3D wooden kit to paint Bear

A mountain sunset inside a walking bear

The bear is shown in profile, walking, and the scene framed inside it runs from a meadow at the feet through a pine forest and a lake to mountain ridges lit by a low sun along the animal's back – with a line of geese crossing above the ridge.

The ridges are the feature. They are cut as their own layer with a jagged upper edge, so they catch the strongest colour in the piece and sit clear of everything behind them.

The layer that decides the whole piece

Five layers, glued in sequence, and the depth between them is what makes the forest read as being behind the meadow rather than beside it – about two centimetres of it at the deepest point.

The lake sits as a flat band across the middle. It is the largest uninterrupted surface in the range, and the easiest place to get a good result with one well-chosen colour.

Painting the sunset

Red and yellow are what the ridges need. Mix orange rather than laying one colour over the other, and keep the blue for the lake rather than spending it on sky.

Bare wood is a usable colour here in its own right. Left unpainted, the rock faces read as pale stone, which saves paint for the ridges where it counts.

Before you start

Paint each layer flat first, then glue – the lake and the ridges sit behind the forest layer, where a brush cannot reach once the stack is assembled. Keep paint off the faces where the layers meet, and touch up the joins at the end.