Paint these stunningly realistic watercolour beetles

You'll get your paints set up and learn the three watercolour moves the whole beetle is built from. No beetle yet, no pressure, just the foundations. A quick, easy start.

• The exact paints, brushes, and paper you need (full list is in your free bonus)
• Mixing the five golds, from pale glow to deep reflection, so your colours stay clean and never go muddy
• Flat and graded washes, the base of every shell
• The highlight rule: painting a shiny dome on a practice sheet, so you feel the trick before the real thing
• Three expert tips for the paper, the water, and knowing when to stop

You'll get the beetles onto your paper, perfectly symmetrical. If drawing makes you nervous, you can simply trace the outlines I give you for all three. No drawing skill required.

• Two easy ways to get a beetle onto your paper: copy it or trace it
• The centre line trick that keeps both sides of the body the same size
• Marking where the highlights stay white, before you touch a brush
• Why this five-minute step stops you ruining the painting later
• Printable outlines for all three beetles, so you can skip drawing entirely

You'll begin the real painting with the softest, palest washes. No detail yet, just gentle warm colour and the glow everything else builds on. An easy, satisfying start.

• Your first pale gold wash over the whole shell, working around the white
• Wet-on-wet blends from yellow to ochre so the shell starts to curve
• Painting the head and the pronotum as one soft shape
• The legs and antennae, lightly, in the right place
• The painting secret that stops mud before it starts

The wow step. You'll layer thin glazes of gold and drop in the dark reflections that turn a yellow bug into a polished metal shell, the part most people get wrong before they're shown the order.

• Glazing: building depth with three thin layers instead of one heavy one
• Where the dark reflection shapes go, and why they're what makes it shine
• The seam down the middle and the edges of the wing cases
• Soft versus crisp edges, and controlling your paint consistency
• A quick fix for when a layer comes out too dark

Now the golden beetle comes to life. You'll paint the spiny legs and antennae so they look jointed instead of stiff, add the tiniest details, and drop in the soft shadow that lifts the beetle off the page.

• Legs that look like legs: joints, spines, and the one line that makes them bend
• Eyes, antennae and the texture on the head
• The cast shadow that makes people ask if it's a real specimen
• The last white highlights, and knowing when to put the brush down
• Finishing, signing, and framing your painting

Now you put everything to use on the other two beetles. We paint the bronze stag beetle and the saffron stag beetle, start to finish, no step skipped, exactly like the first one.

• The bronze stag beetle, painted with me from blank paper to finished shell
• How a matte, textured shell is built differently from a mirror-bright one
• The saffron stag beetle, start to finish: black armour and glowing orange wing cases
• Those big antler mandibles, and how to keep them sharp instead of clumsy
• Adapting the colour recipe to any other beetle you want to paint next