Red Vior\'la Tau scheme - opinions desperately needed!

[Tinweasel]

The figure/color scheme in question:
Tau Vior\'la Fire Warrior (Revised pics)

(I recently retook photos of him to get more accurate coloring and crisper details.)


I would greatly appreciate comments and suggestions relating to this guy (voting/comments on the mini itself would be nice, too!) I\'m making the rounds on several boards (for those of you who haunt painting/hobby boards elsewhere) as I genuinely want to get as much feedback as I can as this sort of painting is a first for me. The last time I played 40K was about 14 years ago, and I\'ve never painted up an army before.

I\'m painting up a Tau Combat Patrol, and given that this is my first army ever, I\'m trying to solicit honest opinions and suggestions on the scheme with the goal of improving the appearance and painting \'em up quickly but well.

I\'ve heard commentary so far in all sorts of (mostly different) directions - the undersuit is too red and doesn\'t contrast with the \"molten\" armor effect well and/or the armor and the dark blood/crimson undersuit colors work well together; the bright yellow Tau icons on the shoulder don\'t go well with the rest of the figure and/or they brighten up the \"dark\" color scheme and offset things nicely; the base is too drab and/or the base suits the figure well as \"camouflage\"-wise, he blends in with the scenery.

This is a test figure of my Tau scheme, and I\'m in the process of prepping, assembling, and starting on painting some of the rest. I\'m not aiming for a popularity contest here, where I\'ll run with whatever seems to please people the most - in truth, I\'m pretty happy with the scheme, and while I may be somewhat leaning towards a slight darkening of the undersuit with another blackened red shade of glaze, I also have 9 of his friends to paint so expediency is preferred.

I\'d genuinely appreciate comments and suggestions regarding this figure, as this is kinda a first for me, getting back into miniature painting after a 13 year break from the hobby. And in truth, this is the first time I\'ve ever attempted painting a large mass of similar troops with a coherent scheme - I\'m generally more of a \"single figure\" kinda guy.

Likewise, while compliments are nice (and appreciated,) they don\'t do much in solving my painting dilemma here regarding the \"presence\" of this Tau scheme - and I can\'t ask anyone personally, as my best friend is colorblind, my wife sees my painting as a semi-nuisance, and I don\'t have anyone else in my circle of acquaintances who paints/games with miniatures.

 

[vincegamer]

The armor plating is fantastic, but I do think the undergarment is off. To me it looks too purple. I would prefer it if it were a dark brown shading to red.

I like the tao symbols, but I can see where some may find them too bright. You could easily khaki/tan them down a bit, but I would\'nt go too far because you want strong contrast on the battle table.
I probably would leave them.

So, my 2c is that the purple undergarment isn\'t working and another black/red wash won\'t help. Personally I\'d go with a very dark brown shaded toward Vallejo Cavalry Brown (which is a dark red leather color).
Everything else I\'d leave as is.

[edit] I just remembered possibly why. I took an interior design class years ago and the color spectrum was explained as falling into either blue tones or yellow tones. Most colors fit into one or the other. The only that don\'t are Orange (yellow with no blue) and Magenta (blue with no yellow).
To realize how colors of one don\'t work with colors of another, consider how bad orange and magenta look together.
[Dunkin Donuts uses these colors in their logo precisely because the contrast is so jarring it get\'s the attention of the person driving by]

Another example would be a tomato (yellow red) and a cherry (blue red). They just look bad together.
Fire is a yellow red, but I think the undersuit is a blue red.

 

[Ogrebane]

Id agree with Vince (well the bits I understood). I dont think the red and purple go together. I try to contrast when doing an army so I would use a green or yellow for the undersuit. Just my opinion. The painting is well done tho. Did the vote thing.

 

[Jericho]

Analogous colors work together though, and I happen to think that the dark purple/red looks good on the model. Makes the armor stand out without being a drastically different color in the scheme.

Color theory only goes so far

 

[Kendaric]

Well, I\'d say your main problem is that your two main colors are chromatically too close one to the other. Your purple is too red. Your red is too purple.
You\'d need to bring your purple closer to blues, especially in the shades, and highlite with a colder color.
However, you red could use stronger highlites, it\'d surely look better if more orange.

Well, to sum it up, you do have a very good colorscheme. Now you only have to find a right balance between your tones.

 

[fat zombie]

For comments, would \"That is Brilliant\" be okay?

You\'ve done better than I could ever hope for.

 

[Tinweasel]

Thanks, folks, for the comments/suggestions thus far!

Here are pictures of my 1st and 2nd Fire Warrior together for comparison\'s sake. I changed my painting style a little working on this guy, and the \"molten\" edge highlighting is a little more \"stark.\" I also slightly adjusted the way I painted the Tau icons on the shoulder armor/rifle barrel, and I think they show a bit more contrast across the surface. I also used a different process for highlighting the viewfinders/eyepieces/etc.

