tackles a pair of lionesses.
Lastly, the bow. Here I want to show my method for quickly achieving a wood-like texture. On a competition model I'd go to extra lengths, but since I'm not trying to earn a trophy or some swag here, I'll settle for a less time-consuming job. We start with a nice, deep brown base color, nearly black (dark burnt sienna, maybe), in fact!
I mixed some ochre (a yellowish light brown) into my base brown, and quickly paint a few stripes onto the bow.
More ochre goes into the mix, and I paint over my lines from the last step, being sure to leave some of the darker color showing. I'm also not very careful - there's no need to stay inside the area of darker color.
Next, I add some light tan to the mix and paint some streaks onto the bow, mostly at random but I'm trying to get nice, thin lines. I make a few Y-shapes and a blotch or two (knots). This step is where it really starts to look like wood.
Finally, I painted the grip red and painted Lyria's fingers. Not shown, I gave the bow a wash of brown ink (1:1:4 brown ink, Future, water). Again, this helps tie all the colors together and provides some additional shading.
That's it! I did a little extra detailing; some freehand on a quiver, lipstick, gave her white fetlocks, and finished the base to complete the figure. Have a look at the finished photos to see how it all hangs together!