Oily little git

I don't usually post work in progress shots on my blog, they are usually dumped on to my facebook page. This place is where I tend to post fully finished work. However, this is a completely new technique for me, so I thought it would be worth recording. This is an oily little goblin. And I mean that in the literal sense, as it's been painted in acrylic, then washed in oils. It's a technique I was vaguely familiar with, I know that it's used on vehicles and some folks use it to paint horses.

I was inspired after seeing this amazing video by Marco Frisoni. I am all for achieving effects quickly, and like grimey paint work, so I thought I would give it a try. And for a first attempt, I am reasonably happy. I can see how it could help me to speed things along with my goblins, which has to be a good thing.

I learned a few things on this first experiment. The oil paint has to be much thinner than I used. And I would not use a pure black next time, probably try a range of browns. Below you can see the goblin before he got to this stage. I primed it brown, then painted on basic tones, then smothered it in the oily mix which was too thick. Even with this blunder, it produced an interesting result - the desaturation from the original colours is quite marked. I will try again with more colours/oils for sure, there are dozens of little goblins waiting to be painted.

First stage - basic colours (acrylic)

Second stage - oil "wash" which was more a tarring!