A Blast From The Past Exterminate.

 Thanks for stopping by, now I know some of you have seen this before but I thought I would share with you how you can transform the Tando-creative Xmas tree advent calendar into the Doctors deadliest enemy just in time for Christmas usingthe Decoart Media Line. 
sorry it's not a step by step but my big fat cat has broken my laptop by sitting on it and I am writing this on a mobile device.

 I made this a little while back after Di from Tando-Creative  set me the challenge of converting her existing Xmas tree into the classic Dr Who villain.
I started by assembling the kit into all the component parts with a couple of small changes, the feet of the xmas tree were trimmed off at the ankles level with the lowest point of the tree to create a level base.the top of the tree was also trimmed down, I used an old telephone bell to create my domed top but a plastic top from a deodorant can should do the trick, just play around with different lids till you find something with the right contours.the neck piece was made from some grey board. Some plastic mesh was added to the top and some rings were cut using some circle dies.a wooden kebab stick was used for the arms and a cocktail stick with a couple of beads was used for the nose.
 Around the base I added strips of masking tape for the skirt.

To the right you can see how the Tando kit look normally.

Below I'll show how to get a tarnished look for the main body. The other sections were first painted black using Decoart carbon media fluid acrylic and once dry I used their Metalic Lustres  rubbed on with a finger gently.
The inside of the drawers were also painted black, the fronts of the drawers had some large half pearls added.













I picked the tarnished technique up from Andy Skinners online workshop Timeworn Techniques and have adapted the technique for the Media line which is easy to do with all the timeworn techniques. The course is well worth having a look at if you love the grungy and industrial look of mixed media. Andy has kindly let me show a little step by step of this process.

Start by painting the surface with the gold fluid acrylic, you will be surprised how little paint it takes to get coverage .

The next step is to add colour washes, I start with black you only need a tiny amount of the fluid acrylic and then add water to really dilute the paint, play around with the intensity, I always keep a mister bottle of water close by incase the wash is still to strong. Just spray to thin the intensity down.

Cover the surface with the wash, I then tilt the surface to get the wash to run and at the same time I apply heat from my heat gun to speed up the drying process and to keep the run patterns on the surface. 

This step is the repeated with Quinacridone Burnt Orange.

Keep going till you get the results you like.

The surface was then finished off with some Quinacridone Gold. I  used a tiny amount of Quin gold  and really worked into the surface.the Quinacridone colours have a beautiful rich but transparent quality about the, that really helps on this type of look.

The Dalek was then finished of with a satin varnish for protection but you could easily use the matte varnish for a nice flat look to the piece.

Thanks for taking a trip down memory lane, this is about as Christmassy as I will get I'm afraid ;-) 

And a big thank you to Helen who was able to add the last of these pics for me when my computer died, you really saved me on this one xx 

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