Painting Purgatory: Picking on my own models

Time to continue with the color theory analysis of my old models. Rather than doing the complete breakdown analysis on all of these, I'm just going to give the lesson learned from each one. Again, not critiquing painting techniques, just color choices.

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Right out of the gate I've got a total eyesore. This model is an example of something where I picked out random colors because they looked nice individually. It was very early in my painting, and might be among the first 10 models I painted. Lesson learned: Don't pick colors individually, but pick out the colors and set them together on my desk together, and stare at them for a couple days before making a final decision.

This is a sample from a whole army of marines I painted in an "Angry Hornet" theme. Now honestly, the scheme is so dead simple it's hard to go wrong. It's predominantly a monochromatic scheme, with just a little bit of other color thrown in. All things considered I can't slam these too much, however... Lesson learned: Black should never be straight black, but rather have some hue to it. Straight black generally doesn't exist in the real world. Here's a group shot of several of these guys. I painted quite a few, and a variety of space marines as well. In a big group, they look pretty striking. Although more colorful, this Terminator is still pretty good. The same problem with the black exists with the white. Lesson learned: Just like black, keep pure while usage very minimal.

So again, a monochromatic scheme that works ok. Here's the interesting expansion though: The hair (purple) makes a color bridge between the blade/mask (blue) and the armor (red). Now it's not a perfect bridge, but it does somewhat work. Lesson learned: Color "bridges" can help tie a model's scheme together, but the bridging color needs to be a careful choice. This Jain Zar model on the otherhand was an interesting example of how I started doing some edge highlighting. The color problem of course is that pink isn't a good highlight color for red usually. There are other problems given the spattering of random colors, but I think that should be obvious by now.

This model represents the first significant attempt I made at freehand work. Needless to say, I didn't do much more of this for a very long time. Honestly, this model is just a complete train wreck of color. Now normally a Harlequin is a pretty colorful character, which can make them tricky to paint. One trick I heard was to set up a triadic color palette (3 colors fairly equidistant on the color wheel) and use that as the core of the color scheme, with variations on that theme as needed. Honestly though, I find Harlequins to be an enormous challenge. Lesson Learned: Schemes with a lot of different colors are really hard to pull off. Sticking with fewer colors is easier to plan.

This Imperial Assassin is a good example of when I started trying to do more of the GW-style highlighting, with bright highlights on all the edges. One thing that worked well here actually was using yellow to lighten and highlight the green armor rather than adding white. It provides a warmer feel to contrast the cooler green tone. Lesson Learned: Don't use white to lighten a color for highlighting, since it usually makes the color look chalky.

Ok, it's 9pm and I'm running out of steam on this post, so let's speed things up. Pink, purple and black was a good core set of colors. They work well together. However the grey highlights for the black armor was the first mistake. The green gun was a second (although lesser) mistake. Grey highlights tend to dull down and distract the eyes from the otherwise harmonious scheme. Using a purple or even blue highlight for the black armor plates would have created a much better look overall. And the green gun? Well, never opt to paint metal items with non-metal colors just to be cute. Color conveys a lot about what type of material is present (as discussed previously). Lesson Learned: Highlighting and shading of black can bring in even more color to a scheme and help tie the overall look together.

Again with the green? And now I threw in brown too?!?! Ok, this one is even quicker. Lesson Learned: I made some very questionable choices in college. Must have been all the drinking that affected my decision making.

And here I close out the post with something really special. Again, a total train wreck of color. Primary colors all around. It's a mess. But, there's a reason I included this one. This was the first model that I used a drybrushing technique on. I was at my LGS and someone demonstrated it for me. That day I learned the value of painting with others. Practice takes you some of the way, but learning techniques firsthand from other people can really make a huge difference. Lesson Learned: Always try to paint with other people!

