Suggestions needed for Olivia colour scheme

[Geoff Davis]

Hi all,

 

I have been helping out at a monthly "learn to paint miniatures" class at a local games cafe.  It has mostly been brand new painters who have never painted a miniature before.  We are using the Reaper Learn to Paint starter kits as well as the miniatures that were provided by Reaper.  We recently ran out of miniatures, so the cafe order a bunch of new ones.  I convinced them that we should get enough of one miniature such that everyone in the class can paint the same one at the same time.  That way people can follow along with an instructor who will show what they are doing on a screen.  We are getting a lot of repeat attendees now, so some of the participants are ready to do more than just slap a single thick coat of paint on the figure.  So far, they have been hard to convince to try any shading or highlighting.  Even washes and drybrushing are meeting resistance.  So, I am looking for advice. 

 

The figure we are going to do this month is 77396: Olivia, Female Cleric by Werner Klocke.  I am going to paint one plain purple and show them Derek Schubert's monochrome class sample so they get a good sense of what highlighting/shading will do for their miniature.  Olivia Purple Monochrome

 

What I am looking for is suggestions on a colour scheme that looks appealing, will be relatively simple to paint and where the effects of highlighting and shading can clearly be seen.  I am not good at picking out colour schemes, and I have already scoured the internet looking for ideas.  So, your ideas, please!  Any suggestions you have on colour or on conducting the class will be welcomed.

 

Geoff

[Cyradis]

Not black, white, yellow, or red. Those can get tricky for newbies.

 

I'd try out blues and browns for newbies, as I find them the easiest to shade/highlight. Blue takes well to mixing with black to darken, or white to lighten, as does brown. You can also mess with tone; show a dark blue vs a light blue or similar. 

[rfusca]

Go for a brown almost leather look on the robes.  The autumn brows reaper triad works well with a touch of leather brown as a final highlight.  Its an easy set of colors that covers well, shades and highlights well, and its very useful for other minis.  For the area in front that's a different color, purple or blue shade and highlight well and cover well for newbies.  Red or white would look better but is considerably more difficult.

[Flit]

As for the reluctance of your students to try shading and highlighting:

Have you tried using two copies of the same mini base coat one and on the second using the same color scheme shade and highlight to a table top finish. Seeing the difference could help the students see the benefit of shading and highlighting.

Have you asked your students why they don't want to shade and highlight? Finding out why they don't want to do it could give insight on how to overcome their reluctance.

 

[LittleBluberry]

Will you have additional colors of paint to use, or just what came with kit #1?  I'm assuming that you haven't done kit #2 yet since that's all about shading.  

 

It might also be time to let them start planning their own colors, perhaps if they are painting their favorite color it will nudge them to wanting to shade it.  Depends on the people.  If they don't want to shade, what are they wanting to learn at this point?

[Geoff Davis]

So far, the basic process has been everyone comes in, grabs their free mini, sits and base coats it whatever colours they like and then they go home.  

 

At the start of each class I ask them if there is any particular technique they would like to see and make a few suggestions.  At the last class I demoed how to paint eyes and how to paint skin including shading highlighting etc.  Few people actually tried it however.  Pace wasn't the issue because it was a three hour class and I took time to walk around and show each table the progress after each step (after painting it so they could watch on a projection screen).

 

I suspect that the table layout in the cafe is part of the problem so I've made a plan to change the layout so people will be able to see and hear better.  

 

This will be the first time that everyone has the same miniature to paint and can follow along painting the same model as demoed.

 

 

[Geoff Davis]

On 2/8/2018 at 11:30 AM, rfusca said:

Go for a brown almost leather look on the robes.  The autumn brows reaper triad works well with a touch of leather brown as a final highlight. 

 

Ok, so I was going to follow this advice, but then I reversed the two colours to make it a leather apron and cloth robes.  The autumn browns look good, as you said.  I tried to keep it to one shade colour and two highlights only.  The only place I used a wash was on the metallics.  Using washes in these classes hasn't worked out too well so far because the drying time is a bit longer.   I also made a non-highlighted version for comparison as suggested.   The blending is a crude, but I tried to keep it basic so it could be done in a couple of hours.  The aim of the class is get them to shade and highlight.  I will also skip the face and eyes during the class since that is what we did last time.  If I focus on four areas (the apron, the robe, the scarf and the symbols/piping) they should be able to see results of their work within the three hour time frame of the class. 

 

 

 

 

I am also going to start by getting them to hit all the possible shadowed areas with dark brown to start with.  This should help them see where the details are and get a sense of what they are aiming for. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Geoff Davis]

The class went pretty well last night.  I had 16 people show up.  About half were first time miniature painters, the other half had previous painting experience or had been to a class before.  I used a presentation to introduce the aim of the class and explain what to expect. I also provided them a colour picture printed out as a reference.  Some people asked for a different miniature and carried on painting.  Roughly half the class followed along with the plan and tried to follow the steps I was demonstrating as projected on the screen.  There were a lot of good questions and good attempts to highlight.  Overall I'm pretty pleased with how it worked out.  The intro presentation was really helpful, so I will do that again in future classes.  However,  I won't use the webcam/projection screen demo.  It was too difficult to do that and answer people's questions at the same time.  Ultimately the demo models and pictures were more helpful. 

 

I've attached a link to the presentation if anyone is curious:  Painting Class Intro 15 Feb 2018  (this is a big file -- 850k)

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 17, 2018 by Geoff Davis

[kazmania7]

I'm very pleased to hear your class went well and looked at your intro and thought very professional. But one think I'm curious about is, do they take their miniature home with them after class to work on, and if so do they bring it back so you can see the progress?

[Geoff Davis]

Yes, they take the miniatures home at the end of class and they get to keep them.  So far, no one has brought one back for advice or to keep working on it.  It would be cool if they did and I'd love to see it.