Dragoon WIP

Work on the Dragoon has been a bit slow and I've been a bit distracted.  I recently received a kit from Industria Mechanika, something completely different for me, and I've been busy cleaning and assembling parts.  Not that I'll be painting it anytime soon.  Going to be a lot of airbrushing and vehicle weathering techniques that will require some practice first.  Still, fun toys to play with. :)

Anyway, back to the Dragoon... I base coated the rest of his uniform and took an unsuccessful crack at the dark green on his coat.  I don't work with green a lot, but I was able to pull off a nice dark blue on my Officer of the Navy Guard and I figured I could do the green the same way.  Unfortunately my paints did not want to cooperate.  I started out trying Reaper's Green Shadow and Green Liner, two of their really dark green colors.  One was chalky and didn't cover well and the other had a super satin finish.  Ugh.  They're old bottles so perhaps that's part of the issue but whatever the reason they won't work for me.  So instead I switched over to a lighter green, Grass Green, and darkened it with Burgundy Wine.  From there I mixed in a medium grey to highlight.  In theory it should have worked but the results weren't good.  As you can see below the contrast doesn't pop much and the blends weren't smooth.  So I took a break and worked on his shirt and pants, something I was confident I could do without issue.  The shirt is an off white, Bone Shadow, Weathered Stone, and Leather White.  The pants are a khaki, Black Brown, Terran Khaki, Khaki Highlight and Weathered Stone.

Happy that I could at least do something right, I returned to the dark green for another attempt.  This time I abandoned the Reaper Greens and pulled out on my new Badger Minitaire paints (thank you Draconic Awards!).  Their Dark Green is deeper than Reaper's Grass Green but still not as dark as the Green Shadow or Green Liner.  So I again used Burgundy Wine to create some nice shadow tones.  My midtone was maybe 2 or 3 parts Dark Green to 1 part Burgundy Wine.  That ratio was reversed to create the deepest shadows.  To do the highlights I picked a lighter grey, Reaper's Misty Grey, and slowly added that into the Dark Green - Burgundy Wine mix.  On the left you can see the old version and on the right this new attempt.  I still need to do the right arm and make some minor adjustments here and there.  But overall I am much happier with the contrast range and I feel like the coat still reads as a dark green.  Up next will be the larger yellow sections followed by the finer green and yellow piping and details.