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Hey everybody. I was planning to paint my avatar, and I wanted to try something different out rather than the standard lave looking Avatar.

I was thinking in keeping with the fact that he is supposed to be a big fiery bastard, I would make his skin sort of like rock hard obsidian, with lava underneath. The problem is, I am not a super experienced painter, and am not sure of the best way to go about this. I was thinking of painting a coat of orange, and maybe have some red spots, then paint black over top of that leaving some fissures and cracks where you could see the lava colors. I am not sure how this will turn out, but I think it could be pretty cool, and it would at least be fun to attempt.

Does anybody have any suggestions/reccomendations, or does what I plan to do sound like it could work.

that could work, or you could try painting it black and then painting red cracks over that, highlighting your way up to yellow

I would paint it red first, and get the crevisses glowing by pooring in some watered down yellow and highlighting back up to red on the edges. Then I'd work on the rock plates by starting with some Under Coat Black (the foundation paint, the shiny one) and maybe use some Boltgun Metal on it. Remember, obsidian is a glass, so it is going to be shiny.

Depending on how much the avatar costs, he might be my next purchase. This sounds like a lot of fun and I'd like to try it out.

You could base-coat in red to save a bit of time. I am no master so consider this my 2 cents. I would think that highlighting and/or drybrushing would be extremely important to get nice looking contrast in the obsidian skin. The way I learn is to not get scared (that I am a big ape with huge paws feeling... yeah, that's the one ) about over-painting a model, because I can just clean it and paint again in the same day if I am in a rush.

I would probably basecoat white, then play around with some good looking blending. the warmest spots are going to be the deepest, so some kind of reverse highlighting will be needed (yellow to orange to red). after that, fill in all the black arias, highlight with a touch of blue for contrast.

I'd also basecoat white, and use red and yellow washes to get fiery colours, then go back and do the black. If you look through back issues of WD you'll find painting articles about the Balrog which might help as well.

Anyone had luck with silver mixed with red for a shiny feel? It seems to turn into a clay-like color when I try. Not bad mind you, but not magma at all.

Mixing metallics is hard, if you want a metallic colour, it's usually best to lay down mithril silver and glaze it many times with the ink colour you want.