The History of the Kingdom of The West
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Close-up of chain mail. It had to be repainted to make it darker. Start of painting the horn. Gems and embroidery on the cloak completed.

Photo and Contribution
by Tatiana Nikolaevna Tumanova

Chain Mail Stinks

"The shading on the cloak was completed. Each blue was mixed with Orange Lake to make a darker blue, and some mixed with Lead White to yield a lighter blue. Then each piece of the pattern was picked out with darker blue in the shadows and lighter blue for highlights, which was tedious going. After all that, I didn't feel like martyring myself further by having the inside of the cloak patterned as well -- it was done in a solid color (Prussian Blue). The end result was quite convincing (people who saw it would say it they felt like they could reach out and pluck the folds of the cloak) but it made for a lot of work -- I won't be in a hurry to do an intricate pattern in the future. The gems (cabochon amethysts) and background green "embroidery" to the tablion (decorative square along the straight side of the cloak) were painted in, and shading worked up on the gold border of the cloak.

"This is a close-up of the chain mail, all of which had to be repainted. Once the cloak was entirely painted, I backed off and looked at the entire figure from a distance and it became obvious that the grays on the chain mail were too light. There was no choice but to paint it all over again with darker tones, then the highlighted areas were picked out with the gray used for the base color the first time around. Darker shadows were put in with some Payne's Gray added to the mix to bring up a bluish cast, and certain highlights had a touch of yellow added, also some of the intermediate gray areas had a bit of Alizarin Crimson added. Working the various tints into the mix helped relieve the gray color of its vexing tendency to suck the life out of whatever color is placed next to it." -- Tatiana Nikolaevna Tumanova

The West Kingdom History Website was created by and is maintained by Hirsch von Henford (mka Ken Mayer).