Choosing the Right Color for Shading

[Einion]

i guess people are now are unimagineitve when it comes to terms like that. it's been drilled into me so much that frankly i'm at a loss at what else to call it. what would you suggest?

'Colour temperature'? In short, hue, value and chroma (or an equivalent set of terms like hue, brightness and saturation).

The terminology is primarily used to distinguish hue, although it can often indicate chroma differences. But it can also be used to describe differences in value only. And in case it doesn't occur to anyone independently it can of course refer to any combination of the three. Beginning to see why there may be a problem?

The discussion in this thread from earlier in the year has a bit more and gives further examples:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/forums...to-the-primary-and-secondary-colours&p=650010

Einion

 

[Thebladesmith@hotmail.com]

This is a very informative thread; I have read through some of the other articles and attached threads and it's been very helpful. I am glad that we live in a world of printers and hd screens where you can take an effect you like and really take a close look at it and how the eye of a digital camera would quantify it down to the pixel. The problem is how to replicate it the way you want. I have an exercise I learned in middle school that I still use today with mixing paints and I think it's relavent here. (I'm not a great painter or even much of an artist so I'm looking for critique and input. I'm not preaching). If you take a note card before you start painting your mini and you put a dab of white paint on one end and a dab of black paint on the other and then somewhere in the middle you put a dab of the colour you think your subject would be IRL. At this point my teacher would say "these are the things you know, the rest is between you and the canvas" so you would start about the buissnes of connecting the three dots; mixing whatever paints you needed to get a good blend from black to white with your color still in the middle. When you can do that so that you're happy, then you're well on your way to knowing what paints you have to mix to get the shades in between. When I started painting minis in my mid-twenties, this came back to me. I spend most of my time speed painting. When I get a chance to slow down, it's nice to explore the unending range of colour you have to play with.

 

[Flow]

This is a very informative thread

This thread has been a huge help. It's a little funny; I started with simply wondering what color I should use to shade my tiny hoary bone devil from the infernal abyss, and ended up stumbling upon a whole deeper line of thinking about color in general. I admit I've never even really used a color wheel (I am very, very new at this), and so considering colors and their relationships on this level is a little profound and very interesting.

While I think subjective taste should always rule (e.g., use the color you think looks best - not the color that "technically" should follow), I'm really interested in learning "why" colors work with one another the way they do. I feel that gaining a better understanding of the technical workings of color will better my own subjective exploration of their use.

 

[Niranth]

This thread has been a huge help. It's a little funny; I started with simply wondering what color I should use to shade my tiny hoary bone devil from the infernal abyss, and ended up stumbling upon a whole deeper line of thinking about color in general.

This. Each new discovery keeps me enthralled.

 

[Wigdog]

There is an ap you can get on your iphone or likely other electonic devices that will allow you to electonically mix up to three colors of say Vallejo paints and you can see what color is - this is great for doing some estimating as to what you will finally get - that said - I still like to just play with colors.

 

[Einion]

Just a quick word on mixing aps as mentioned above, it's a good idea to be dubious of them as a starting point because many are not at all reliable. Some mixes are reasonably simple, in colour terms and WRT the paints, and this can give the appearance that the software does a good job but other interactions are extremely complex and no simple maths can account for them.

One of the simplest tests for this sort of thing is to check two paints you know firsthand mix to a near-grey or a perfect neutral. Try mixing them in the software, see what you get.

Einion

 

[Paintforfun]

so for shading red,scab red/mephiston red mix would you suggest shading with green, purple, brown or blue in the deepest shadows?




on a side note..

I wish GW could put some kind of explanation what colours have been mixed for this blue and that pink and maybe a little describtion about how to darken and lighten it..
Instead of having to eyeball it, its easy for the guys who been in the hobby for long but not very newbie friendly..
why not rename mechrite red to brownish purple and "insert colour".. so you don't lose the hue by not adding this and that to it, simply because you didnt know it..

/dave

 

[MAXXxxx]

so for shading red,scab red/mephiston red mix would you suggest shading with green, purple, brown or blue in the deepest shadows?

yes, one of those. Depending on what effect you are after.
brown will make it a bit muddy
green will give a muted shadow, that's a bit like red-wine.
purple/blue give it a clean look.