Well, that rounds out a thoroughly long and boring post. Thanks to anyone who actually stuck it out this long. I promise to only do one more of these posts at most. I should note that although I'm still going to be doing more Painting Purgatory posts, I have actually been able to put brush to model in the last week and am making some progress. However my house situation is still pretty confined so I'm not likely to get anything based on finished for a couple more weeks. So there's more color theory, desk action, and purgatory to come.

Painting Purgatory: a Flashback and a Resource

Right about now you're probably looking at this photo and wondering what's going on. Although clearly no match for my current painting skills, this model was indeed painted by me. It's from about 18 years ago when I was in college (yes, I've been painting that long). However, I'm not posting it as a part of a nostalgic flashback. Instead, I'm going to drag out a bunch of my old models for review as a part of an exercise on color theory. I should note that my intent in these reviews is mainly for color use and not for painting techniques or skills, although I will probably add a little historical commentary just for fun. So let's get started with this Greater Daemon of Slaanesh!

Focus: Whenever I look at a model with a critical first eye, I tend to be super conscious about where my eyes go. In the case of this daemon, they are immediately drawn to the boots. Why? They are really bright. The horns somewhat pull the eyes back up, but it's still not enough to balance things out. I also notice that it takes a long time before my eyes even pick out the face of the model, despite its size.

Story: Next, after noticing where my eyes go, I pay attention to the general tone and emotion of the model. In this case, it seems dark and quiet. Why? Well, for one thing, it's really dark blue. Not just that, but there isn't enough variation in color to draw out the dramatic elements of the model. Color choices can play such a critical role in helping "tell the story" of the figure. Nothing about my color choices here really help tell a story. The darkness of the skin causes his face and outstretched hand to become indistinct, and that's really where the story of this model starts.

Readability: Now, I look at the color choices to see if they make sense for the material they are representing and whether they help my eyes to pick out the details. For this daemon, I'm 0 for 3. Dark blue skin, although amusing and potentially appropriate for a "chaos daemon", doesn't make a lot of sense. The brown for the boots on the other hand does work, since most leather is some shade of brown. But then there's all those green bits. Are they leather? Armor? Who knows! The green color choice makes it not only harder for the eye to pick out, but harder for the brain to "read" what it is. The dark blue skin, dark green and dark aqua claw all just seems to blend together. This makes the readability quite poor.

Harmony: Lastly I look at the overall harmony of colors. Now sometimes i'll want clashing colors on purpose, but that's an outlying case. Normally I want colors that all play well together. It helps all of the above things I've talked about. In this case my report card arrives with an F. Blue skin and yellow-brown boots? Ouch! And what's with that pinkish-purple badge on his chest? Must be first price in the ugly contest. Ok, all kidding aside, if you break out all these colors and toss them on a color wheel, the whole thing looks pretty chaotic. Don't be fooled either! Dark colors help obscure a conflicting palette, but it's still there.

So that's a general overview of how I approach color for my painting now. I'm no expert though, as even my recent painting shows. But these 4 aspects form the building blocks of my color theory now. I'm going to post more of my older models, but I'll skip this level of analysis. I started with this model not just for its age, but for it's complete failure in all 4 areas.

One last thing before I sign off for the night. I was reading various forums and came across this really great 4-part series on photographing miniatures. I've posted on this before, but for those of you looking for more good examples of setting up a way to photograph your work, this article has lots of good information and uses pretty minimal materials to accomplish it (other than the camera).

Painting Purgatory: Color, Emotion, and Technology?

Let's take a few steps to the left today. A friend of mine sent me a link the other day to an amusing little web gadget called The Color Of. Now since you've already sprinted off to the link, tried it out a few times, and then finally come back to my blog (I hope) I'll explain why I wanted to share this. There's lots of information about color theory out there. It explores color in terms of psychology and physics, using sound principles to help artists understand how to use it effectively. This tool however does something almost opposite of that.

The Color Of basically harvests our collective social consciousness from the internet, takes a random sample, and fabricates a "color" swatch for you from whatever word you want. I use the word "color" liberally here since the output is really an image that has many colors in it, but you can think of it as a swatch of colors all mashed up. The process is pretty straightforward and the simplicity of this little widget is remarkable. I wouldn't classify this as a scientific tool by any stretch. Think of it as inspiration rather than a logical process.

