Beaten Purple won my heart - Khador

[Poet]

I just got beaten purple p3 paint, and I really wanted to paint something purple.
The victim? Khador.

Here's the test piece:

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_fWqUMKUD7xE/TFbmdnTVPrI/AAAAAAAABg4/Ujrzl8v46is/s800/IMG_0782.jpg

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_fWqUMKUD7xE/TFbmmO4n4iI/AAAAAAAABg8/vKP2zQjTJZE/s800/IMG_0781.jpg

One with the axe in focus, one with the hand in focus.
Honest opinions, I can take it!

[Sam Lam]

Oh my god that is some serious rust... Very nice looking sir. Very nice indeed.

[JkSlay]

Looks really good, I like how it's not to purple and that theres still some blue.

[Poet]

Thanks.

Yeah, It was really purple when I put the base coat down. I knew I had to do something. Looked like grape juice :P

[patisarat]

It's great when people do bold and unique color schemes like this.

You know, I'd like to see an entire warjack done in this dusty pastel purplish/blue. I imagine it would probably work better with Retribution jacks than Khador jacks though, given their sci-fi stylings. I'd love to see a myrmidon in this dusky purple with gold fittings. (Not very helpful advice, I know. Sorry!)

Also, I don't think the orange-bronze of the axe works well with the purple/blue. I think it looks great by itself, especially with the blue/green patina effect, but these 2 great flavors don't necessarily taste great together.

[Greywolf]

While the work done is very good, I'd like to see it on an entire model before saying it would make a great color scheme. Very nice work though.

[Poet]

Yeah, I'm working on it.
Got the rest of the jack in process.

I'm also thinking of mixing it up a bit by painting stuff teal then applying a purple wash. Will show when I get it done.

[Alviaran]

Oh wow. Never seen the Beaten Purple before. Perfect for my Cryx!

Also, I really like it. I'd like to see a full model like that now.

[mrplippy]

what colors do you use is ti a blue base coat with a drybrush of purple or what

[Poet]

Beaten purple with arcane blue dry brush.
I'm going to find the way to do it without dry brushing. Its just really hard to paint arcane blue over beaten purple.

[komodokeeper]

I really like the anime feel this gives, but I can't seem to let go of the fact that your primer looks very textured? what brand are you using?

[ButcherOfKhardov]

Interesting colours, looking forward to seeing the full 'jack done up like this.

BoK

[sharpe]

I gotta say I find the copper ax a bit strange. The effect is done well, but would you really want a copper ax? Wouldn't it just bend?

I do like the purple though. Its nice to see a really alternative Khador scheme. People, myself included, tend towards fairly muted colours for Khador to accentuate the soviet military vibe. I think this purple on greylords, doomreavers, IFP, and some of the other less army looking doodes will bring out a whole different feel to Khador. Might be hard to make Widows and WG look respectable unless you are sparing with the purple.

[Poet]

Thanks for the comments :)

@komodokeeper I use duplicolor grey primer, and its fine. the texture is because I drybrushed, and those are stripped parts, which I didn't bother to smooth out completely.

@sharpe I totally agree. I plan on having a lot less purple on some troops, or maybe it will be a really muted purple. Cloth can look good in purple, but I'm not sure about plates and shoulder pads. My color key is purprle, teal, orange and yellow. Where I replace yellow with gold on jacks. Possibly troops will have more desert-y yellow on them. We'll have to see.

[Martin_Fierro]

I like the idea of the Greylords with that purple/blue color scheme. Would feel very wizardy. It looks cool and I actually like the way the bronze axe looks with the purple hand. Looking forward to seeing an entire jack done up.

[squidstudios]

Poet, I'm digging this. Great, bold scheme. My only advice would be: find another color to offset some of the main purple. Khador jacks have tons of paintable armor space, so this purple will likely end up looking overpowering if it's the only color. I think breaking it up with a minor secondary color will help lessen the purpliciousness. Unless you want a grape Kool Aid themed Khador. :D I do love the purple as the dominant color though.

[Poet]

Far from finished, but I thought I'd post another couple of pics, so you guys can get a peek at the purpleness.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_fWqUMKUD7xE/TGOVGQdixzI/AAAAAAAABhY/kELxL1Kw_eY/s800/IMG_0784.jpg
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_fWqUMKUD7xE/TGOVGr2LkII/AAAAAAAABhc/PaP7RbkMAIE/s800/IMG_0786.jpg

As you can see, I cleaned up the drybtush roughness on the axe hand. I think it needs a little more cleaning up, but it certainly looks a lot better now.
As I was base coating some areas yellow for later to be made gold, I noticed I quite like it, so I painted the top plate yellow too. Breaks it up a little I think.
Any other areas you think could be yellow? should I paint the spikes gold or leave them yellow?

thanks in advance :)

[Turtle]

Too much drybrushing. All that messy speckling is just making the model lose its color identity, which is basically the primary strong color that you want a viewer to associate with something. All those specks are just too busy across the large smooth armor plates. Try having the blue color focused primarily towards the edges, or recessed areas, and the more open clean plates a more solid purple that's highlighted to towards red.

