Really Basic Color Selection

[Errex]

Ok, There are a lot of neat colors in any paint line, but if you are really into a short budget, it doesn't mean you should limit your color pallette. All the hues you can thin of can be derived from mixing these primary colors :

 

1.-White

2.-Black

3.-Red

4.- Lemony Yellow

5.- Ultramarine Blue

 

And

 

6.- Magenta. (really folks, there is just no way to have this one as a result of mixing any of the others.)

 

The color wheels people mention on other posts does not only help you decide wich colors complement each other, but also illustrate wich basic colors have to be mixed to get a certain hue.

 

So, I admit it is nice to have five different shades of brown to pick from, but if you don't have the luxury to afford the 60 bottle paint set, these should cover all your needs.

[Jordahn]

That's pretty much the basics. When I buy paint for my painting (canvas, masonite, etc.), my basic colors are cadmium red medium, cadmium yellow medium, ultramarine blue, titanium white, and dioxazine purple. I buy the dioxazine purple because it can be hard to mix a good purple. But I also have hookers green, cerulean blue, iron oxide yellow, burnt umber, and alizarin crimson for the variety of hues.

[Lars Porsenna]

The only problem with this is that you would constantly have to mix all different shades. I understand that's the point of having this selection of colors, but as a person who's done his own mixing, I find it rather annoying and 9 times out of 10 would rather just use a color out of the bottle, making shading and highlighting much easier, not to mention maintaining consistency across my collection.

 

Also I would never reccommend mixing custom colors to beginners...

 

For a beginner I'd reccommend buying the figure and a couple of bottles of paint you know you will use on it, and just concentrate on base coats to begin with, rather than washes and highlights...

 

Damon.

[Mengu]

Mixing with primary colors yields to a tremendous amount of waisted paint. For instance for a certain effect, you might need 6 parts red, one part yellow, one part white, and two parts black. And then you need to create the highlight color by perhaps adding more yellow and white to the mix. If you're only painting fingernails, that's a lot of waisted paint. It's probably just cheaper to buy the colors you want. Most the time you have to mix anyway for highlights and shadows if not for your base color.

 

Also I find that a lot of times I'll put bottles next to each other to decide what scheme I want, or what shade of brown I want to use.