Help with painting a 'Malachite Effect', please

[Mr. Peabody]

Ok, malachite is a tall order, I would be happy with exotic & alien looking green stone...

Does it need more creamy green/white bits?
Is this heading in the right direction, or is it time to scrub it and start again?
The plan would be to give the green stone a coat of gloss varnish and keep the edging matte...

[Mr. Peabody]

Ok, found this youtube tutorial that gives me some hope... There may yet be a chance to save this piece from the big jar of Detol... 

[zizi666]

Not to rain on your parade, but that floor pattern looks like inlaywork (is that the correct term?)
So, I would assume they used a different colored type of stone and thus the green veins wouldn't run over them as if it was one piece of malachite, if you catch my drift.
I'd go over the knotwork pattern with a light color so those green lines are covered. It will also make the knotwork stand out more.

My 2 cts.

[Connectamabob]

I have this big book about faux finishes (looks like it's going for dirt cheap now, so I would actually highly recommend getting it: it's fluffing amazing) I picked up a few years back. Don't think it would be kosher to actually scan the pages on malachite, but the short of it is to undercoat with green, then apply a very dark green-blue glaze, and then rake the still-wet glaze in curving, randomly scalloping lines with the ragged edge a piece of torn card stock.

It recommends practicing a bit first, and you may have to make a few different torn card bits before you get one that produces the right kind of striations (and/or you may have to tailor the torn edge by tearing extra little bits off here or there).

Of course that's for a 1:1 faux malachite finish. For a miniature you'd want to make lots of tiny arcs with the rake tool, and probably would want to figure out an alternate material for the rake tool that would get you finer, tighter striations. Maybe just get one of those brushes that's like a thin, stiff fan shape? Or cut the nib of a felt-tip paint pen into a notched chisel shape with a razor blade?

[Mr. Peabody]

Well, we are now deeply beyond the event horizon of an experiment....   

In theory the next steps should be glazes of light and dark green, followed by a gloss coat to suggest depth.


Then I can bung it into the Detol and start over.

The iPod camera is pretty poor, so things aren't absolutely as dire as this looks right now, only about 90%.

Thanks for the input, nothing like learning by doing eh?

[bandit86]

I used this tutorial
http://hot-lead.org/advance/texturing_marble.htm

[Wirelizard]

Great minds think alike, I had just remembered that Hot Lead marble tut from years ago and was about to post the link, having tracked the site down.

Random net-nostalgia moment - Hot Lead was one of the first really advanced painting websites I tripped over, which must have been back when the site was pretty new, ten+ years ago. Pity it seems to have been abandoned and not updated in a long, long time, but at least it's still online and intact!

[former user]

seriously, I don't know what this is meant to be, the size of it etc. this all matters when it comes to how You want to faux malachite. As a general observation, Malachite is regarded as attractive because of the strong green and the strongly contrasting layered appearence. While Your .... (whatever it is) looks interesting, I can't see any of the latter in it.


http://www.maercharme.com/de/collections/sublime/malachite/


maybe You could elaborate what it is please, so we can get an idea what actually to recommend?
for starters, malachite green is a copper oxide that has no traces of yellowish in it whatsoever (although green is technically a mix with yellow), so it stays entirely on the 50%+ side of blue in the chroma wheel, and as You can see, lighter shades appear rather whitish blueish, like verdigris

I could assume that You are trying to transfer this


into some kind of pavement? well, whether the regular knotted pattern or the irregular banding pattern are more important, either way You cannot make both of malachite fake, because they would overlap the impression. In general, incrusted floors have the pattern in plain stone and the backgraound inlays are in coloured stone pattern, usually marbles or granites.

like this


but as I said, I don't know what You want to do

[Connectamabob]

former user is correct: marble tutorials cannot get you a malachite look, because malachite looks nothing like marble.

Look at the curving tree ring-like lines in former user's pics. Those are the features I was on about with my talk of rake tools and such. Though when I think of it now, you probably don't need a rake tool at this scale: you can just freehand it with a regular fine brush. Anyway, the "tree ring" patterns are what's distinctive about cut malachite: it forms in stacking clumps of round nodules with concentric layers of crystallization, so when you cut a section through a piece of malachite, you see clusters of concentric rings and half-rings.

[Mr. Peabody]

Well, as I said,

malachite is a tall order, I would be happy with exotic & alien looking green stone...

But I value the input and it makes this thread slightly more useful for someone else down the road. 

This is especially useful, thanks!

malachite green is a copper oxide that has no traces of yellowish in it whatsoever (although green is technically a mix with yellow), so it stays entirely on the 50%+ side of blue in the chroma wheel, and as You can see, lighter shades appear rather whitish blueish, like verdigris

Once again, the youtube tutorial I pointed to, is excellent. It addresses green marble, but if one was skilled enough and determined enough to attempt the intricacy of a malachite finish for tabletop gaming, there is some good take away there.

As for what this piece is supposed to be, it's a big hunk of exotic green mineral from deep in the sea that has been carved to suit the needs of some ancient cult. It has been lost & recovered at least once over the ages and the stone has been vandalised or perhaps harvested by non-believers.

The pattern in this resin casting from Fenris Games is in relief, so I don't think I would be comfortable doing it as an inlay piece although I bet many here could pull it off with panache.

[former user]

what size is it?

[Mr. Peabody]

2"x2.25"

[former user]

so it is meant to be a piece of pavement in a building, an altar cover, the cover of a vault in the wall, a tomb cover or?

could You please link to the piece in question? I would like to see the bare bones

[Wirelizard]

so it is meant to be a piece of pavement in a building, an altar cover, the cover of a vault in the wall, a tomb cover or?

could You please link to the piece in question? I would like to see the bare bones

On the Fenris Games site: http://fenrisgames.com/shop#!/~/product/category=2425297&id=23507716

[former user]

hmm, impressive piece of scenery...
here is what I would do:
paint the entire piece ina very fine sprinkled granite pattern, of a general lavender/mauve tone (or does the tentacle monster have a specific colour?), like this


use different tones like in the picture until You achieve this light tone. make sure it is very matte and shade it properly. You can use ink for the damaged portions later.
Cover the knotted pattern, the holes and the border with Maskol or some other masking gel. Paint the inlay in two or three different tones of light turqoise. Use a very fine nib and strong full green ink to scribe in the banded pattern. make sure the green is strong. paint over with very glossy finish or water effect. Remove the masking gel. Use thinned down dark ink (sepia or black)  to dye the damaged portions. You need to repeat this carefully until the proper effect is done.
If the border stones are not satisfactory, paint them in a stone effect without grain, perhaps in alternating flat colours?

just an idea....