craggy terrace
I would like to paint the patterns on this scaley boi's arm and body onto Tiamat. I'm struggling to wrap my head around what colours and techniques to use to do that though. Scales are not my strong point, but I'd really like to do justice to this great sculpt!
Need help figuring out how to paint a particular pattern of scales
void heath
Do you have an airbrush?. I would start by laying down the dark red basecoat, then spraying a mottled blue coat thinly to get uneven coverage for the arms, but spray different areas till they're that dark blue for the back section. Then certain scales get that pale orange highlighting.
You currently have it painted purple, but the red color is very saturated and looks more like a dark red with a transparent blue filter applied over top of it. If you don't have an airbrush then you need a lot of blue wash, which personally I'd prefer oil washes for something this big.
craggy terrace
Sadly, I don't have an airbrush and can't have one for the foreseeable future. Appreciate the advice tho!
hollow orchid
you could also use glazing, but that would take quite a while
simple jungle
Tbh I would wetblend or slap general big gradient on the model you want and the ignore the scales somewhat by painting stripes or stipples with your highlight colors. The reference has a way finer texture going on on each scale and you can mimic that very well