I\'d really appreciate commentary on what\'s working and what\'s not on both. Given the painting style I\'m doing for these guys, their patterning theoretically will/could be different for each figure. The colors are pretty much accurate for both - there\'s some things I like about #2 and some things I like better about #1. Hopefully obvious, but there\'s still some details needing to be squared away on the 2nd one (like the base) - I\'m looking for commentary more on the \"impression\" the two are getting across, and which has a better \"feel\" to it.

Fire Warrior Mark I:

Fire Warrior Mark II:

 

[Temporary Sanity]

I honestly like the armor plating of the first one better. I\'m one of those people that doesn\'t like to highlight red with orange. I figure if you are painting red, paint using reds. That second one\'s orange highlights are a bit harsh. The first one looks much better.

That\'s my only beef, the rest of them look great.

 

[NecroN]

Perfer the look of the armour on the first one myself as well. I don\'t like the tron look with all the edges of the model being very bright like that.

 

[Chern Ann]

Just a thought, you may want to go with a much darker colour on the suit portion, maybe even black. I think the rifle on Mark 1 looks better because of it.

 

[TiberiusZ]

I too think that the armour is better on the first one, and that the colour of the undersuit should be a a greyscale colour... (anything from black to a medium grey).
Or yes, maybe a black highlighted with a dark purple. Either way, keep it something that doesn\'t contrast too much, and doesn\'t blend too much. Neutral-ish colours are best for that.

 

[DrEvilmonki]

The only thing I would add is have you tried thinning the red paint with red ink. I find this gives a much richer colour and would make the suit look more different than the cloth.

I am also in the camp of not such bright highlights on the armour. But remember you will be the one using them so your opinion is the most important.

 

[Tony Manero]

i love it (8) the color scheme is really fitting

 

[Tinweasel]

Well, this is the scheme thus far - I posted a few pics of the gun Drone in the WIP thread, but now that it\'s finished, I\'d appreciate comments on the figures overall. Suggestions, criticisms, whatever...

The \"actual\" color of the figures lies more towards the red end of the spectrum, leaning a little more in the direction of the top-down view. The yellows, on the other hand, are close to the shading on the front-view pic, but with more of a lean to straight yellow/white edging.


I\'m undecided about doing such an involved Blood Red blending on the armor plates of the Drones - it plain and simple took a lot longer than I would\'ve liked. Anyone think that using the same color as the Tau undersuit and the current weapon scheme would work, or might that be a little too dark?


I also evened out my 2nd Fire Warrior (the leftmost one,) since while I received a fair amount of positive comments on the previous \"stark\" highlighting, I felt that I preferred the more subtle transition of the first test figure I did (the one on the right.)


Lastly, I\'d appreciate any suggestions on taking pics of a \"diorama\" schene - as you can probably tell by the pictures, the brightness/contrast level is hard to control for some reason across multiple pictures. I\'ll probably play around with it a bit before I post anything \"final\" in my Gallery, but if anyone has any definite suggestions, they\'d be mighty appreciated...

 

[TAB Studio]

First suggestion hit the photo forum here
lots of good stuff to correct the problems

My undereducated guess is... looks like a white balance issue in the top photo.
Make sure you use consistent lighting if you have no white balance preset on the camera even lights in an adjoining room can effect the result.
You did great on the focus of all the objects hats off to you for that that is half the battle.

 

[Einion]

These look nice Tinweasel, I like the effect.

Originally posted by TAB Studio
My undereducated guess is... looks like a white balance issue in the top photo.

Yep, a little bit. Mostly it\'s a levels problem.

Einion

 

[Tinweasel]

I retook pics and fiddled slightly with the color balance and levels:

I\'ll be posting these into my Gallery here, as I think they\'re a pretty good representation of the figures on my end. I took the pics with a backdrop of grey resume paper, and I think the color\'s a pretty solid match.

@ everyone re: color adjustments - I upped the EV (exposure value?) on my camera a notch or two this time around. I normally take a series of photos at several EV levels, and the ones before were just a hair too dark, I think. As to the focus, my camera\'s got multi-focus and I do usually adjust the sharpness upwards a hair on most finalized pics.

 

[Trevor]

Its amazing how different they look in the different pictures. Very cool scheme, certainly fits with \'fire\' warrior

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by Tinweasel
@ everyone re: color adjustments - I upped the EV (exposure value?) on my camera a notch or two this time around. I normally take a series of photos at several EV levels, and the ones before were just a hair too dark, I think.

I think it\'s often a good idea to take bracketed shots (especially with digital since it\'s free) so you can cherry-pick the one that\'s most flattering to your subject.

Originally posted by Tinweasel
As to the focus, my camera\'s got multi-focus and I do usually adjust the sharpness upwards a hair on most finalized pics.

If you resize your pics from large original digital photos you should probably always sharpen as the last step before saving the final JPEGs. There are a number of ways of doing this but the best filter to use is Unsharp Mask.

Einion

 

[Tinweasel]

Revisiting some of my old threads, and I realized I didn\'t post a pic of the group shot with color that are fairly accurate (even if the lighting\'s a little dark in the pic.)

As always, comments and suggestions greatly appreciated!