I\'ve got the highlighting/shading blues...or greens...

[tooshy]

Ok, serious post from me for once.

I really, really struggle when it comes to choosing colours for shading and highlighting. The colour white is my absolute nemisis - should I shade with blue, grey or a sandy colour? On my Ashan\'Tyr I painted a base coat of sandy brown and then gradually highlighted up to white.

Ok so that\'s the colour white, now what about other problem colours such as red? My brain tends to say \"add black for shadow and white for highlights\" but then you end up with \'orrible pink or grey colours and they just don\'t look right.

Colours I like shading and highlighting are green, blue and purple mainly because I use lighter versions of the same colours to highlight i.e. purple with lilac for highlights, but again it doesn\'t always suit.

So that\'s my query - any suggestions gratefully received and many thanks in advance.

Cheers

T

 

[ripperdoc]

For red I like to go up to yellowish like HERE if you like that it goes like this:

Prime black then paint as follows:

I\'m using all vallejo now so these are the vallejo names:


1)scar red
2)gory red
3)bloody red
4)hot orange
5)orange fire
6)gold yellow
7)sunblast yelow

**edit** If you didnt want to go to yellow you could stop at the bloody red and start mixing in progressive amounts of white and highlighting up like that. **/edit**

Now granted it is a lot of colors and it does take some time. All the colors except the scar red are all watered down so as to get a good blend.

Hope that helps you Tooshy

 

[tooshy]

Useful...thanks!

Hey Ripper, thanks for that. I\'ve just checked out your pic and it does look great. I like the fact that you haven\'t lost the overall feel of the colour red, even though there are lots of other colours involved.

Really useful, many thanks

 

[KatieG]

Yeah I do a similiar thing for red, in some cases, I may even highlight up to white (going from red to orange to yellow to white). For a darker red though I start with a red-brown (like Vallejo Cadmium Maroon) and work up to a brighter red. I actually find a nice highlight color to use for green is yellow - mix some in with the green... though use sparingly with full yellow... funny, my favorite colors are also green, blue, and purple too, coincidence, or ease of highlighting?
--Katie G.

 

[ripperdoc]

another thing..

Something i forgot is that I like to use vallejo woodgrain and smoke as a wash over the dark red areas if I want a deeper red or just some different look.

If you dont have these two washes you might want to pick them up as they seem to have unlimited uses.

 

[Nelson]

Well, for reds I tend to highlight up to yellow, instead of using white, and for shading I tend to vary. If\'n it\'s more of a regal colour, I mix a bit of Storm blue into the Scab red (just a bit, mind you) If it\'s gonna be a darker or dirtier red, I use Scorched Brown to shade........For whites, I look at the mini itself to figure it out. On older, historical minis\' or Sci-Fi minis that are kinda gothic, I use a brown shader. For 40k and stuff, I usually use blue, unless it\'s parchment.

 

[Avicenna]

Painting red... There seems to be quite a varied approach to reds, but I find that whenever i try to highlight with yellow it looks too orange and when i try to highlight with white, it looks too pink... so what I have started using is red, through orange to bronzed flesh and THEn adding white for the sharpest highlights.

I have also just started dabbling in using complementary colours for shading - for example adding dark angels green to red gore to paint in the shadows. This tends to help make the colours look a little more realistic too and not so \'pure\'.

I haven\'t tried it with other colours yet, but i guess shading orange with blue and yellow with purple would be the other choices.... although that sounds quite a frightening prospect! Red seemed the safest to try!

good luck!

 

[Corvus]

Originally posted by tooshy
I really, really struggle when it comes to choosing colours for shading and highlighting. The colour white is my absolute nemisis - should I shade with blue, grey or a sandy colour? On my Ashan\'Tyr I painted a base coat of sandy brown and then gradually highlighted up to white.

Hey Tooshy! When I paint white, I usually start from a light blue basecoat (like space wolves grey), and work up to pure white in two or three layers. This creates the effect of a cold white, for warmer effects you can use very light brown or grey as a basecoat.

I\'ve used light blue as a basecoat on the white armour plates of my griffin templars:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/index.php?id=24740&c=All&m=All&nm=none

Hope this helps!

-Gerrie.

 

[tooshy]

The Oracle has spoken.....

Thanks to everyone for your advice. Lots of things for me to try here. Corvus - I like the idea of using the Spacewolves blue/grey as a base for white, thanks

Avicenna - phreaky colour combo\'s! But hey, I like \'em! But will start with the red me thinks

Nelson, Katie and Ripper - thanks for your advice too. It\'s all going to go into the melting pot of a brain I have and will produce some interesting results

Cheers T :bouncy: :bouncy:

 

[vincegamer]

Red:
I\'ve had some recent luck using a dark brown to shade red and highlighting not to orange or yellow, but to GW Snakebite Leather.
See the heart banner on my warmaster boltthrowers:
here
White:
I think it depends on what you are doing.
For these tiny elves I used blue for shading, highlighted to pure white because their color scheme was blue and white. I think it worked well, especially on such tiny minis.
However, if I were doing junkers for VOID on sand bases, I\'d use a sandy tan for shadows on white. I guess you could say it depends on how dirty the mini is supposed to be.