New here, help with making minis 'pop'?

[Grizzlybeer]

Hey guys, this is my first post on CMON, afaik, and I was hoping to get some feedback from you guys.

I'm painting an Ogre army to act as my playing army, where I wish to focus more on the army looking good as a whole rather than individual techniques, necessarily. I wanted to use orange, black and dark metal as a unifying color scheme because I have never really used orange much before (I know looking unified is against the ogre look, but whatever), but I'm having problems with making them stand out from further away.

1) For starters, one of the reasons I think that's happening is because I wanted to play around with verdigris and rust - an idea that worked against what I was trying to achieve, as I have come to learn. Initially I wanted the verdigris color to be the contrast to the orange since it's green-teal

2)After seeing that the verdigris effects didn't work as planned, I tried using either teal or green details as added contrasts to the orange, but they have made the minis seem too cluttered/busy, which is what I was trying to avoid.

3) Furthermore, I think the skin, pants, and basing are all too similar in color (all being warm colors). Bronze weaponry only make it worse. I was thinking of using black with grey drybrush as basing instead of the earthy tones to help the orange and the ogre 'pop', and even make all their hair grey or black.

I'm no expert in color theory or in army painting by any stretch of the imagination, but perhaps you guys have some suggestions for making it look nice?

Here is a link to an army I really liked the look of and took inspiration from:
http://www.ogrestronghold.com/forum/index.php?topic=21894.0

 

[Dragonsreach]

Welcome to the forums and a nice start to the insanity of here.

I'll start with a simple suggestion on the Verdigris; Vallejo Model Colour Blue Green. Ideal for verdigris and will stand out on the bronze.
I'd also like to suggest making the weapon edges brighter after all they are sharp.
As for the Orange trousers, how about taking the highlights up a bit more and adding Black as an accentuator in the form of Stripes or squares.
That way when you've done a unit with all parallel strips you could do one with Diamond patterns. It would give the army a cohesive look while maintaining "diversity".

In terms of basing, I'd suggest that occasional larger stones picked out in what used to be Shadow Grey and Highlighted in what was Spacewolf Grey will break up the sameness.

 

[secretpaintgeek]

How about adding some simple battle paint on the skin areas? Could have a particular style/colour for each unit?
As far as the verdigris effect is concerned I'd stick at it if I were you, Its a great effect that can really add a bit of character to this style of mini and there are plenty of tutorials around on the net covering it step by step. Just google it and find a technique that sounds right for you.
Overall though a good solid start it seems

 

[MAXXxxx]

well 2 things that comes into my mind:
- highlight it a bit(lot) more. But not with yellow (will turn the orange to yellow) but white (it WILL make it pastely, so do it with caution in a small area (knee))
- besides the cold-warm and light-dark contrast you could do a vivid-dull one too. So for example with the help of greys/greens you could dull the skin area(so it's greyish instead of the current warm red-orange tone), so the trousers pop more. Similarly the verdigris will help with the bronze to be greenish instead of another orange, 1-2 green/blue washes on the metals can help too.

one more:
For an army they already look good and the trousers pop a bit. For an army it may be enough, so you don't have to do anything.

 

[Trevor]

They look great to me for gaming minatures.
But, if you really want to make them pop, extreme edge highlights. So, very thin, very limited, very light coloured highlights on some of the raised detail (uppermost surfaces). So for these, face, ears, shoulders, knees, maybe hands and the metal bits. If you look at most heavy Metal paintjobs this is what they do.

 

[EvilEgg]

Yeah, some kind of pattern or stripes on the pants would do wonders.