This is one of those Hobby Cheating episodes where I almost feel like you made this just for me, because it addresses something I was working on so directly. It's happened about a half dozen times now that way. I guess when you make 50+ episodes a year for us, that is bound to happen :)
The blends on his cloak are so nice. I did my first cloak that I’m actually kinda proud of the other day. It’s interesting how dark and light you push the highlights, I see I could go even darker on the shadows than I thought
This topic stirred something inside me and even if I wasn't going to write an essay, it just blurted out so here we go: I've noticed that when painting under a bright lamp I always muted my colors way too down and every 100+ hour bust came out looking good in photos but absolutely bland trash on my table. My miniatures are not stored or displayed under a strong color corrected light ever so I tried re-painting one of my busts only using daylight, pure pigments and absolutely no black on my model and now when the model sits on my table it is so much more visually pleasing and interesting to look at. I mean the difference is like day and night. My goal was to intentionally push the model as close to the clown fiesta as possible with the most potent colors that are available for miniature painters. What I found out is that composition of the model plays way more bigger part in clown fiesta than strong colors and while the model looks overly saturated in photos, in person it´s so much more dynamic and striking than any other my previous models. While having too much coffee writing this thing down, the main thing that switched in my head was that I threw out the " realistic " mindset on that paint job and started working from maximum expression point of view. Before I even painted on a level where people asked me to do commission work in social media and my models did look sometimes really good in pictures and the likes and reactions were my guiding lines for my work, but I wasn't happy at all. So I deleted all my social media accounts, and I found a way for my art that is purely based on my personal preferences. Even tho I think there need to be some modulation and maybe cutting off 10% of the yeehaw - factor will produce more pleasing and balanced models in the future and this isn't some rosetta stone of better paint jobs, the process led me to a more satisfying place in my hobby. Adding black really seems to kill the model and there is other more interesting ways of representing darkness or lack of light unless it's used in a very specific way to complement some other key elements of the model, but obviously this is all subjective. Thanks for the video ! Edit: I think this eldar is one your best work.
I’ve been watching your videos lately and decided to do turquoise orange for my new “space elves” kill team. Couldn’t help but notice the box set is identical to the movie poster style you have discussed
Hah just stumbled on this and this is almost exactly the color scheme I have planned for the Leagues army I'm getting ready to start painting, definitely taking notes...
You know, the whole time I was watching this, I absolutely COULD NOT shake the memory of a pair of sneakers I had as a kid that had this exact color scheme, minus the purple. Even the shoe laces and the three Adidas stripes were orange. I know that has nothing to do with miniature painting, but, here we are. Fantastic paint job, is in order here, I believe.
@@VinceVenturella You, sir, are ever the diplomat. That was a boring story, and you KNOW it. Thanks for putting up with utterly random crap nobody asked for. Looking forward to your next video, and have a great week.
11:28 it's interesting that we have so many pre-mixed off-whites and not many off-blacks. I guess they are easy enough to mix them yourself, but you would expect companies that offer 200+ premixed paints to jump on the opportunity to make and sell more variations. Thoughts?
Well, I don't know, there are a lot of near blacks, we just call them various forms of grey, but really, they are as close to black as these are to white.
Please forgive me if this isn't the proper location for this question. I would ask you're opinion on heavy body acrylics. I have seen a number of things referencing the Scale 75 artist line or Abteilung 502 but as they are harder to get here in Colorado over say Golden heavy body acrylics, do you feel there is a significant advancement in mini paint tech there to justify hunting them down? Beyond the usual "must collect shiny" mini painting genetic flaw of course. I would also thank you for what you have contributed to this hobby. We are grateful.
Happy to help anywhere. So here is my general feeling on those two lines. Their advantage is that they tend to be more matte, they are also same priced (HBAs vary in price with the pigment). In general, they are also a little softer and a littler easier to use more like traditional paints, with HBAs you have to really work and thin them to make them act more like traditional miniature paints. Now, the advantage of HBAs is that they tend to be single/known pigments, which can give you more control.