I wish GW could put some kind of explanation what colours have been mixed for this blue and that pink and maybe a little describtion about how to darken and lighten it..
Instead of having to eyeball it, its easy for the guys who been in the hobby for long but not very newbie friendly..

thank god they don't do that. They even messed up the conversion chart for oldGW to newGW paints (or rather thed did it with a different mindset).
Eyeballing them is part of the fun, so "viel Spass"

 

[Routaporsas]

Now in many palces I have come up with this formula for creating shadows (kind of a natural shadows/shading: http://thevirtualinstructor.com/color-theory-for-highlights-shadows.html

One variation to that would be that you also add darker color/shade of the local color (in case of the example given, dark red). So it would be:

1.Darker color of the local color
2.Complimentary color
3.Blue (I suppose the amouth of blue varies depending what time of the day it is)

Now something that puzzles me is that, why there is blue? Does it have something to do with the atmosphere? I mean shadows are blue. Specially now that there is lots of snow outside, you can really see the blue shadows on a pure white snow. But would that be true if we talk about...how to put it...man made artificial light? At least I don't see much blue in the shadows inside my home. Most light would be more of a yellowish grey or something like that. Some of my light bulbs are really old and they tend to make the light rather yellow.

 

[Einion]

so for shading red,scab red/mephiston red mix would you suggest shading with green, purple, brown or blue in the deepest shadows?

As neatly answered by MAXXxxx: any of those, depending. There's no single way to mix shadows and even if you were after one specific type of shadowing there's no generic colour guide that would be 100% guaranteed - you can't just say for example "greens neutralise reds", because in some cases a blue would work best; and for certain reds, combined with certain greens, you'll just get brown.

I wish GW could put some kind of explanation what colours have been mixed for this blue and that pink and maybe a little describtion about how to darken and lighten it..

This bit, at least as much as most other paint suppliers GW want people to buy as much paint as they can convince you is vital and this could be seen to conflict with that*. And they may not supply all of the 'base colours' that all their mixtures are based on anyway.
This bit, is kinda covered by the above - multiple possible routes for just about all colours.

*Although you do see it in other arenas.

Now something that puzzles me is that, why there is blue? Does it have something to do with the atmosphere? I mean shadows are blue. Specially now that there is lots of snow outside, you can really see the blue shadows on a pure white snow. But would that be true if we talk about...how to put it...man made artificial light? At least I don't see much blue in the shadows inside my home.

You're right to be sceptical because when that page says "Shadows are inherently blue in hue" it's talkin' rubbish. Given the site explains colour theory based on RYB it's not much of a surprise that other parts would be equally poor; yet another brilliant example of the pitfalls to be found in various articles and other resources online about colour.

Einion

 

[meaty_nosebleeds]

'Colour temperature'? In short, hue, value and chroma (or an equivalent set of terms like hue, brightness and saturation).

The terminology is primarily used to distinguish hue, although it can often indicate chroma differences. But it can also be used to describe differences in value only. And in case it doesn't occur to anyone independently it can of course refer to any combination of the three. Beginning to see why there may be a problem?

The discussion in this thread from earlier in the year has a bit more and gives further examples:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/forums...to-the-primary-and-secondary-colours&p=650010

Einion

thank you so much the forum link (and the subsequent links on the thread) have helped me greatly in my understanding of colour theory. after looking at all the information it is really easy to see why the old RYB way is flawed. it's scary to think how many kids etc. are being taught an outdated way

 

[Einion]

:good: Welcome, glad to try to help.

HVC really does revolutionise seeing and thinking about colour; it's essentially impossible to have a proper understanding of the subject without that basis, which is about the best recommendation for it I can think of.

Einion

 

[meaty_nosebleeds]

:good: Welcome, glad to try to help.

HVC really does revolutionise seeing and thinking about colour; it's essentially impossible to have a proper understanding of the subject without that basis, which is about the best recommendation for it I can think of.

Einion

it really does. i never thought that the workings of CMYK we learnt about in design and print could be applied to minis until reading through that website