Also, you'll need to break up all the monotone on the legs and lower body. Paint the ball joint a metallic, should fix the lower torso, but the legs definitely need more color variation. As above, putting metallics on the pistons and pieces that aren't armor plates will break up the large blob of color you have into more interesting shapes.

[TheBigRedMachine]

Good start. Turtle has the jist of it though.
My suggestions-
-arm ballsocket as a metalic.
-piston rods metallic.
-only armor plating is purple.
-hatch as a different color than the spikes/head cowling.
-metallic spikes on a black band
-pick a shoulder and give it a different color (Khador Red/black/grey) and make it a unifiying thing for your force.
-break up the legs with 2 more colors. I.E. the foot tip/major joint screws as brass/copper with the rest either silver or pig iron.

That's all I got. Hope it feeds something as you have a great start and look like it will be an awesome scheme.

[Poet]

Thanks for the comments, really helpful stuff.

The drybrushing will be a lot less... ugly. I'll either clean it up or figure out how to paint he arcane blue onto the purple with blending.

I want to make a sort of shine to the center of the plates, Turtle, you propose red? I'll try that.

TBRM:
I like your suggestions. I was thinking leaving the hatch yellow.
Painting a shoulder grey may be cool, I'll try that.
Not really following you on the legs.
My plan was screws and rods in gold.

Again, thanks a lot for the comments, they are really helpful.

[Turtle]

...
The drybrushing will be a lot less... ugly. I'll either clean it up or figure out how to paint he arcane blue onto the purple with blending.

I want to make a sort of shine to the center of the plates, Turtle, you propose red? I'll try that.

...

When you highlight or blend, you usually want to choose a color that's close by the main color on the color wheel. For purple, it's basically a mix of blue and red, but you have to choose in which direction you highlight or shade in. Don't just add pure white, since that can cut down on the saturation of the color, although that might be a good thing for this particular shade of purple you're using. A mix of white and blue/red. You'll have to try it on some paper to see how it turns out.

[Poet]

Thanks Turtle, you were right on the money.
Just red made it too saturated, just white made it wash away.
A good mix of both and I got this:
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_fWqUMKUD7xE/TGQ7KTOX7-I/AAAAAAAABhk/2fpxHNI0kCw/s800/IMG_0790.jpg
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_fWqUMKUD7xE/TGQ7Krv6R7I/AAAAAAAABho/yzdzTu6kGBQ/s800/IMG_0791.jpg

[roddo]

that last picture is alot better. looks like turtle sent ya in the right direction.

[Mod_Plarzoid]

This is turning out to be very cool. It's like it was painted purple, but is frost-bitten. Awesome!

[TheBigRedMachine]

Thanks for the comments, really helpful stuff.
...
TBRM:
...
Not really following you on the legs.
...

Again, thanks a lot for the comments, they are really helpful.


Thight plates in your purple. The metal behind it in either P3 Pig Iron or P3 Quicksilver with the rods and the foot tip being in gold.

I'd say look at a PP painted Juggy leg and sub in your colors where you need too. That will break up the sameness the leg suffers from now.

[Justin Kase]

This is turning out to be very cool. It's like it was painted purple, but is frost-bitten. Awesome!

I was thinking along the same lines - it actually looks cold!

Any thoughts on picking out the rivets in bronze or iron - or would that make it too busy?

[Khador247]

Hmm I've got to be honest. I don't care for the Easter themed Khador.

[Poet]

Any thoughts on picking out the rivets in bronze or iron - or would that make it too busy?

I'll give that a go on a small areas and see how it goes.

[DemonCalibre]

You might want to consider black lining the gaps between the plates on the shoulders, middle carapace and the cowl to cause each piece to have slightly more identity.

[Poet]

Here are the pictures of the very-close-to-finished juggy.
Yes, he has a destroyer's head.

I took Demon's advice on lining, I think t came out rather well.
On the open fist, you can see how I did it without dry brushing. I just edged the panels cautiously.

I have really unsure what to do with the khador symbol on the hatch. Any advice would be appreciated.
And, of course, any other advice would be great.

Thanks again to everyone who helped.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_fWqUMKUD7xE/TGhH0rOKaiI/AAAAAAAABiE/JA5a4wGR6ow/s800/IMG_0793.jpg

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_fWqUMKUD7xE/TGhH0o7vKxI/AAAAAAAABiI/g8do_yZAz-Q/s800/IMG_0794.jpg

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_fWqUMKUD7xE/TGhH0l3qwjI/AAAAAAAABiM/TXSHymGqeXo/s800/IMG_0795.jpg

I tried to keep the corrosion and the old feel on the yellow irregular, I think it came out good.
I just noticed you can't really make up the hatch, I'll take a top view picture later.

