Stained Glass Alters

The second style of altering I got into was stained glass. The first one I did was an Elvish Visionary. The style allows for so much creativity. You can add nameplates anywhere for captions. Which I usually use for my nonsense Alien language glyphs. Borders within the card are also a playground. Check out the ponder I did on the alters page for a time I was messing around with the gold borders.

The color palette decisions are crucial. Both in color swatches and how dense each color appears.

You can use color choices to convey gradients across the image. For the Elvish Visionary, I used an autumn color palette with the brighter colors emphasized at the top. And an insane swap to blue at the bottom 8 )>

Elvish Visionary My First Stained Glass Alter

That was a long time ago. I’ve done a lot more stained glass since then and should be able to pull off another one in a few days. Andy and I had fun drafting the Spider-Man set, so I have a lot of those commons handy.

I usually look for an angel, knight or other holy figure for these alters. The other way to go is to lean against type and pick something mundane to exalt. This widens the field of what I can select and is less pressure than painting a card that’s crucial for one of my decks.

The Bagel & Schmear card fits perfectly.

Original Bagel & Schmear Ladies and Gentelemen, tonight's sacrifice!

Here’s my setup for this project. I’m using mostly Army paints in a blue palette with a yellow shade for the light beams.

Tools Art Supplies used for this, minus the micron.

To start, I use the Poco Lt. Blue marker to mask the image…

Masking Paint pens are a decent cheat for base layers

I then sketch the entire card in pencil. I haven’t done this in a while and make the glass pieces way too small. That’s fine, as long as I’m being as light as possible. I don’t want to erase and mess up the masking base, but I’ll use the next step to shore up the sizing.

I also wasn’t sure about the nameplate positioning. In retrospect, it should have been a single horizontal nameplate above the bagel with “SHARE•NOSH”. Maybe for another shot at this one, I got plenty.

Sketch Going crazy here

I then go over the pencil sketch with a micron pen. Left out of the tools image but pictured here on its own:

.005 Micron Pen

This thing is the star of the show. It’s so thin and you can apply the lines with the lightest touch. It’s also easy to judge against a straightedge, which I had to use for the lightbeams.

I’ll use it now to decide what parts of my initial sketch will become permanent. If you compare the before and after images, you can see how I adjusted the sizing. Those pencil lines will be painted over, so I’m not worried about leaving them on.

My big experiment was using a ball point sharpie pen to reinforce the nameplates. I wanted them to stick out differently. It turned out I should have just used the micron as the ink went on way too thick.

Reinforce Reinforced Lines

Here’s the card after painting in the glass shards. I made color choices easy on myself and used the same blue palette as my last few stained glass alters. ASt some point when the Army Painter supply runs dry, I’ll get some quality Acrylic primaries and start mixing my own shades. But for now I’m fine with re-using the palate here to work on my technique.

Lines are getting messy, especially at the top of the card name. I’ll go up to that inner-border next time to guide the edge. Otherwise it becomes very difficult to clean up - as happened with this alter.

First Paint Coat First layer of actual painting

Adding in the yellow beams and reinforcing the nameplate background color for the lettering.

First Paint Coat The lightbeams really bring out the schmear

Here’s where the micron pen comes back in as the star of the show. I went over all the lines now that the paint is all on and dried. Reinforcing these layers really makes a difference.

Reinforcing the lines Nearing the finished card

The first round of cleaning up the edges had me initially believing the card was complete.

Holy Bagel Not yet...

After seeing that image in detail, I was able to go back and fix a few more lines.

Holier Bagel ...there.

Discovery

Edges are so important in this style of alter. There’s no feathering of colors like there would be on a more realistic extension. So it helps to focus on the actual color palate and marker lining technique.

The sharpie pen nameplates were my biggest error. I’ll stick to the .005 micron for line work. If I need something thicker, I’ll reach out to that brand for another pen.

I also have to be more careful when using the straightedge on an unfinished project. I moved it a few times in a way that scraped off some of the already-painted glass shards.

What Did We Learn?

The bagel is holy

Socials

I make occasional posts about my alters on Instagram.

Cheers, all!