Colour picking: harmony and spot colours

[Jonotheorc]

First tutorial on this forum so i'll have to see how it goes.
What i'm going to try and explain is how to pick colours for your models that will look either striking, or will tie the whole model together making it nice to look at. I'll also explain how to make the viewer look to towards areas of interest that you want on your figures.

Colour Harmony
So what do i really mean when i say colour harmony. Well, the short answer is that a painter will use a "limited Pallete" when painting his models. This involves using only a few different paints on your model, using different shades and techniques to achieve variety. What this achieves is an all round pleasing model to look at, and without any glarey and nasty colours. Spot colours (mentioned below) are often used in conjunction with Colour Harmony.

How to go about colour harmonising
Despite its difficult sounding name, Colour harmony is a very easy technique to learn. Heck, its not really a technique at all.

There are two ways to achieve this, and can be used seperately or together:

1. All this one involves is choosing one paticular colour, and mixing this into all
your chosen colours. What this achieves is that all the colours mould together and mean the model has a sense of unity. This is the technique i have used in this model:
Although the grey at first look like a completely different colour, upon closer inspection(the photo may not show it very well) you can see that it has a hint of green to it, achieved by mixing some of the green from the main part into , this time codex grey, and adding a lighter and lighter version of that colour,fortress grey, making sure there remains a slight tint of what i like to call, the harmony colour, the green. Also on the gold decoration i have used a green wash in the recess, also making them seem more of a part of the model.

2. This version concentrates more on the whole idea of a limited pallete. All you need to do is pick about 3 colours and only ever use these colour to paint your model. This means that the model doesnt look like its been thrown together from a rainbow, and gives a far more unified look.


Spot Colours
As mentioned above spot colours are often used with colour harmony to great affect. What spot colours are, are specific colours that are used in small amounts, and ones which contrast with its surrounding colours. To explain in greater detail i'm going to use a colour wheel:

The colours opposite each other are ones that look the most striking when put next to each other. For example yellow goes well with blue while red looks striking when next to green. (just search colour wheel on google images and you'll get some really detailed versions.)

how to go about painting with spot colours
Again this isnt really a technique and is much easier than it sounds.
All you need to do is pick the colour/s that you have used when colour harmonising and locate it on a colour wheel. Then just look at the colour opposite it and use that to paint the contrasting colours.
But most people heckling from the back will be saying, "hang on a minute, wont the model look like a rainbow now?"
Well you see i have the answer to you hecklers!
Spot Colours are often used in a triangle on a model.

As you can see on this picture, if this was to be a model, the triangle would be formed from the face and the priests hands. This would give the model a look of harmony but would also give it areas that will stand out, and so this brings me to my final advice.


Areas of Interest
This is a pretty easy thing to understand and once youve started to use it you wont want to stop. What this means is by painting the model in a specific way you can have anyone looking at it be drwan towards particular parts of the model. This is usually used with the face but could also be used to emphasize glorious weapons or places you have spent so much time on you want to be admired.

How to do it
What you first need to do is pick an area you want to stand out. Now, while painting it you will want to paint that paticular part in one of the following ways:

1. Use a contrasting colour (see above)
2. Paint that part lighter than the rest of the model
3. Use iconography or great detail
4. Use lighting effects

When it comes to lighting i'm sure there is another tut explaining on how to do this technique so i wont go into deail about this.


And so this concludes my first tutorial.
hope this comes in handy to someone and i hope you've had as much fun reading it as i have making it.
Might do some more of this tutorial lark, i'm not bad at it for a 14 yr old

[Brother Warchild]

Nice job bud,very well put together.

[Rellik]

cool stuff man

[hairyyahoo]

solid gold my friend. we get a lot of how to paint this type tute but not many theory of painting types, so this is definatly most welcome. to bad at all for a 14YO! although if you tell me that you actually drew that priest i will of course have to hunt you down and beat the talent right out of you

+rep

[Jonotheorc]

hahaha, no, fortunately for me, that was just a picture found on google. Phew. Dont want being beaten up

[BrainDeleted]

Good Ol' Crazy Hairy.......

Don't let him psyche you out!

[Dragoon King]

Interersting stuff, for sure. Glad you joined us, Jono, and hope to see more fantastic painting tips from you!