Darkstar Cloak

[Bane of ulthuan]

Seeing as I always give my Sorceress the Darkstar Cloak I thought it would be appropriate to paint her cloak to represent this. I wanted to get a kind of 'Sky at night effect' bordered by a purple trim round the edges of the cloak.

To let you know what I did I painted Storm blue over the black undercoat then added very small dots of ice blue. For the stars I then flicked skull white onto the cloak by rubbing the paint brush against my thumb.

It seemed like a good idea at the time but sadly it looked like a mentally disadvantaged orangutan had had a go at it.

So, any ideas?

[Quasekomiki]

Hey, don't insult the librarian!!!

Neway, here's a thought, but try it out on something else before applying it to your cloak (haven't tried this myself yet) :

try very little dots of Sunburst Yellow;
let dry and then apply (with a very thin brush) a severely washed down Mithril Silver over the yellow dots... should make them shine

Or you can try the other way round :

Small dots of Mithril Silver with a Yellow Ink wash over them...

[Bane of ulthuan]

Hey Quaemkomiki, how's it going.

I used to mail you on the Gamer Workshop discussion board a couple of months back. I went under the handle 'Arrden The Anvil' back then.

Cheers for the advice. I'll have a look to see if that's any better.

But I'm happy to listen to any other suggestions

[Quasekomiki]

Hey Arrden; long time no read

About my advice : remember that I didn't try it myself; 't were ideas. Try them out on some plastic sprue or something...

[Leithel and odd]

Just remember the last thing you want to do is make it look tacky, tacky is just not the druchii way. I might try something in black, streak it with lines of silver and/or gold along the highlights and edges. You don't need to take the name literally. Failing that try a lighter colour and make the stars DARK, but then youw ould be taking it literally

[Bane of ulthuan]

Leithel: I understand your reservations. I definitely dont want any of my models to look tacky.

It's just the main colour theme of the army is Black and Liche Purple (yep, my Dark Elves are waaaaaay Dark and look quite nasty.)

The thing is too many of the models are starting to look too similar to the next so I wanted to make the characters really stand out, hence the 'star effect on the cloak'. (And I've also painted the cloth underneath the skull on her staff to look like its flayed flesh. I recommend you try it. It looks sweet!!!)

I guess the star effect is out, so any ideas of what I could do on the cloak would be more than welcome.

[Bane of ulthuan]

Sorry that last post should have read:

'I guess the star effect is out if Quasekomiki's and Leithel's suggestions don't have the desired effect.....'

I think it's only fair that I try your suggestions before I give up on them

Still, any other suggestions will still be entertained.

[/quote]

[Quasekomiki]

Thx 4 trying...

Q : What's "tacky"?

[Bane of ulthuan]

If something looks 'tacky' it usually means it looks crap or bad quality.

[Quasekomiki]

tx, another word to add to my english vocabulary

[Leithel and odd]

Sorry you may have miunderstood. By tacky I don't mean crap or bad quality, I just mean ... well... High Elvish.

I figured that tacky meant to stand out of place or to look out of character to your army. Like a dark sorceress wearing a shiny bright starry cloak. Absolutely no offence intended, it may look great as I can't really imagine what you see the final effect is.

Give what ever you think is right a go and then let us have a look, I wouldn't mind seeing it.

[Bane of ulthuan]

Leithel:

No offence taken mate!!

In fact, I agree. It may give it too much of a HE look which is most DEFINITELY a bad thing. (I'll still try your suggestions though because they sound a less extreme version of what I was trying to do, which I guess is what I'm looking for.)

Quasekomiki: I would advise that you try to learn as few English words from me as possible. I'm from Northern England and we're not well known for having a good grasp of the language as it is. Also some phrases I tend to use can sometimes be a little too......colourful.

[Double-edge]

well i don't know where this conversations gone, but to keep you on track here's a suggestion. but i don't know how it'll work as i've only done it on SDCs.

start by undercoating black

go over that with storm blue

then mix Regal blue and skull white and dry brush it on to the cloak, paint the edges.

Then mix liche purple with skull white, but not too much white, just enough tomake the purple not so dark and dry brush that on the cloak, enough so that you can see the purple, but not so much that it covers the blue (shrugs) . make it work somehow. i did on my SDCs,

then mix 70/30 skull white and regal blue and highlight.

then if you want you can add the stars.

my original idea was not to make it a night sky effect but to have the sea dragons look like so

[Double-edge]

well i don't know where this conversations gone, but to keep you on track here's a suggestion. but i don't know how it'll work as i've only done it on SDCs.

start by undercoating black

go over that with storm blue

then mix Regal blue and skull white and dry brush it on to the cloak, paint the edges.

Then mix liche purple with skull white, but not too much white, just enough tomake the purple not so dark and dry brush that on the cloak, enough so that you can see the purple, but not so much that it covers the blue (shrugs) . make it work somehow. i did on my SDCs,

then mix 70/30 skull white and regal blue and highlight.

then if you want you can add the stars.

my original idea was not to make it a night sky effect but to have the sea dragons look like some creature from the deep, so i had dark blue and purple colors

hope it works for u!

[Bane of ulthuan]

Cheers Double Edge.

I did try to put purple in on one attempt but not in the way suggested. I think it might work that way.

Okay, that's 3 good suggestions I can have a go at (busy, busy weekend so I haven't had a chance to try Leithel's or Quasekomiki's yet.) If none of these work I officially give up and I'll just paint it black with a purple trim with some gold runes here and there.

[Aella]

Why did your first try go so bad?? Be specific.

When I created my watchtower (scenery), I wanted to make it look completly camoflaged at night so I did a "starry affect"

I painted it black, then flicked mithril and chainmail over it with an old toothbrush. It creates a more "dappley" affect. Some bigger, some smaller. Worked for me! And I don't think it looks tacky...but that might just be me [/b]

[Aella]

Why did your first try go so bad?? Be specific.

When I created my watchtower (scenery), I wanted to make it look completly camoflaged at night so I did a "starry affect"

I painted it black, then flicked mithril and chainmail over it with an old toothbrush. It creates a more "dappley" affect. Some bigger, some smaller. Worked for me! And I don't think it looks tacky...but that might just be me

[Bane of ulthuan]

Aella,

It looked bad because.......well, because it looked like one of those abstract paintings that were the artist just throws paint everywhere. I think the effect can be pulled off but it just didn't go with the smoothness of the rest of the colour scheme. It looked a bit off.

HOWEVER, I have tried the silver effect suggested by, well all 3 you here and it does work a lot better than skull white. All I need now is to try it without the influence of Jack Daniels and I'll see if I can get a picture up to show you the finished effect.

Cheers

[Naram sin]

Use midnight blue and highlight coat at the ends, add some dots but not only light blue but also silver. Another idea is to paint top of the coat darker than begining