I considered going for a blue glow instead of green but green felt more appropriate and I have a lot of blue models already, plus I thought green would look nicer. However I wanted to exaggerate the effect, so I tried to darken the rest of the model. I painted the rock in straight black with a dark grey drybrush, and the wood (Doombull Brown and Skrag Brown) and rope (Snakebite Leather) were washed in Devlan Mud rather than a lighter wash like Ogryn Flesh. I also drybrushed them in the same grey - I initially planned to use a much lighter colour like bleached bone, but I thought that using the same grey might tie the colours together better (and of course it was much easier). It didn't work as well as I'd hoped as the grey still looks too grey and not brown enough, but I guess it does tie them together.
I considered painting the greens by just using washes, but I decided to try to be more ambitious and actually layer lots of shades of green (Dark Angels Green, Warpstone Glow, Moot Green), which would give me more control. It took what I like to call "HOLY GOOD GOD forever" (this was partly because I painted the lighter colours after finishing the rest of the model, which I did so I could dry-brush the stone, which meant I had to be really careful, and also it took several layers to get strong light greens), and I'm not sure how much better it looks than a simpler method would have, but oh well. I considered trying to use a green edge highlight or drybrush to create a super-simple object-source-lighting-like effect, but didn't have the courage or inclination once I got to that point. Well, I did drybrush a little on the curved surface behind the head as it was the only surface that was facing and really close to a "glowing" area - in this case a "glowing" spot I'd painted under the head (before sticking it on obviously) to make it stand out against all the black. Also there's a little around the "hands", which was more of an experiment than anything else I suppose.
The gemstone was painted with Mordian Blue, Enchanted Blue, and Ice Blue, then glazed with Guilliman Blue (which darkened things a little more than I expected). It actually looks pretty good from the right angle, but that angle is from below table-top level; normally all you see it the darker upper half, so it's a bit underwhelming, and it looks funny in these pictures because it's reflecting the white table. Still, it provides a nice bit of spot colour.
This is arguably the most ambitious base I've ever painted. I used GW's Stirland Mud texture paint around a twig I picked up while walking the other day and broke into little pieces. I painted it all in Scorched Brown, then painted the wood up to Doombull Brown, drybrushed it all in Snakebite Leather, then washed with Devlan Mud. It blends a little too closely to the wood on the model; I was hoping the Snakebite Leather would be enough to make it look different, but it didn't work well enough.
I picked an autumn like grass rather than a purer green so as to stand apart from the green on the model. Also, I'm planning on using the other green for some Cygnar models I'm hoping to paint someday. I tried to apply it in a more sparing way, the way I've seen it done on other minis, which is less instinctive to do but looks better than a featureless sea of grass. Oh, and I glued some Army Painter "Summer Undergrowth" stuff in some nooks and crannies around the branch, but it's pretty much impossible to see, I should have used a different shade and maybe used a little more of it.
Anyway, it's not as dramatic as it could have been with some OSL, but I think it looks nice over all and I'm happy with it.
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