I got da blues...

[Cerridwyn1st]

OK, in discribing this stuff, I'm going to do a little linguistic inventing. Forget using "base" in any of this; I find it too confusing. Visual color refers to the color you want to register with the viewer as the color for the mini. Shading is the color that registers as the shadow on the Visual Color. Highlight is the color that registers as the high point on the visual color. Highpoint is the brightest part of the highlight.

 

I've been finding lately that I go on "color tangents". I'll paint similar colors on a series of minis all at once. This has helped me a lot in figuring out how colors work.

 

For instance, I found that I like painting skin greens (like trolls, lizardmen, dragons, etc.) on top of gray instead of white or black. Green on white looks cartoony, muted on black. Gray seems to come out just right.

 

Green skin looks best with an undercoat of dark green-blue for the shade. I then layer up to the visual color and highlight. For the highlight, I'll often just use paler shades of a bottle color, rather than mixing something.

 

I do a little differenlty on green cloth. I start by painting the visual color all over the cloth area. I shadow green by mixing Windsor & Newton Payne's Gray with sky blue and add this to my visual color. If I need more intermediary steps, I add sky blue to the previous mixture. For highlights, I mix yellow in the visual color. the highpoint may be almost pure yellow. Sand yellow works really well for forest green-type colors.

 

Red looks best when you start with an undercoat of red/brown. Vallejo Hull Red is great, and Reaper Brick Red would probably work, too. Sometimes I'll add a bit of my visual color to the Hull Red. Just seems to look better that way. Layer up to the visual red color. For highlight, add yellow or yellow/orange to the visual color. The highpoint may be orange-yellow or yellow with only a touch of red.

 

Blues are fairly easy to shade and highlight, mixing in black for shade and white for highligt works pretty well. You can also use the Payne's Gray mixed with the color for shade, sky blue for the highlight.

 

Black can be a pain, and oddly enough, Payne can help you out. Payne's Gray, that is. My online mentor, Dragonsreach (on CMON) told me about using this color. He uses it to highlight black, then mixes Codex gray little by little and blends up for highpoints. I use sky blue instead - guess I just have to be different - and it works pretty well for me.

 

I haven't done much with white lately. I guess that will be the next phase of my mini-madness.

[claymoore]

You can also use the Payne's Gray mixed with the color for shade, sky blue for the highlight.

 

Black can be a pain, and oddly enough, Payne can help you out. Payne's Gray, that is. My online mentor, Dragonsreach (on CMON) told me about using this color. He uses it to highlight black, then mixes Codex gray little by little and blends up for highpoints. I use sky blue instead

Reaper 8068 Blue Black is the same color as the Liquitex version of Paynes Gray that I have. I like it for detailing seperations in plate armor among it's many uses.

[Crusoe the Painter]

About blue-green for shading greens, etc...

 

This is actually a very very useful color rule.

 

Orient a color wheel so that yellow points up, and purple is at the bottom. Notice how the colors are 'lighter' towards yellow, and darker towards purple.

 

Now, pick for instance green. When you want to make shades, tones or tints of green by adding black/grey/white, this tends to kill the green, making it muddy. It's especially noticable when you shade the green.

 

So, when you want to make a darker shade for green, add a little blue to it before adding black/dark grey. When making a tint, add a little yellow to it, as you 'climb' the color wheel.

 

So as you lighten a color with white, add a little of the next color up, when darkening, add a little of the next color down. Try it out on your pallete.

 

Red ( base tone )

Red + Orange + light grey ( hilight tint ).

Red + purple + dark grey ( shade ).

 

I think that if you look closely at Rackham's work, you'll notice a lot of grey-blues, greens, etc. They still look vibrant and alive. take a careful look at the colors used to shade these tones, and you'll see they follow the above rules...

 

Grey-blue, grey-green-blue, grey-purple blue are the triads they use for base, hilight, and shading.

 

Of course, there is no color above yellow, but adding white for tints doesn't really kill it. Same with adding black to purple. :)

[anvil]

Gee, and I just go with what I like. Darn, all this color theory makes my head spin

[Cerridwyn1st]

Gee, and I just go with what I like. Darn, all this color theory makes my head spin

LOL Yea, I kind of worked it out myself by trial and error - lots of error. I guess that is kind of what I meant by saying I go on "color tangents", and it'a a lot of how I developed the way that I do things.

 

Although I may well print out the stuff about the color wheel and place it (along with a color wheel) in my paint box for future reference.

 

I do understand what you mean by "tint" and "shade". Tints being the full color with white added, shades being the full color with black added.

 

I used "visual color", "highlight" and "shadow" for those who don't have a background in color theory. I find "base" to be an over used word when talking about miniatures, so I wanted to avoid it.

 

I will keep the comment about Reaper Blue/black in mind, too. But you have to admit - the big-mouth paint bottles get gloopy over time. Maybe when the Master Paints come out, I'll give that color a try.

[Durak]

Color wheels also work wonders with shading and blending.

[Brumbor]

I'm having flash backs to college days of design fundimentls....

 

We had to paint about 200 1 inch by 1 inch boxs taking every color on the wheel tint it, shade it, & add its compliment.

[Cerridwyn1st]

I'm having flash backs to college days of design fundimentls....

 

We had to paint about 200 1 inch by 1 inch boxs taking every color on the wheel tint it, shade it, & add its compliment.

I feel you, Brumbor. I might even have mine tucked away somewhere. Too bad I had about a two-year gap between design and starting to paint minis - probably would have done better sooner if they'd been fairly concurent.