5 Color Calandra- reposted so that I could respond to comments

[odinsgrandson]

Ok, so I posted this right before the old forums went off line:


This mini was painted entirely using five pots of paint: Morrow White, Sanguine Base, Rynn Flesh Bootstrap Leather and Exile Blue.


http://mediawonder.com/gallery/albums/userpics/callandra.jpg


I posted some details of how I painted her on the blog (http://gardenninjastudios.blogspot.com/2009/11/painting-with-limited-pallet.html) along with some different angles of her.

Oh, and I put up some extra angles on CMON. (http://coolminiornot.com/237209)

What do you think?
Naturally, I was excited to share this mini with you all, who probably have access to the Grandmaster Diorama that inspired me to paint this mini this way.

So, here she is again. And I'll also answer some of the questions that came up in the old thread:


Just a quick question, "how much art training do you have?"

saxondog
I have no real formal art training, at least not the kind that would normally apply here. I have some training in film and theatre (mostly criticism) and I took a class or two in high school.

Otherwise, I learned my painting from reading Mike McVey tutorials in old White Dwarf and No Quarter magazines.



I really like it, especially the shading; she looks bathed in sunlight.
Always liked Calandra's metal sign too. Yeah, she's a headbanger at heart. The lighting is something I've been working on on most of the minis that I've been painting recently. I'm getting myself to put a little more contrast between the darkest and lightest layers of highlighting, and it has done quite a bit for my painting.

[kakita]

I like it. It's an interesting study in colour theory and your own mixing skills. Here's a question: How do you determine what colours to start off mixing?

I'm guessing you need a warm white, a dark red, a dark blue.... and then whatever other two colours you need?

[odinsgrandson]

You know, I've only just started out with these experiments, so I'm willing to try to break things up.

I don't think that you necessarily need a red or blue (I used a dark red and a dark blue in this mini of course). I think that you could get a very nice looking mini with greens and browns.

In fact, I think I might try out a five color Mohsar the Desert Walker.


I do think you need a mix of lighter and darker colors (for contrast in highlighting) but I don't think that even white is necessarily required. I think it would be interesting to paint a mini with your lights being something warm (like Menoth white base or Rynn Flesh) and something cold (like Frostbite).

Oh, the places to go. I think I'll need to experiment some more with this.

[kakita]

second question: did you base with white, black, grey, or something else? I was thinking that it'd be hard to get good solid colours as a base if you're limiting yourself to say 4 or 5 colours.

Lastly, I assume everythign is NMM? Would be hard to do this with normal metals I'd think ;p

[IvanTheMenite]

Honestly I thought everyone painted like this until recently. I've been using about 10 different colors from Michael's (crappy, crappy ceramic paint) on every army I've owned, and probably about 4-5 per model, using blending/mixing and what not... hmmm.

[odinsgrandson]

Honestly I thought everyone painted like this until recently. I've been using about 10 different colors from Michael's (crappy, crappy ceramic paint) on every army I've owned, and probably about 4-5 per model, using blending/mixing and what not... hmmm.

I think this challenge is really meant for painters who have become accustomed to having whatever color they want in their paint box. I think this method is good at helping someone with composition and color themes.

Of course, if you choose Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, White and Black as your five colors, then you're only making more work for yourself, and not really tying the mini's coloring together.



second question: did you base with white, black, grey, or something else? I was thinking that it'd be hard to get good solid colours as a base if you're limiting yourself to say 4 or 5 colours.

Lastly, I assume everythign is NMM? Would be hard to do this with normal metals I'd think ;p


I used a black undercoat (I usually use black, I just prefer it). Also, all of the metals are NMM- and that's probably for the best since good metallic metals require you to have at very least two shades of metal to blend.

Hm... I can think of ways to make this method work with metallic metals also. If you started making washes out of your other colors, maybe that would do something for it. I don't know that I would like the results of that so much though.