You should have painted a Star Wars miniature for this video...you keep talking about bringing balance to the colors and in my head I hear the "bring balance to the force" sentence every time 😄 Btw, beautiful colors 🤩
Could you do a hobby cheating on using non Black/grey/white primer colors and choosing the appropriate primer color for a scheme? It’s something that’s been on my mind a ton lately. You might have covered this before - but I cannot remember exactly.
Yay I am not a very visually creative person and for any non-canonical colour scheme I have problems finding the "right" combinations that work well visually. Honestly, I mostly just adopt schemes that someone else has already used and look good to me. One suggestion that would help me - for things such as the triangle of colour, or ways to schematically draw attention to a miniatures area, it would help me if we got a still photo with the vertices of the triangle, where they are pointing, etc. Maybe really dumb down, but that's what you get with very little artistic training (I can't really draw and even handwriting is awful. Somehow I still made miniature painting a hobby). Thanks - and very glad we finally had the opportunity to chip in a bit with a small contribution. These videos have greatly helped me.
Maybe I'm wrong but I always thought you were "supposed" to shade using a complimentary colour instead of just mixing in black as it looks more natural, but I often don't see people do this, especially with blues, I see everyone almost always using purples to shade blue and not the complimentary which I guess would be a dark orange or more brown tone to shade, is there a specific reason for using purples? Am I wrong about using complimentary colours to shade? What would you do?
You can certainly use complimentary colors, there is nothing wrong with it, but it's really about the light and shadow, there is no one universal answer. Complimentary colors can feel very natural, but sometimes you want specifically warm or cold shadows.
Hey Vince, love your content man, you're one of the best in the game. If you were to recommend a set of paints from 1 or 2 companies to cover all bases from colors you'd want at any time, which companies would you pick? I've heard good things about Pro Acryl and I personally really like Scale Color. Cheers man
Hey Vince, looking at changing out my GW paints for another set. Was thinking something like getting a larger set of Army Air, or Monument Hobbies set. I typically paint high table top a little above but not competition level. I love Vallejo, but the seem harder to get. Do you have a line you would recommend?
Aye a space elf! Saw this model on Warcom and was wondering if it would get a video. Very happy that it did. Also since it seems coincidental that this was released around the same time as vsauce did a short on the CMY cube, have you seen one before? And if so do you think it would be a useful tool for people trying to understand colour relationships?
Great video, very helpful!! In the sense of balance, is it better to keep one of the colours dominant (in the sense of covered area on the model) and the other one in smaller areas? You basically did that with the orange but as you didn't specifically mention that, I wanted to ask... 😅
Yes, exactly, our brains don't tend to react as well to perfect symetry, but if you're going to do it, it has to be spread out (i.e. the top half orange and the bottom turquoise wouldn't work).
hey vince, found your channel and the weekly pod cast you run is just so informative. im getting into age of sigmar and slaves to darkness is the chosen warband! gonna try a warcry mix for fun army. not painted in over 10 years. going to be using your channel on my journey and love the age of sigmar coverage, hope warcry gets some love and thanks for the channel and team !
Out of curiosity since you mentioned it at the start, do you have any advice when you actually do want it to look cartoony? I'm a huge fan of cartoonish style painting like you'd see in old citadel or by painters like louise sugden and I'm often unsure what rules do and don't apply the same like in this instance.
Essentially, you want harder lines between the highlights (think like a comic book where there often aren't "blends" just highlight and shadow "planes" and dark black lines to simulate the inks.
Sad there wasn't a hero moment for this one - I didn't see any stills or circles around the finished mini - your last picture of the mini was while you were still highlighting the purple. Missed a chance to share the finished product!
It just so happens that I've been thinking lately of how "grim dark" my color choices always tend to be and how I'd like to start making myself paint in brighter colors. Hey, presto! Here's this video giving me insight. Thank you, Vince!
I'm looking at making my elves Red/purple ish with bone/orangey contrast. I'm afraid a white zenithal will desaturate it, but bone colour might make it too warm. Suggestions?
