Less is more: The importance of black

Alright. We’ve had something of a learning curve with this UV paint.

With our last shipment of paints from Wildfire, I also received a handy little booklet that was mostly just a catalog of their products, but also included some tips and tricks for utilizing UV paint and effects. And, with that was the importance of black. Which, in the UV world, means anything that does not fluoresce.

I had been going about Steve wrong, trying to keep adding highlights to bring out the details (as we would do with normal painting), when all it was doing was bringing us closer to white. The problem was, Steve never started from black. So, we are fixing that with Steve 2.

The base coat is some REALLY OLD red mahogany stain. Something about this stuff turns more and more red with age…This is our “black” coat, completely non-fluorescent, so no mixing with my paint colors to bring us closer to white.

From 2010 Buildup

From there, we did some dry-brushing of 2 slightly differing colors of UV paint. (Purple+yellow and Purple+green for 2 different tans under UV) I am much more pleased with the results.

From 2010 Buildup

From 2010 Buildup

I am still having some issues with the camera and colors, however. When I attempt closeups, the camera loses all color definition for some reason. But, that made for some really interesting pics…

From 2010 Buildup

From 2010 Buildup

I need to go fabric shopping from here. I’m not happy with how Steve 3 has been turning out, so we’re going to be starting over on him. I’ getting a little tired of the Steves, so I also think we might be looking to get going on another project soon.