Painting Kalath the Reaver

Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links on this page are Affiliate Links for the painting products used in the tutorial. This site receives a small commission if you click on a link and purchase the product, but there is no additional cost to you. Thanks for your support!

Introduction

Kalath the Reaver is for the game ShadowSea – Conquest of the Underground World and was sculpted by me and cast in resin. This is a very large model, 150mm long for the dino and 50mm tall for the draconid rider, so it was done using washes and glazes, then with edge highlights and judicious drybrushing. Most of the work was done with Golden Fluid acrylic paint and Liquitex Professional Acrylic Inks.

Step 1

The first step for the mount (a bit like a Chasmosaurus) was to apply light basecoats over white primer. The white primer was chosen to make it easier to allow bright highlights to shine through the thin, transparent washes and glazes being applied. The skin was painted with a very light yellow-brown, a mixture of Yellow Ochre and white paint, then lightly drybrushed with a bit more white mixed in. The plate armor was painted with Bronze ink (Liquitex metallic ink) and the trim and head motifs with gold paint. The scale armor was done with a Bronze + Silver metallic mixture as the base. The horns and claws were painted with Titan Buff (Golden) a basic bone-like color. The straps were painted with a light coat of Raw Sienna ink. The whole first coat was meant to be light and tied together in color tone.

Step 2

The Next step was a major one, the application of washes to get the main color blocks and midtones. Here, the skin was glazed with thin layers of Sap Green ink, holding the model upside down to make sure the ink did not run down over the belly. More water was mixed in the glazes closer to the underbelly and pure ink was used close to the armor. On the head, more ink was applied on the horns and plates than the skin, which was glazed with a bit of Burnt Sienna ink. The gold trim on the armor was also washes with Bunt Sienna ink, mixed with Matte Medium to make it flow well. The plate armor was washed with Turquoise ink while the scale armor was washed with Turquoise ink, then a bit of Burnt Umber. The horns, straps and saddle were washed with Burnt Umber and the claws with Raw Umber. Finally, the tongue was washed with a bit of pink paint.

Step 3

Next, when that had all dried, the armor was highlighted with a light gold metallic, mixed with silver, with pure silver for the edges, then glazed again to shade it down with Burnt Umber, the a touch of Turquoise ink on the head motifs so them blended in a bit better with the armor plates. Those were highlighted with silver mixed with bronze, with pure silver on the edges, toned down with Burnt Umber ink. The scale armor was highlighted with silver and given a few more glazes Turquoise ink + Burnt Umber. The skin was painted with pure Sap Green ink on the brush, but not a wash, to make the mottled skin pattern near the armor, then mixed with thinned black paint right under the armor.

Step 4

The finishing touches on the mount were edge highlights and drybrushing. The straps were painted on the edges with Reaper Golden Highlight, a very light golden white paint that works well as a final highlight before pure white for hotspots. The straps were also painted with a bit of Golden Highlight mixed with Raw Umber ink to even out the color while the buckles were painted with silver + bronze. The claws and horns were highlighted with thinned Golden Highlight + white, then glazed down with Raw Umber ink. The two big horns were given light glazes to highlight them, then washed with Burnt Umber. The ends of the horns were glazed with Burnt Umber + black paint. The skin was drybrushed with Golden Highlight, with a bit of white paint used closer to the belly and on the elbows, where some Burnt Umber ink was also glazed. Finally, the eye was painted with Golden Yellow, with a glaze of red paint around the edges. The center of the eye was yellow-white, then a black pupil was added and a white hotspot.

Step 5

The base was simple, done in two main steps. The first was a coat of tan on the soil, with a bit of black+tan glazed on the Quetzal head and rocks. When dry, the sand was washed with Raw Umber and the rocks and head with Raw Umber + black paint. When dry, more glazes of different colors were applied, blues, greens, magenta and purple to give some interesting color. Finally, the whole thing was drybrushed with tan+white and some pure white on edges.

Step 6

The draconid rider does not have a lot of photos unfortunately, but it was done in a similar manner. The base coat of the skin was Indian Yellow paint, a deep golden yellow, applied thinned. The plate armor was done like the mount, with Bronze ink, while the trim as gold and the little dragon motifs in light blue. The wood part of the shield was painted with Titan Buff along with the straps. The axe haft was done with Burnt Umber paint while the head was Bronze Ink + Silver paint.

Step 7

The skin was washed with Crimson ink, then with a deep blood red paint + Turquoise ink on the back scales. The scales were then edge-highlighted with Golden Highlight. The underpart of the tail was drybrushed with Golden Highlight with a bit of Indian Yellow to lighten it up. The armor was highlighted exactly the same as the mount above. The claws and teeth were glazed with Raw Umber and highlighted with white + Golden Highlight. The dragon motif was painted with Turquoise ink + white paint, then shaded with glazed of Turquoise ink + black.