While you did show off the finished mini in the beginning, when you started adding that orange, I was a bit confunded on how you'd pull it off^^ Those aren't colours i'd ever chosen together, but d*mn did the end result look great! Great and informative as always Vince! This question is totally off topic, so feel free to ignore. But with your deep knowledge I thought I'd ask. I'm looking for a replacement for the original Space Wolves Grey and can't get hold of Coat D'arms where I live, so the closest I've found is the Army Painter Gorgon Hide, which is way to white. Any suggestions?
I'd have to say that one is outside of my range of knowledge unfortunately - BUT - Check out Warcolours Nostalgia '88 line, they have a lot of older style colors still with similar names, they may have a match and they are wonderful paints.
No problem at all - So Pro Acryl makes some good white paint, my usual go to however is white ink (Daler Rowney FW) mixed with Golden Heavy Body acrylic Titanium White.
Apologies Vince but I have to say it: if one wants to talk about complimentary schemes one has to _actually_ use complimentary colours (or hues to be more exact). This is predicated on using a proper colour wheel, including both cyan and magenta. You can't just gloss over them as though they're not important or not relevant because without all hues being represented ALL of the oppositions are incorrect! What we end up with in effect is a simplified split-complementary scheme.... such as cyan paired with orange (when the true complement of cyan is red).
I apprecaite all of that, and I appreciate the value of the CMYK color wheel and it's certainly valid, but my fear is going down that rabbit hole is just too much for some people. You can use either color wheel to success when painting miniatures (Additive or subtractive), as long as there is consistency in the application and how you're thinking about the color relations.
@@VinceVenturella Thanks for responding 👍👍I get that it's potentially a bit overwhelming for some, but it really comes down to the difference between the way things actually work and, well, something else. Obviously pleasing colour schemes _can_ be planned out using either, the fact that deep yellow/orange goes so nicely with cyan/teal shows that quite clearly (I am personally far more fond of split-complements than direct complements, unless chroma is strictly controlled). But in a modern learning environment I think it's better to provide people with the real story, not some old abstraction - hopelessly out of date at this point since knowledge of CMY is about a century old now! - so they have the best info to work from moving forward. The simple fact that neither red nor blue are actually primary colours is a great hook to get people to delve deeper 😀
@@VinceVenturella I definitely assumed the bright jade, plum, the poppy pink (someone needs to make a paint called that) dark and warm flesh alone would make it in an auto buy for you ;)
Sure, so a Saturated color is basically the truest version of that color - no Black or white. Imagine a pure red, just the red pigment (like Kimera THE RED). That's saturation. Desaturation is when you add black or white (or it's complimentary color, basically, anything that makes it LESS that color without just shifting it around the outside of the wheel). Hope that helps. :)
@@VinceVenturella I understand the black and white (or grey, I suppose) but not how the complimentary colour desaturates. Doesn't mixing two opposite colours make a different colour? Red and Green make a brown (or, yellow apparently). Or is that simply a matter of ratio where you use so little of the complimentary colour you don't really change it much?
@@sirbobulous That is exactly it. Mix close to 50/50 (assuming both colors/pigments are roughly as powerful as each other) and you get a very desaturated grey/brown/or even black (this is where chromatic black comes in, but that is a different story). Mix in a small amount of say red into green and you get a desaturated green before you get a brown; so a color that still reads as green, but is not as vibrant as the original color.
Thanks for this one! Combined with re-watching HC #58 really helped it to click. Someone once tried to describe saturation as the level/density of pigment. So, a transparent paint would be desaturated, which confused things a bit. Shoulda just asked Vince!
I love watching your videos! As a low skilled painter, I always find what you go over very helpful, without ever feeling as if you are talking down to me. So thank you. I have a very basic color scheme for my stormcast (gold/blue over steel) but want that 3rd color. Red seems to be what everyone says, but I am curious how to determine which color is the "2 spots away" you mention
what a strange lumineth model AND awesome tutorial. i always give my model a squint to gage contrast value and color position. if it seems off as blurry basic shapes, definitely off with full detail. thanks for your time, vince.
