Changing Temperatures
Through this week I’ve been tackling the cooler side of the Lion which is at the back. Yes for many it’s one of the more boring parts and when our models are on display, we rarely get a good look at it. Hell, some even don’t paint the back especially if it’s a display model or being painted for social media. I’ve never done that yet, but for the vast majority of my work, I like to straddle the line between display pieces and gaming. Finding the joy in gaming with really immersive works on the table, much like playing your favourite video game on the highest graphic settings because you can. As a little sneak peek into painting more of the cold side and a primer for you to read before the main tutorial comes out. Here are some concepts for you to consider.
First is to consider what is the temperature of colour and how this affects what we see. When considering colours, the first thing that I like to start with when deciding is the temperature. Since this is the base root of all the Hues in the visible spectrum. Where Yellow is the warmest colour and with its purest form also the highest in the value range. Blue is the coolest and its purest form is at the lowest value range. Red if you can guess sits in the middle between these two with its purest form sitting around the middle of the value range. And for you science geeks out there, yes there are hotter colour temperatures such as plasma that burn a blue flame, etc. But we aren’t talking about physical temperature, we are talking about colour temperature and we are more concerned with how colours make us feel. All hues, whether they be Green, Blue, Red, Yellow, or Orange can be altered to lean into a warmer or colder version of themselves. Green for instance can be made warmer by adding in Yellow, or cooler by adding Blue. By slowly adding yellow or blue to mix we can nudge the green further towards the added colour. The trick is not to add too much that the colour changes so far that we move out of the green hue. We would like to stay in it but influence its temperature appearance. To help do this on your wet palette and the best example to see it in action, start mixing it and keep a swatch of the base green visible and preferably close to the new temperature mix. Remember that the way we perceive colour is by comparison. Seeing it as more of a relationship in comparison to other colours rather than just on its own. When mixing, if we don’t have a view of the base green especially if this is our first time with this experiment of mixing this; we don’t have a good comparison for our eyes to judge and we may miss our mark.
Second is the difference between mixing the paints on the palette and glazing over them and tinting. In The Lion, I use both techniques of mixing colours to change temperatures, as well as tinting them with glazes (whether it’s glaze consistency of acrylics or using inks). When mixing the colour on the palette and then applying that mix to the model, we will get more power from the paint onto the model. More power essentially means stronger pigment, more saturation, stronger foundation. Tinting with glazes on the other hand is a tool that I like to use to make more adjustments during the process. They are typically less powerful, making smaller influence changes on the given area, and also act as a screen. Helping with blending as we know that light passing through a transparent screen softens our brush marks and can be used to unify areas, and bring light and value closer together for softer transitions.
“Tinting with inks as seen in the green armour was used as inks are much more pigment dense and give a stronger/deeper appearance”
When approaching the Lion, the main thing I was considering is how each element will look when affected by a cool blue temperature change. A rough idea would be to take the colours you would normally paint the elements in your neutral light, and apply a cool blue filter to it. In this case, I used Phalo Blue - Green Shade by Kimera. The green turns much more blue/green, the gold gets its yellow desaturated and starts moving into green, and the red will then move into magenta and violet. It’s pretty funky and one of the most fun things I’ve painted in recent times. Also rather scary as when you first start this process on a single element, you have less reference to work with on the model. Remember colours work well in relationship to others, and this cool temperature is new territory for me. But after doing the green on the backpack to a 90% finish, I would work on the gold and it started to click! Also having the Lion on the desk in immediate view of the shoulder pad, was my best example and much easier to work on since I had the warm side in a visible line to again compare and made more accurate judgment calls.
Finally, with the warm front view of the model, it was important to influence this to bring more contrast and drama of this temperature change. Yellow ochre from the Scalecolour Artist series was used in repeatedly thin thin glazes to shift the whole temperature spectrum to that warmer glow. I stress thin, as this is going over the entire works of the warm end to help bring up the temperature, especially in the green which is naturally a colder hue. When then come together and look at views that give a rim light of the opposite side, it really gives life and shape to the effect and helps me further illustrate a narrative and feeling of this hero and legend of old, stepping into the light at humaniti’s darkest hour.
