Workbench - Mermaid's base

 I decided to try something different for Mermaid's base.  Since the base looks like a steering wheel for a ship (sorry I have no idea on what its called O_o ) I decided to paint the whole base with wood grain.  I've never done this before, so I took lots of pictures.  Hopefully it will be useful for somebody :D

Primed base.

 Painted the light wood color as a base color.  The color must be couple of shades lighter then the final wood color you like to achive.

For the next step I used Golden Acrylic Glazing liquid with some Burnt Sienna.  Glazing liquid extends the drying time of the paint, helping me achieve and blend colors almost like oil paints.

 Using stiff bristle brush I applied the paint on the base, leaving streaks on purpose :D

Next I used dark brown to add thin lines (mixed with Golden liquid)

Next using soft bristle brush I blended the lines up and down.  And after that I used even softer brush to gently blend side to side.  Don't over blend :D

 After all the blending I used transparent brown to even out the the tone.   I always do this last step on any of my paintings, it just takes away shard odd shading off.

 As the last painting step I used transparent dark brown to add some shadows.
Plus as a final step the base got some Future treatment :D

Not bad for the first time trying this, right ?  :D