All about colour pt.2 & new home of the miniature palette
Welcome back to the Miniature Palette and its new home here on my website! Here I look to continue the delivery of my artistic process, sharing knowledge through the written article and a platform to deliver premium content of tutorial videos on the Pro Palette. Again I thank all of the original subscribers for their patience, feedback and continued support. And for new readers, I hope you get a chance to read through the previous issues and find some shared knowledge useful in your works and processes. Continuing where I left off with All About Colour Pt.1, here is part 2 with more tips and strategies you can take with you to the workbench!
The way I look at colour in a painting whether it be a miniature, an oil painting on canvas, or even a photograph has to do with the subject manner and the conversation colours have to one another. Art is essentially a communications tool, as we use visual imagery to convey or capture something in the frame. Without using any words to describe it, an image can convey so much information in a very short period. The famous term quoted by many from Confucius to Napoleon,
“A picture is worth a thousand words.”
Colour is a large part of that dialogue, and we can start by changing our perspective of it. Think of this dialogue as between 1 or more characters, and these characters are a combination of a particular subject and the colour they are addressed in. The subject can be an item such as an emblem on armour, a cloak, eyes etc. In this scene of dialogue, we then need a few key speakers to be at the stage front talking or carrying the scene. We can make these characters stand out with stronger saturated colour and size to name a few. And with the supporting cast, we can desaturate them by adding grey. Because it’s very hard to understand and hear the most important dialogue in the scene if all the colours are shouting and screaming for your attention! By leaving the important subjects bold, and allowing other elements to recede and not talk over the leads, we get a much more balanced and interesting scene to understand.
To make our colour conversation more structured, this is where we can use some common colour schemes such as complementary, triads, analogous schemes. These colour schemes are Great tools to give our conversations some rooted themes that have a good basis. For example, if we have a strong lead element which is purple. This could be the robes or Uniform of the subject, we can then put something yellow that makes their conversation work as a complimentary. Maybe the trim of the robes or emblem Is golden yellow or could be The subject's hair, weapon etc.
The supporting cast is just as important to the scene To establish atmosphere and more believable dialogue. The use of grey mixed into colours to paint as supporting elements is one thing, but do not be afraid to paint secondary and Tertiary elements in the same or very similar colours. Too often I see painters who need to paint every single element in a different colour and it starts to look like a party clown! A clustered group of pockets, gun magazines, belts and accessories can be of the similar or same colour, just give different strokes and finishes to illustrate texture. Games Workshop models are commonly sculpted with a lot of detail and tons of little accessories. And following this comes with comments such as, “this model is too busy” etc. What you can do as the painter is simplifying the conversation with colour. Reduce the clutter of characters and pick only a few elements to be the lead in the conversation, and put the others in a supporting role. This comes into play in my work through OSL and illustrating shadows or atmosphere. I'm simplifying the conversation and making what is important at the forefront with my colour choices.
If this task is a bit too much to handle at the beginning, I suggest the good old copy method! Ok instead of just straight ripping off another painter who has done it on the same model as you want to paint. Rather, we can look at other forms of artwork such as concept art, animation, movie posters, and art books. If you have ever been captivated by a painting, chances are the colours used are pretty spot on. Let's go ahead and identify what are the key elements that are carrying the colour conversation and use them as a key to our painting. Compare our notes here and from the first issue to recognize how things are working and use the same colour palette. If we sample everything from a single painting, this is referred to as a colour Gamat. We limit the palette and make our choices more refined to focus on these interactions. With limitations also follows creativity! As we have to explore various ways to illustrate things with the colours we have in hand that work together well.
Finally, as a last bit of advice, I’ll leave you with is on the paint pots themselves. No, it's not spending time transferring paint to dropper bottles (IMO a waste of time!). Instead, take a piece of tape or do your absolute best to NOT read the names of paints! This is true for Paints that are marketed to gamers such as Games Workshop, P3, army painter, Vallejo, etc. Many paints in lots of rangers associate a colour to an item you can paint it with. For example, Cadian Fleshtone, fortress Grey, Baelor Brown, daemonette hide etc. Don't get sucked into reading these names as it can trap your brain into thinking that to paint flesh I need a colour that has the keyword flesh in it! Just look for the colour for actually what it is. Cadian flesh isn't for human flesh, it's a desaturated orange/red-brown. Want to highlight leather? Use sunny skin tone and vampire flesh mixed in with your brown to get the highlight. Training your eye to see the actual colour you need rather than following a description can go a long way to making you make better and more comfortable in the choices of colours to use.
And there we have the end of issue 17 and Pt.2 of all About Colour! I hope you learned a few things in the article or gave you another angle of the subject that has helped in any way. Thanks for reading and happy painting!