So what good is this to miniature painters? Well, think of it as sort of an inspiration engine. Trying to figure out what sort of colors to use when painting your angry troll? Type it in! Guessing at what would give a sense of dignity to a pirate? Enter those keywords! The tool really is pretty limitless in that respect. Now you may get odd results obviously since it is highly random and can pull in images that arguably have nothing to do with what you typed in. However that vast randomness can work to your advantage. Try typing in "cygnar", "lefthanded", "extra large" or even "green" and you'll get something interesting out. You can even click on individual pictures that it found if you want. You can also save the produced image for reference.

Well, that's your daily dose of random color theory for today. But before I go, one last tip. If you produce a swatch and want to examine the colors in it in more detail, you can always throw it into the Kuler tool which I posted about last year. Enjoy!

Painting Purgatory: More Thoughts on Color

A couple of weeks ago (while I was gone on vacation) there was a painting class taught by Mathieu Fontaine at a relatively nearby LGS. I wasn't able to attend obviously, but some of the people on a local painters yahoo group posted their thoughts and learnings from the class which made for fascinating reading. Now I should point out that the people on this yahoo group are pretty serious painters, many of which have won awards and/or been studio painters. So when these guys kick around tips, I pay very close attention. It also helps that I get to talk with some of them at least once a year at events like KublaCon. Matthieu of course is a fairly well known multi-GD award winner and teaches masterclass workshops quite frequently. I wish I could have attended the class, but the highlights from the yahoo group will have to suffice. So what are some of those highlights?

Shading color choices: When picking a color to shade with, choose one that is one step in either direction from the complementary color of what you are shading. And don't use black. - I've talked about this before, but this refinement is an interesting revelation for me. When you combine complementary colors together, they tend to cancel out each other's intensity. So for example, if you are attempting to shade blue, rather than add red to the blue to create a shading color, use orange or purple. This will help preserve the color intensity better. And of course, using black or the straight complementary color will just dull down the overall appearance of the color. Depending on what you're trying to accomplish of course, this might be an appropriate option.

7-8 color palette: Sticking with a more limited pallete can actually make for a better end result. - The concept here is pretty straightforward actually. By limited the number of colors used, you create more harmony in the overall composition. The trick here comes in the form of picking the right colors such that the end result is still dynamic and interesting to the eye. Some people have even done a more limited pallete with remarkable results, such as Eric Johns' famous Ramos which was painted using just 3 colors.

Use warm/cool to emphasize depth: Warm colors appear to "pop out", while cool colors appear to receed. - This is an old traditional 2-D technique, but applies equally well to 3-D painting for miniatures. There are both physical and psychological reasons for this, but warmer colors (yellow for example) tend to feel closer while cooler colors (blue for example) tend to feel farther away. Consider this painting. The yellow-ish figure appears closer despite the fact that physically she's oriented farther away. The same applies to minatures, and I've used this technique with my highlighting sometimes, especially faces. Using a warmer tone for highlights will help the surface appear closer, while using cooler tones for shading will make those shades seem to receed even farther back.

There's so much to learn about color that it's impossible to learn most of it without making a career out of it. Still, for us humble painters looking for tips, there is a lot of simple color theory that can be applied without too much effort. No doubt I'll have more posts on the topic in the future as I continue to unearth more of these little gems.

Interested in books on color and composition? Here's some suggested reading:
Color and Light: A Guide for Realist Painters by James Gurney
Digital Texturing and Painting by Owen Demers
Interaction of Color by Joseph Albers

Painting Purgatory: Speed Painting Is The New 40

So I discovered today that the new blogger editing interface doesn't protect me from my own html editing mistakes and screws up the layout if I don't close tags properly. Lovely. Anyway, now with that mini-rant out of the way, here's my latest update.