[Poet]

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_fWqUMKUD7xE/TGhR42JyB9I/AAAAAAAABiU/lzSzHIFoC14/s800/IMG_0798.jpg

top view as promised.

[LordRavurion]

I think it looked fine until you blacklined the plates...

I am not a very good painter, but the blacklining is not something to do afterwards if you do not have steady hands. You also have to be able to make a very thin stripe. In this case I tink it ruins the look a bit...

Sorry to be a bit of a bearer of critique without having my own stuff on here, but I am just giving my 2 cents and Hopefully you can appreciate it as such...

[Turtle]

Poet, what I said about highlighting also applies to shading, even within crevices. When you go to shade something, instead of dropping straight to, or adding black, try adding a darker color that's to either side of the main color on the color wheel. In this case, you can try using a purple that's somewhat blue-ish, or a blue that's somewhat purplish, or a more neutral blue that's darker in value by default, mix it with you main color, and only add in the tiniest bit of black. Black paint, by its nature, will affect a mix a lot more, so you only need a little.

You could actually accomplish this better by simply mixing a thin wash to shade the recesses. Either mix it yourself, or use some of the PP or GW inks/washes mixed to be a dark shade of purple. You put the thinned wash in the recesses, then let it dry. If it's too little, just add more.

Also, try to shade before you highlight, since the shading is in the recesses, it's easier to paint over shading than trying to fix highlights.

[Poet]

thanks again for the comments.

While I really like the purple, I think its a bit much. I'm thinking of using another color, something a little less bold for most of the areas, and keeping the purple only for a select few armour plates.

I'll try what you two suggested.

[Devilsquid]

What an interesting choice of colors. The Purple and Orange play well off each other, and i'm curious to see how the base will be done, as that adds/detracts from a model as well.

[Marz]

I have to agree with LordRavurion. A mixture of Exile Blue with the Beaten Purple will give you a darker tone that could be used to shade the darker areas. Using straight black looks too cartoonish. Also stick with thin lines.

[DemonCalibre]

Because I feel the vague need to defend my suggestion, The purpose of black lining(at least as I suggested it), is not for shading, it's to cause separation of the armor plates.(To make them look like individual plates, rather then a mass of plates you can't tell the difference from)

Though a couple suggestions about it, I think the one spot you should not have lined, is the part on the sides of the hump on the Carapace, since the hump, and the top plate aren't separate pieces it looks odd for them to be separated.Lastly some of the spots that you lined the line is slightly too big or uneven. To be fair getting them nice after the fact can be super tough.

My last suggestion, is you might want to consider going over the bolts and rivets with boltgun metal, not because glossing over them is bad, but more of an effort to break up the big mass of color that makes up the center of the model.

As a note I feel that the model has gotten better each time you posted it up, I am curious to see what you do with any final tweaking, but so far it's going well.

[Turtle]

Blacklining is just another form of shading to me. All shading and highlighting, to my illustration sensibilities, is to help define forms. Blacklining on miniatures tends to be done where you have two surfaces on the same plane, but have a seam between them. You see this a lot on Gundam or GW Tau models.

The actual effect is called ambient occlusion that's causing the darkening of the color there.

Anyway, where two plates intersect, but there's already a clearly defined plane change, blacklining tends to be way too much. Instead, you should slow shade down to a darker color as you near the intersection of the two plates on the lower side.

[DoktorVivi]

That oxidized copper look kicks ***. How exactly did you do that? Orangey color and then a light blue wash around the rivets and such? I need to steel this for something.

[Poet]

I'm going to try and make the blacklining more mellow, possibly turn it into proper shading.

DoktorVivi:
Base coat Khador Red Highlight
1st wash: coal black
2nd wash: Umbral Umber
3rd wash: arcane blue.
Highlight back with Khador Red Highlight and occasionally mix in some heartfire.

The thing with the washes is you don't just wash everything evenly, you need to control it.
The first two washes are applied unevenly around everything,giving some different shades to stuff.
The last wash I place exactly where I want the oxidization.

Hope it helps.

[Poet]

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_fWqUMKUD7xE/TGq6ABEu7VI/AAAAAAAABic/seq9DfR3R80/s800/IMG_0802.jpg

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_fWqUMKUD7xE/TGq6AY1MoiI/AAAAAAAABig/ObeqYaaf1Oc/s800/IMG_0803.jpg

Picked out the rivets in pig iron, painted the khador symbol gold.
Changed the lining to shadowing as turtle suggested (thanks!)

anything other suggestions?

I think this model is mostly done, and I want to thank everyone one last time. It wouldn't have come out so great without your help.