When it comes to painting and modeling, its often the little touches of creativity that can really make a piece stand out. A great looking game layout is all the more enjoyable to play on and can make the experience that much more engaging. A little unexpected touch of style can make your figure jump out from the crowd. Verdigris is one of those techniques I think every painter ought to have in their bag of tricks for just those reasons. It may not be one youll use all the time, but when you have the call for it, I think you'll be glad that you can deliver.

As with most painting techniques, it helps to have a good idea of what youre trying to represent when you set out to figure out how to do it. Verdigris is the common name for the chemical compounds formed when copper, brass, or bronze are exposed to air, water, and other trace elements therein, resulting in copper acetate [Cu₂(OAc)₄ ], copper chloride [CuCl₂], and copper carbonate [ CuCO₃]. It is the blue-green you see on an old oxidized penny, old wiring, and old statues in the park. The name in fact comes from the Old French `vertegrez`, or `the green of Greece`, due to the preponderance of the substance on ancient Greek artifacts. Although it is most commonly seen in variations of blue-green, depending on the chemicals which have been present it can in fact vary quite a bit from dark blues to bright greens and even yellows and white at various stages of exposure.

In this article I'll demonstrate a couple of recipes and techniques that are quite easy to get the hang of and can be used to great effect. I'm no expert on the technique, but I have spent some time working with it, so hopefully my groundwork will be a helpful base for taking off and running with it in your own projects.

For these examples I'm using some old Reiksguard Knights from Citadel. They are a good choice to use as statues, and they offer quite a bit of topographic variety so you can see how the effect works on various surfaces. All three are primed black to start. The first two examples will both begin with bronze. My metals start with TinBitz (GW), Burnished Bronze (VMC) and a little Burnished Brass(GW) to brighten them up. That just happens to be a recipe I enjoy for a bronze that is both rich and bright, whatever your favorite starting place for these metals is will be fine.

Method 1: Verdigris in a bottle.

There are bottled formulas out there from a variety of manufacturers for all sorts of effects, including verdigris. I've chosen Verdigris Glaze (VMC932) for this as I'm sure the brand is familiar to most readers.

The first thing to mention about Vallejo's verdigris is it is a glaze- not in the thin almost ink-wash sense that painters generally use for that term, but in the sense of a glazed doughnut. It has a thick consistency and milky complexion out of the bottle. You'll want to water it down on your palette so you can get it where you want it. Unless you're doing a piece where the oxidation has taken over everywhere, this is going to be in cracks and crevices where water might pool, and on surfaces bounded by lips and edges where moisture may be held on by surface tension.

Although it is a light blue color at first, this can be deceiving. As you apply the glaze, especially thinned to a usable consistency, you will see that it dries in a more chalky white shade.

With only one application you get this:

There is not much to see at this point. There are two approaches with Vallejos glaze: Lots of thin coats, or fewer thicker ones. You certainly get more noticeable results if you glob it on there, but its harder to control.

Here you see the figure progressing with additional coats:

As you can see, the result is a little less than stunning. Ive seen other tutorials where people make moderately good use of this product, but to really finish it, they almost always end up with normal pigments. This last image, taken under proper lighting, is about as good as it gets in my experience:

Hopefully this will save you from bothering with additional products you dont need when you already probably have what you need to make the same thing, only much better.