How do you shade off-whites & tans to get enough contrast?

[PaintByNumbers]

There are all sorts of nice shades of very light, subtle colors but at tabletop distance they look like blobs. What can you do with light colors to create a darker shade for some visible contrast?

 

Using blue-grey doesn't seem correct with yellow tinted whites, which is everything from "eggshell" to "light tan."

[Stubbdog]

Basically, start the base coat as the darker color, dont start with white.

 

For example, take a cream color or a mid gray and mix a little white into it and have that be your base color. Then add more white up until you are all white for your highlights. The shade for the most part would be that straight cream or gray that you had before adding any white.

[PaintByNumbers]

That method is a non-starter for tabletop army painting. I'm doing 30 figs at once. I want to average 20 minutes per fig, not 20 hours per fig.

 

Such subtle differences don't show up at arms length.

 

Only want to use 2 colors; my question is really about what to mix into the color to make it "darker" when the main color is light & some variety of a yellow/tan.

 

I'm not happy using red/orange toned washes, they change the nature of the main color.

 

MSP & Foundry have triads, but the difference is invisible at table top distance.

[smokingwreckage]

Cream shades with brown. VMC Flat Earth or equivalent (I learnt this trick using RP Cleric Brown). If the colour you want is more yellow, use a yellow brown. here's three I've used for shading cream, flesh, and yellow-brown, respectively: Tanned Shadow, Flat Earth, Chestnut Gold.Hmm, just looking at the bottle, Leather Brown might be a candidate too.

 

The trick here is this: browns are really oranges and yellows. Cream and tan are really browns, which are really oranges and yellows, see? You need to find a deep brown that will quickly and easily blend with your very pale brown without wrecking it. I think, and this is just a theory, that it has to do with picking a brown that's got the same balance of blue, yellow, red. Uh, that sounds a bit trite actually..... my next suggestion is looking at the colour you want to shade and asking "If I were a darker brown, which brown would I be?"

 

In any case, your answer is some sort of brown.

[smokingwreckage]

Just a note: tan or cream are very muted, very pale yellows/oranges. Shading them with a red or orange means the shading is LESS muted than the highlight. That just won't work unless you're trying to do something super-funky, IMO.

[PaintByNumbers]

>>>

You need to find a deep brown that will quickly and easily blend with your very pale brown without wrecking it.

>>>

 

Right. The Dallimore method would have me basecoat with the brown and cover 90% of that with the light color. Of course, you need the light color to be opaque or else you have to waste time doing multiple coats.

 

On figs with nice deep recesses, I can stroke the dark into them. Otherwise a wash is necessary, but it darkens the light color I want to achieve.

 

My motto is that every coat is another repetetive stress injury.

[Sergeant_Crunch]

One way to keep a wash from darkening your highlight is painfully simple. Do the highlight last. Start with a basecoat in your main midtone color, wash with the darker, then highlight. You've already expressed that you're either doing the dallimore method or otherwise aren't as concerned with smooth transitions so not using the wash to smooth the transition isn't as big a deal. Or, you can start with basecoating in the darkest color, then apply your main color being careful to not get it into the nooks and crannies, then apply the highlight.

 

Regarding shading off-whites and tans, I look at the paints and go with what looks good to me.

[smokingwreckage]

Washes tend to hate me, but consider a wash, then wiping the wash off the highlights with a quick swipe of your thumb.

[Kang]

On figs with nice deep recesses, I can stroke the dark into them. Otherwise a wash is necessary, but it darkens the light color I want to achieve.

YMMV; I read about this several months ago and it sounds convincing to me, but I haven't had a chance to try it yet:

load up your brush with flow improver (AKA acrylic thinner?) and slather it all over the whole area you will be washing. Then do the wash while the coat of thinner is still wet. The wash should slide right into the nooks and crannies without staining the mid- and highlight tones.

 

If you do go this route, please come back and let us know how it turned out!

 

Kang

[skya]

I tend to mix Valleyo Camo Black Brown or RMS Blackened Brown in with my base color and use that. It's a bit purpley, but not overly so, giving a nice contrast to the yellow tone of the cream color without going overboard and making it blue.