whole area to appear to be glowing I keep the lightest shades in the recesses, and use the darker tones only on the raised areas. I also blend some Skorne Red into that blue cockscomb (?) along the back to give it a bit of variety.
It’s finally time to start on the feathers. I begin with a very pale green mixed from a little Thornwood Green, and a lot of Menoth White Base.
Then I wash it all with a mix of GW’s Nuln Oil and Agrax Earth. It takes two coats to get it this dark, which I suppose means I should have just gone with a darker green from the start.
I’m trying to go for a subtly iridescent appearance on these feathers – like you might expect to see on a rooster. Putting contrasting colors side by side can be one way to help get an appearance like this. In this case I’ve drybrushed Bloodstone, basically a dark orange, over the green.
I continue drybrushing the feathers. I add more and more of the original green basecoat to the Bloodstone to create some highlights.
Then I give the feathers one last coat of ink.
A little green stuff is required to fill the gaps when it comes time to join the wings to the body.
And here he is again. Looking at him now I think I may have made his skin a little too pale. I thought making all those weird little hands really stick out would be ideal but I think it’s just too much contrast.
