Colour Suggestions

[Primarch]

. btw, I just noticed that you should probably swap out codex grey and fortress grey in the instructions I gave above for adeptus battlegrey and astronomican grey respectively. Theyre roughly the same colours,

Adeptusbattlegrey.jpg (4.3 KiB) Viewed 2466 times

CodexGrey.jpg (4.54 KiB) Viewed 2466 times

Adeptus is a shade darker than the Codex.

Astronomicongrey.jpg (4.96 KiB) Viewed 2466 times

FortressGrey.jpg (4.84 KiB) Viewed 2466 times

Astronomicon is a shade darker than the Fortress and in my experience has a touch more blue to it. Very hand for painting white though.

charadon granite (very similar to graveyard earth, and could replace it if you wanted).

I think M_i_J may need to spend less time squinting at very small details as these two are not really that similar at all IMO.

CharadonGranite.jpg (4.81 KiB) Viewed 2466 times

GraveyardEarth.jpg (5.88 KiB) Viewed 2466 times

All these colour swatches can be found on the GW website under their Paints section.

[me_in_japan]

all those colour swatches are wrong. Im sitting here looking at the paints in my hand right now. Trust me Theyre not identical, as i said, but theyre close enough to do the job just fine. Its not like you ever use paints straight from the pot anyway, right? its all about how they affect the colours of the paint your mixing them with...

[Primarch]

all those colour swatches are wrong. Im sitting here looking at the paints in my hand right now. Trust me Theyre not identical, as i said, but theyre close enough to do the job just fine.

Graveyard Earth (at least the one I have) is a fair bit lighter than the one shown here, Charadon Granite is still a very very dark colour though. If your Graveyard Earth and Charadon Granite are close to the same shade then one of us has a dodgy batch of paint.
The Fortress grey is a lot less blue and the Astromonicon grey is a lot whiter, but they still give some idea of the overall finish.

Its not like you ever use paints straight from the pot anyway, right?

Er.... I do. Is that bad? I add water, but I dont mix every single bit of paint I put on a model into a unique shade.

[me_in_japan]

Er.... I do. Is that bad? I add water, but I dont mix every single bit of paint I put on a model into a unique shade.

as a base coat, yeah, its ok. But you shade and highlight by adding other colours to it dont you? i mean, not black and white - colours. If so, yer ok. If not, then oooooooh, are you doing it wrong. Wrong, I tells yer!

[Primarch]

Er.... I do. Is that bad? I add water, but I dont mix every single bit of paint I put on a model into a unique shade.

as a base coat, yeah, its ok. But you shade and highlight by adding other colours to it dont you? i mean, not black and white - colours. If so, yer ok. If not, then oooooooh, are you doing it wrong. Wrong, I tells yer!

Shade = wash usually. Sometimes the base colour with a darker shade (or black) added
Highlight = mixed colours or just a lighter shade. Codex Grey > Fortress Grey for example.

[AndrewGPaul]

Er.... I do. Is that bad? I add water, but I dont mix every single bit of paint I put on a model into a unique shade.

as a base coat, yeah, its ok. But you shade and highlight by adding other colours to it dont you? i mean, not black and white - colours. If so, yer ok. If not, then oooooooh, are you doing it wrong. Wrong, I tells yer!

Rubbish.

I can paint five different skin tones without mixing a colour. I mean, I will, if I'm taking my time, but usually it's base, wash, 1st highlight, 2nd highlight.

For example, my "standard" is Bronzed Flesh; Ogryn Flesh; Bronzed Flesh highlight; Elf Flesh highlight. Some judicious thinning helps blend the tones together.

Even when I do mix specific colours, I try to begin and end on a 'pure' colour - it helps with consistency across batches.

[AndrewGPaul]

As an aside, you might wish to look at the "Dallimore method". Essentially, use three tones for each colour. You paint the whole area in the shade tone, then overpaint everything but the deep recesses with the mid tone, then highlight the raised areas with the light tone. It's the reason Wargames Foundry sells their paints in sets of three.

As an example, watch the animated .gifs of the Judge Dredd mini on his homepage:

http://www.kevindallimore.co.uk/

[kojibear]

As an aside, you might wish to look at the "Dallimore method".

Thanks Andrew

I have looked at this method and ones like it and have really learned a lot. Cheers!

Also, thanks to everyone else for their continued advice. I really aprreciate it! Let's hope when I put brush to mini that I will do you all proud!

[me_in_japan]

all of this "i use colours A, B and C" talk is just fine, so long as the colours are blended together. I.e. if you just have a layer of B, with straight A in teh shadows and C on the highlights then theres no way itll look smooth. As long as the colours themselves are reasonably compatible theres no particular reason you need to blend up a whole new tone, but you do need to mix intermediaries, regardless of what youre working with. One possible exception is if the colours youre using are very, very close together, but if theyre that close, there wont be much contrast between light and shadow.

[Primarch]

One possible exception is if the colours youre using are very, very close together, but if theyre that close, there wont be much contrast between light and shadow.

Or if you just dont care.

Seriously, when painting individual models, thats fine, but when I need to get an army done by a deadline (tournament, event etc) you can go whistle if you think I'm spending that much time on it.