Aside from my slightly warped sense of humor, I wanted to try painting a tie-dye effect on a miniature. I tried two common patterns: stripes and the circle. I left the bone very clean and un-oiled looking because, without lungs, I doubt he'd be lighting up the magical weed anymore... This is a Ral Partha figure. 2002.
Other than the colors, what distinguishes tie-dye to me is the blurriness, patchiness, and uneven color coverage. After all this time trying to paint smooth blends and precise freehand, this was loads of fun :) I used ivory as the base coat for the tie-dye. All the bright colors were rather translucent, and I took advantage of this to simulate the stronger and weaker dyed parts of the robe. And yes, I did use retarder/extender to keep the paints from drying before I could smear them around. :) For areas where the dyes mixed - like the purple where the pink and blue meet - I mixed the two colors on my pallete and then added it to the figure. I also went back with watered down ivory over areas where I wanted the dye to be weaker. Since the tie-dye is supposed to be patchy, I didn't worry about highlighting or shadowing... well, I added a darker green shadowing to the bottom of the robe where it folds over horizontally, and a little watered down ivory on the bottom half of the robe where the crisp vertical fold lines are. I did darkline under his collar, where his arm presses against the robe, and around the lining on the front of the robe.
The front shot has the most accurate colors, but he's even brighter in person. If I try the circle pattern again, I think it will look better if I use more layers of color.