Charlemagne the Bear – Pt 2

Continued work on Charlemagne’s fur. I worked up from GW Rhinox Hide –> GW Thondia Brown –> Pro Acryl Light Umber. As I was working up the layers, I realized I wasn’t getting the richer, warm brown tones I envisioned for this seasoned bear. The colors seemed to me on the flatter, cooler side of brown, a bit more yellow/blue. First photo is where I finished before redirecting.

I started digging through my paints to see what I could use when I remembered an image I posted to my Facebook page for a weekly art feature I do. The character in it has the exact colors and effect I’m looking to use for my bear.

There’s still a good deal of warmer browns in her hair’s tone with a touch of cream colored highlights that I was looking for to show depth, but also give a little hint of age to the bear. So, being the graphic design nerd I am, I sampled the colors from the image and produced a color palette that I can use to find the colors I want in paint.

I downloaded color swatches from the paint manufacturers to see if I could find a match so I wouldn’t have to custom mix. Sadly, out of Citadel, P3, Army Painter, Vallejo, and Pro Acryl, I could only find one that was even close. Oh well, that just means a little more work to create the colors I need. The difficult part of mixing browns is there are three colors that make brown – red, blue, and yellow. Not to mention the light/dark factor. I have about a dozen browns and will just need to spend the time mixing to find the right balance for each step.

My first step was to smooth out the layering done so far, and increase the depth by doing a glaze/wash of Pro Acryl’s Mahogany, specifically choosing a darker red/brown to help keep some of the richness in the deepest parts.

I’m curious to see if I can mix the colors selected enough to get the effect I want.

Till next time,

Later!