Hello again faithful viewers, it is once again time to dust off the paint brushes for another tutorial. With the release of Magic Core Set 2012, I thought it might be nice to paint up a card that you should have by now. Goblin Grenade will surely be showing up in standard in the year to come, so you may consider painting a set of these to sell, trade, or keep. I for one can't wait to sacrifice a Goblin Arsonist in limited, but let's save the dreams for another time.

Once again, we find ourselves painting the borders of our card white in preparation for color. You may observe a more noticeable brush stroke this time around. Sad news dear readers, this spells the beginning of the end for my favorite paint brush. The more noticeable brush stroke is due to the hairs in the brush head starting to stray and leave their own marks in the paint. Oh well.

Step 2: Do those go together?

Now that our primer has been laid, we can start to put in color. Today, we have some odd color combinations to work with: Raw Sienna, Brilliant Purple, and Brilliant Orange. Hardly a trio you see mixed together often, but they work beautifully together to create an explosion in the fading light of the evening sky. So, taking our Brilliant Purple and dulling it down with Raw Sienna, we lay down our first color along the top and right edge of the card. Remembering that oranges and yellows don't cover well, a mixture of Titanium White and Brilliant Yellow will work for the left side.

Step 3: Layers

For those of you who wanted more pictures, I heard you loud and clear! There is one more picture today than usual. In the hopes of not cluttering up the article with pictures, I've decided that I could be a bit more efficient in using each picture. Picture three for example, takes the place of four different pictures, all of which would have shown a different layer.

Occasionally, instead of color matching, we must turn our talents to texture matching. This often happens with clouds and skies in general. In the case of Goblin Grenade we have the purple of the sky obscured by the smoke fire and shrapnel of an explosion. The most efficient way of portraying this is by painting the sky first, then layer by layer adding in the different elements of the explosion.

Phase one is once again the mixture of Brilliant Purple and Raw Sienna. This not only gives us the color of the sky, but a bit more coverage of the card itself. In Phase two, we lightly dry-brush straight Raw Sienna to show the darker smoke from the explosion. You must be very careful with this step and err on the side of caution, this brown can quickly take over the picture due to how dark it appears on the card. Phase three is where we can remedy any mistakes we made with the Raw Sienna, by dry-brushing the original purple-sienna mixture over the Raw Sienna. Phase four is where we depict the light colored smoke by adding a touch of white to our mixture and once again dry-brushing this color on. The last step covers any visible lines left by phases two and three and brings the colors together.

Step 4: Left side no longer left out

If your paints behave anything like mine do, than you probably need another layer of coverage (at least) on the left border of the card. I used Titanium White with a touch of Cadmium Yellow to get close to the color at the heart of the explosion and used that for some extra coverage. Picture four depicts one of the most annoying things you will encounter when painting cards. The inexplicable “soft spot”. This is a spot on the card that for whatever reason just refuses to take paint. It may take three, four, maybe even 5 more coats to paint over than the rest of the card and often results in a noticeable difference in thickness if not treated carefully. My best advice is to let the card completely dry, then come back to it and paint over the soft spot again. In most cases this will cure the problem, but some are more stubborn than others. While I was waiting for the soft spot to dry, I painted the bottom black.

Step 5: Closure

After successfully painting over the soft spot I used the same technique on the left border as I did on the top and right. I began with my white/yellow mixture and took it almost to the corner of the name box on the card. As I moved upward along the side I added Brilliant Orange to the mixture. At the very top I added Brilliant purple and Raw Sienna as well to help blend with the top part of the card. I also used this mixture to blend the bottom black as well (which received another coat of black) and you can see on the left where my paint brush actually frayed to death. I will of course finish that little bit of blending shortly, but I thought it a nice memorial to a brush that I have used throughout this entire series. After cleaning the edges of the text boxes with a trusty toothpick, I signed the card and scanned it for you.

Did I win Yet?

For those of you who have entered the raffle through this last week, winners will be chosen today and notified. The winners will be announced and recognized next week. Obviously I had to turn this article in on Monday, so as I write this, there are still a few hours for people to submit entries and feedback. I would like to thank those of you who did take the time to provide such awesome feedback, it is greatly appreciated and because of it these articles will be better than ever. I must encourage you to continue to leave feedback, comments and concerns in which every way is convenient to you so this article can continue to grow and I can keep giving away my work. See you next week!

-The Painters Servant

Twitter: PaintersServant

Email: Mbajorek02@gmail.com