Aventine Elie Project +1

Experimented with several colors to dry-brush the elephant's skin.  Vallejo Saddle Brown mixed with a little Vallejo German Grey was used as a base coat over the black primer undercoat. The colors were chosen because that's basically the base tone I wanted, and  they were the colors I already have. The photo below shows this base coat.

Although I'm no expert on elephants (amongst a host of other things I'm not), there are enough images available on the internet that make Indian elephants appear less "gray" than their African cousins. In fact, the ones I've seen in the past seem to vary in tone from pinkish-white to a dark brownish-gray. I believe this has a lot to do with the mood they're in too - if you know what I mean. Here are several images of Indian elephants that I found on a quick internet search.

Anyway, the next coat was a mixture of Vallejo German Grey and Ceramcoat Mudstone - again because I hoped this would be the color I wanted and also what I have on-hand.

A "final" coat of all three previously used colors - dunno why, but thought it might blend the colors better. I'll see how it looks after the rest of the model is painted - maybe it'll need highlights or tone downs here and there, if needed.

The technique to paint elephants, basically only dry-brushing, is very simple; However, to get the correct coloring is hard. I'm still not fully-satisfied with the coloring, but as already mentioned, I'll hold off until the rest of the model is painted.