Acrylic Painting a Fantasy Character in the Rain (with 6 Colors)

This tutorial is focused on quickly and effectively painting a fantasy character in rain. Only a few colors of paint are required and all of this was done with very cheap materials.

Painting surface

Brushes

Floating Medium

Black acrylic paint

White acrylic paint

Red acrylic paint

Yellow acrylic paint

Turquoise Green acrylic paint

Cobalt Blue acrylic paint

Entirely coat your desired painting surface in Turquoise Green paint and (while it's still wet) quickly mix in a small amount of Black paint down the center of the painting.

Begin adding the darkest areas. Mix the black and turquoise paint to a medium dark shade (not fully black yet, we save that for later) and apply it to the areas that will be the darkest, leaving the background as the highlights on the character. To create the illusion of depth we want to build layers

Using the Floating Medium, mix White and a little Turquoise to start adding more messy highlights. If you've never used Floating Medium- I like to think of it as "thick water". It makes the paint more transparent but doesn't drip or bleed like water does. These thin, transparent coats are called "Glazes" and they are one of the best ways to create depth and detail quickly

Using Black and the Floating Medium- begin adding shadows, this will help define the shapes of the highlights, eyes, and teeth. The environment we are trying to depict in this painting is wet and misty. To create "depth" remember that anything further away will become lighter, notice that the back of the character's head is lighter than the front of his face or brim of his hat.

For a little extra fun you can add some color accents with Cobalt Blue for the character's eyes and a glaze of Bright Red on his nose. Glazing is a powerful tool!

Now for the rain! Mix various shades of Turquoise Green and White with Floating Medium and begin painting vertical indications of falling rain. For this effect, it is best to move quickly and avoid painting obvious vertical lines. First apply about 1" wide vertical sections of lighter glazes. Then, once dried, come back with a little more and add some thinner sections. At the very end, add some messy and much lighter glazes above the brim of his hat and finally some small splashes of the rain rebounding upward.

Now to get a little crazy and add a burning log to the characters hat! While painting the rain you can do a little shaping of the smoke and steam. Fire is tricky to paint because it casts light on surfaces around it, but in this case the smoke/steam will provide contrast.

To paint the smoke use Black paint mixed with Floating Medium and paint in large, rounded shapes, making sure to blend out the edges. Then add more Floating Medium (less black) and add layers of smaller rounded shapes on top. For a highlight on the smoke and steam- mix Turquoise Green and Floating Medium and apply it in the same way.

For the fire- Start with pure Yellow acrylic paint and outline the brightest part of the fire and where you want it traveling up the log. Mix Orange from Red and Yellow for the section of the log that is in flames and instead of painting the rest of log black you can outline the shape of it by painting the inside of the hat with a mix of Yellow, Red and Black paint.

Lastly, take a small round tip brush and add a few, random, falling embers throughout the painting.

Time for the finishing touches! Go back into the background and darken the area below the brim of his hat, leaving a bright highlight all around the character, this really makes the poor guy look like he was soaked and helps create more dynamics between the rain and the character. Then take a small, round tip brush and add a few more highlights to drive that "wet" look even further.

And that's it! I hope you have fun!

For more strange videos about acrylic painting, oil painting and creepy character creation- check out my YouTube channel

www.youtube.com/@DeadlyEffigy