A while ago I was planning to start a series of posts about speed painting, but that project sort of burned out quickly. However since that time I've noticed a lot of revitalized interest in the painting community in terms of painting armies quickly but still having good results. Dipping has been around for a while, but to be honest I can't stand the idea of it. For one thing it still requires the longest effort of painting which is getting solid base coats. Another reason is that if you ever want to strip the model, you're out of luck. And finally, I just have a personal revulsion to the methodology (no offense meant to dippers out there).

However, glazing and washing are techniques that get you similar results but can save you time over the dipping method depending on how you go about it. When I was painting many of my Cryx models, I used glazes and washes over straight white primer and found that I got a lot of good results. There is a catch though. These techniques can sometimes leave you with less consistent look to the surfaces, but that may or may not be a benefit given the model and your own style preference. Personally I like the variation in the surface colors because it gives a more natural look. There are times, like when you are trying to simulate enameled metal, that this breaks the visual cues of the material being implied.

In a recent No Quarter article, studio painter Matt DiPietro demonstrated the "underpainting" technique and it seems to be getting more and more attention. My first link to share is Adary's Scrapbook where he's been making attempts at this technique with good success. If you look closely at the last photo you can see how the black undercoat darkens the tone of the color in key places (like knees and fabric folds) where light wouldn't be hitting it as much. My second link is to a tutorial on Hand Cannon Online by Ghoul (who is an amazing painter). He gives a very good description of the process and paints a whole unit. He also gives some very educated history of the technique from well before miniature painting.

Seeing a revitalization of "old master" techniques being used in miniature painting is pretty interesting. As I continue to listen in to various painting communities, I encounter more and more of these sorts of things happening. The past is ripe with knowledge and experience, we just have to tap into it!

Painting Purgatory: Reflections

I know there isn't a conspiracy against me, but sometimes it feels like it. I got back from a month long vacation out of the country just a few days ago. During that time there were contractors working on remodeling the kitchen and dining room of our townhouse. In order to accommodate that effort, everything got moved out of those areas into the spare bedroom, garage, and whatever other space we could make. The project was supposed to be much further along, but due to extensive dry rot and foundation problems the project is way behind schedule. So our 3Bed/2.5Bath townhouse is more like 1.5Bed/1.5Bath, which is a pain especially with an 18 month old. Anyway, this has put a serious freeze on any painting activities for the time being while the work gets finished. So even if I can't get any proper painting in, I can catch up on a month's worth of reading from the painting community and spend time posting some of the other ideas I've had for blog posts. Honestly, I had forgotten what a stress relief painting is for me. It'll be nice to have our house back to working order, but equally nice will be the ability to clear out my painting space properly so that I can get some good cathartic relaxation in. In the mean time, I'll be posting a bunch of random thoughts about painting inspired by the catchup reading I'm doing.

So the first item that struck me as interesting was a very recent post on the Wyrd painting forums here. It's a discussion about how to tie a group of models together theme-wise. There's some beautifully painted models in that thread, but the discussion itself is pretty interesting. There's as many ways to tie together a group of models visually as there are to paint a model. There's obvious methods like a uniform color scheme across an entire army which is one of the most common. Other folks have used unified basing to bring together disparate models. I myself used this for all my Cryx "pirate" type models. And then, as is beautifully exampled in this post, a couple key colors can be used for elements of every model in the group to tie them together visually while not making them overly similar. Now these are just some simple examples, but there are plenty of others. Another example is my friend Lance's Lava Trolls, which are tied together by a visual theme of fire. Now what method you use depends on a number of factors, not the least of which is the similarity (or dis-similarity) of the models being painted. This thread on the Wyrd forums was more relevant than other games since the Wyrd crews tend to be much more varied in style. In any case, the discussion here got me thinking about creating a unifying look to a group of models, particularly in light of starting a Skaven army soon, so I thought I'd share this with folks out there.

So what do you do to create a uniform look to a group of models? Leave a comment and share your thoughts!