Color suggestion for spots

[amrogers3]

Trying to create some two-tone spots for my Nids, kinda like this:
View attachment 63130

But using a pinkish-red for skin and blue/black for carapace. Looks like this so far (WIP):
View attachment 63131

I suck at this, what colors would make nice two-tone spots on the Tervigon above?

SaveSave
SaveSave
[FONT=&quot]Save[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Save[/FONT]​

 

[MAXXxxx]

because of pink-red I'd try something green.
As for green you'd have a choice of a muted or vivid one.
muted (VGC colors): OliveGreen - CamoGreen or lighter: camogreen - deadflesh
vivid (VGC colors): DarkGreen - GoblinGreen or lighter: GoblinGreen - Scorpy or even livery green

 

[Pygmalion]

Something about the coloration made me think of the blue-ringed octopus.

View attachment 63251

View attachment 63252

Huh. Well, I do not know why the images came up so small. You can probably look up your own online.

As you can see, the spots have sharply delineated rings: a dark outer ring, and then an intense almost fluorescent blue inner ring which fades rapidly to a pinkish color at the center.

 

[amrogers3]

Those are cool.

Finding that spots are definitely hard to master. You can't have thick paint and once you thin it down, you can't go over the exact same place multiple times to build up the paint. You inevitability will go outside the area you want to paint and it will create a lighter muted color that will need cleanup. Then you clean it up and run into the same problem the other way.

It's almost like you would need a stencil and airbrush but trying a apply a stencil to an irregular shape like a Tyranid carapace is next to impossible. Beside the fact I can't find a stencil in the first place.

 

[Pygmalion]

I would try to use more opaque pigments if you can. Things like the iron oxide-based colors, or something with a good bit of white in it.

I’ve found that for spots the easiest thing to do is make a solid of the outermost color, then fill it in with successively smaller spots of contrasting colors to leave ring effects, ruthlessly wiping away anything that isn’t just right with a clean wet brush just as soon as you see it isn’t right.

(I paint eyes that way too)

For something like the pictures I showed, it might be doable to first paint a black solid, then paint a brilliant white spot over that just inside the black border to leave a black ring, then take a perfectly transparent blue (these are mostly based on the copper phthalo pigments) and glaze the white, not worrying about getting it over the black because it would be effectively invisible. Then a softer pinkish-grey more or less matching the skin tone can be blended out from the center of the spot to leave a ring of bright blue inside a ring of black. If that makes sense to you.

 

[MPJ]

You might like a leopard spot look. If you go with green (first suggestion) I'd use some dark green to make "blotches" (read as odd shaped spots), then use a lighter green and make more blotches over the darker ones but off center so they spill out onto the base themselves. I would suggest going with the earthier greens rather than brighter ones.

As to that Octopus... If you painted that on a mini I'd say it was way off reality. Leave it to mother nature to come up with the wildest stuff!