Refresh: Wave Serpent 2

Based off the success of the last one, and still feeling an urge to put off the stuff I should be working on, I gave this serpent a face lift as well. Not sure what happened to my before pic, but it looked almost identical to the one in the last post before its refresh.

Anyway, I have read a lot of tutorials on painting yellow. I should also say that I pretty much never paint yellow over a dark base if I can help it. In this case, it couldn't be avoided, so I will take this opportunity to give my own short painting tutorial. Before you even open a can of paint or grab a brush, you need to get to your mind right. Know you will be laying down a lot of coats, as many as it takes, because the trick to yellow is even coats with each color. If you start building on a bad base, it will be bad all the way up. Grit your teeth, thin your paint with whatever medium you like (I used a mixing medium because it kept the paint wetter, longer.) and get started.

Below is a quick pick of what I would call an even coat, vs a base coat with one pass.

In the pic above, I laid down a base of Averland Sunset. That is actually my least favorite yellow I worked with. It is too brown, and dull, and went on pretty globby. So I pretty much just used it as a base for the Yuriel Yellow to go over. In the pic above, the even side was after six coats. That is no exaggeration. Six times through, letting each coat dry totally before applying the next. No wonder pro painters invest in airbrushes.

Once I had my good base, I did about 4 or 5 more coats of the Yuriel Yellow, which is the color I actually wanted:

At some point in the process I had to say "good enough". There is always going to be some patch that is too dark. I liken it to raking grass. You are never gonna get it all. For the final highlights I used Flash Gitz and whatever the Edge color is, I forget, but I really like it. I ended up with the final product seen above. And here is a side shot:

The contrast on this one is quite a bit more drastic than my first refresh. I am happy with this one, and think it is a nice compliment to the more subtle one I posted prior. What do you all think? This one working for ya?

Thanks for reading,
T