I've definitely tried to use green as my undershade for Blood Angels and I can never really tell if it's even worth it. I stopped after about 3 marines; I'm assuming it won't really matter if I use a dark green vs dark purple vs dark brown. I'll definitely have to use the tips here for other models where there actually are more dominant colors than just a monotoned marine. I continue to love the content, especially the chapters (forget what they are technically called, sections?) now in the videos so if I or anyone else needs to return to a specific section it becomes a huge time-saver over the course of any painting project. Keep up the awesome work and hope the Patreon goes well!
Great video Vince, just what I was hoping for. As an eldar player myself: much appreciated! To be honest I'm not much of a fan of the esotheric background music though :)
Hi Vince, I'm follow your channel now a long time and I want to say "thank you" for your great content and the things I lerned from you. Keep it up! But now a question, could you explain in a tutorial, if it is possible for you, how to work with a limited palette? How to choose the right colors to lighten or darken my main color, if I have no different colors for highlights and shadows? Kind regards Mark L.
Great vid Vince. You managed to cover a huge amount of information in a very bite sized interesting way. I like the way you demonstrated how to use the base coat and zenithal to establish the form of the colour scheme. Then you covered my own dreaded flaw, freehand. Your instruction makes me want to try and get better at my own weakest parts of the painting hobby. Good job that man!👍
this is exactly what I needed. i've commented before that I like dealing with very bright colors / working in "cartoony" styles but always have wanted to avoid them being garish. desaturation is the way! side q, vince: eonsofbattle crossover when?
cheers for the video vince. one thing ive been thinking about recently is universal shade colours, just a little tangent thought here on this colour scheme, you could glaze some shading and 'black line' parts of it using either a purple wash or ink majorly thinned down with a glaze medium and/or water, and that would work as a shade glaze for both the turquoise and the yellow/orange. it would pull the tuq towards a dark blue colour and the yellow/orange towards more of a brown in the shadows. if you had bits of exposed flesh on the model it could also be used to shade those where it would go more to a deep cool red. i think it can give quite an interesting effect where you have 2 dominant colours as the scheme to pick a 3rd colour that is complimentary to both and then use that as a universal shade same way you can use ice yellow or a light skin tone as a universal highlight, to help tie the whole model together and give it some further interesting colour movement. also i think its quite fun esp for an army project to be able to sit down with just 1 very thinned down glaze and be able to ignore all the boundaries and shade the entire model with it.
Perfect timing. I am sharing this with my son. This is explained so “simply” well and with such great results to exemplify the concepts! I have sent several of your video’s to him the last week by the way!! Someday, somehow I am going to thank you in person for enriching my journey. I don’t have words!!!
Great video. I have been scratching my head about what scheme to go for with my ad mech. I will probably go for a different colour to orange and teal as those are colours on my necrons, space wolves or lumineth but think I’ll try this technique
Good one - sometimes it’s also the sidelines that simply stick though Heard- before but it just worked so well on the Warlovk - The triangle - *Thank you*
I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately as I'm trying to tame my instinct to jump straight to early 90's eavy metal clashing colours on everything I paint, this vid couldn't have come at a better time for me! Thanks Vince :)
Great video Vince, I am a colour blind artist and often check with my wife that what I’ve done it not too extreme as I struggle with nuances between colours, particularly when it comes to colours with red and greens in them
It can be tough, but honestly, you have a leg up, as we should all be checking our work with others regularly and don't - another voice is a good thing in your work. :)
Great video, as always Vince. New cam and format are looking good. Would love to see a video with your take on making a dark, dull color pallette have visual interest. Clan Eshin minis are kickin' my butt! Thanks again for the time you put into these videos.
Not Vince, obviously, but using various brightness values, and surface finishes, will go a very long way to achieve that. Step your darks a bit darker than you normally would, pull your brighter colors a little higher than you might, normally, and put the two right next to each other. Contrast isn't just a chromatic thing, luminosity and reflectiveness can help to differentiate materials, a lot.
Great, informative tutorial! In the beggining of my hobby journey I've tried to paint red and green Tau, hearing that those color have nice contrast. Unfortunately I had no idea about what you've said here and they ended up looking like Christmas clowns. Repainted as regular Farsight colors (scarlet-gold-warmgrey).
Please angle your camera up more - great videos but do not need to look up your nose the entire time and work on the lighting hitting your face, really is way too dark.
