Wargrunt: Green Dragon of Melnibone

Green Dragon of Melnibone Part 6 - Painting the Wings (Upper)

Click here for a Photo Essay on the finished dragon

The original blue wings certainly made for a striking contrast with the green body scales but they just didn’t tie together for me. So, it’s onto the last major painting step: green wings. I want the wings to have a base tone that matches the green scales but to then make the wings look a little more leathery.

Here are the steps I followed to paint the tops of the wings.

Above: The original blue wings

Mid grey base coat

Above: I started with a mid grey base coat - Matisse Mars Grey

A layer of dark green

Above: a coat of dark green - GW Caliban Green

Nuln Oil wash

Above: a wash with Nuln Oil to to darken everything. I particularly want to make a shadow in the borders between the wings and the ‘fingers’. Hopefully this step will cover up any little mistakes in these areas.

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In the following steps I’m aiming to match the green of the wings with the green of the body scales.

Mid-dark green glaze

Above: Mid-dark green glaze - Matisse Background: Forest Green

Mid green glaze

Above: Mid green glaze - Matisse Alpine Green

Light green glaze

Above: Light green glaze - Matisse Permanent Green Light

60 / 40 Light / Mid green glaze

Above: I’m happy that the wings now match the body in tone, so now I want to add highlights to the distinctive raised areas of the wings. I used a 60/40 Matisse Permanent Green Light / Matisse Alpine Green.

The photographs in this next section show the progression of the highlights of the raised areas of the wings. For each of these stages I started with the same 60/40 Matisse Permanent Green Light / Matisse Alpine Green mix from last photo to which I added progressively more GW Ogryn Camo.

Light / Mid green / Ogryn Camo highlight

A tad more Ogryn Camo

Ogryn Camo

Above: In fact in this photo, I used almost pure Ogryn Camo. To be honest, this was a step too far, the effect looks too patchy. So...

Tamiya Clear green

Above: Time to blend the highlighted areas back a bit. Here I used a wash of Tamiya X-25 Clear Green.

Sap Green Ink Wash

Above: I thought the wings needed to be a bit darker, so I washed them with a 25% solution of Liquitex Sap Green Permanent ink. You can also see on the centre section of the right wing where I trialed the next step.

In the Elric stories, the dragons have leathery wings. So, in a nod in that direction I want the wings to have an accent of golden leather.

The following steps show how I achieved the look I was after.

The aim is to progressively lighten the central part of each wing section while increasingly changing the tone to a golden leather. The colour mixes are (mainly) in the captions.

10/90 Matisse Permanent Green Light / Vallejo Khaki

20/80 Vallejo Khaki / GW Ogryn Camo

50/50 GW Ogryn Camo / Vallejo Buff

20/80 GW Ogryn Camo / Vallejo Buff

Vallejo Buff

I'm still making the central parts of the wing sections lighter, I suspect with diminishing returns.

50/50 Vallejo Buff / Vallejo Light Yellow

In the step below, I used some light yellow to make sure that the shape and size of each section passed the eye test.

Vallejo Light Yellow

At this point I was happy enough with the general size, shape and colour graduation of the central section. So now I need to make of the tone more golden and to bring some of the green back.

Above: I gave the outer parts of the wing sections a 50/50 Vallejo light Yellow / Matisse Raw Sienna to give the golden tone that I was after. I followed this with a targeted wash of 25% solution of Liquitex Sap Green Permanent ink so that the golden leather would gradually blend into the green.

Above: In this final step I extended the

Sap Green ink wash a bit. I gave the whole a bit of an eye test and tidied up the creamy yellow sections twith Vallejo Buff and Matisse Burnt Sienna.

So that's it for the upper section of the wings. I'll do another post for the under wing painting.

The other Green Dragon posts are here:

Part 1 - Painting Green Dragon Scales

Part 2 - Painting Golden Dragon Scales

Part 3 - Painting Leathery Dragon Skin

Part 4 - Painting Dragon Horns & Spikes

Part 5 - Painting the Dragon Rider

Part 6 - Painting Dragon Wings (upper)

Part 7 - Painting Dragon Wings (under)

Let me know what you think in the comments.