If you’ve been watching my Warhamster streams on sundays, you’ll have seen I’m getting close to finishing the orange dragon. I’ve always intended it to have a base like cracked lava, so I thought I’d better practice.
I am using citadel paints, and they do have a good range of what they call “Technical” paints. These are usually used for effects: things like blood, snow, mud, and some have a special ‘crackle’ property as they dry.
I tried a couple of different ones and decided on Mordant earth as my black lava type top.
I have been told of a method for getting the best crackle, so I followed it and we will see how it comes together.
To begin, you need a good base colour. Obviously for lava that’s going to be red. Over that you need some yellow/ orange to make swirls and a visual texture. The tricky part comes next: PVA. Pva is a white glue, that goes transparent when it dries. It also shrinks quite a lot.
The yellow was just ‘Slapped on’ to see how it could come through. I know lava doesn’t look anything like that.
The next trick I was told about is not to let the technical paint dry on its own. Using a hairdryer to quickly dry it gives more cracks, and makes them bigger.
The thick paint didn’t crack much, so I added a thinner layer (closer to the camera in the picture). I sort of wanted something between the 2 finishes, so I thought I’d have to get the thickness of the paint just right. Except…. when I came back to it the next day something wonderful had happened.
It had continued to crack, getting almost exactly the effect I intended!
I’ll post another page about the actual base shortly. But suffice to say, it didn’t go quite as planned…….
