Wednesday 4 January 2012

Painting Praetorian Imperial Guard Test Model Part 1

I decided to go with black undercoat so I can try and get some shading with my painting and my undercoated Praetorian replacement Trooper is looking good before I'm let loose with paints on him!

I decided to try the Mechrite red in the new foundation range as the red jacket colour as I figured it would cover the black well, and I used scorched brown for his leather boots. I gave the trousers another coat of brushed chaos black as well to look darker (sounds stupid but they definitely did!) and more even.

I then did some (very slap dash!) highlights in blood red on the jacket, some 50/50 black/codex grey on the trousers, followed by another highlight of just codex grey. Boltgun on the gun with scorched brown for the wood and I undercoated the face and helmet with bleached bone. Golden Demon winner I am not! The highlights were literally just thrown on without particular care but look good at a distance (not on my DSLR!). I think I am going to undercoat the braces codex grey before white so the white isn't too bright, but before that I am going to wash black over the neck down, ogryn flesh on skin parts and maybe some red on the jacket depending on how he looks post the black.




 At the end of the day he is a test and I don't even have all my paints yet (damn post xmas deliveries!) so I'm more interested in the overall colours being right than an amazing painted model but any pointers/critiquing would be really very welcome. Also any advice on highlight colour for the brown boots and gun wood? I'm guessing just a lighter brown like snakebite?

7 comments:

  1. I have a point to think about. After looking at all of my models over the years there were some colour schemes that I really love and some that I really don't. As it turns out the ones that I really like all have one thing in common. Good Colour theory. The standard rules are limit models to 3 main colours and make them as complementarity as possible. This means opposite colours. To find exact opposition colours I use this colour wheel

    http://colorschemedesigner.com/

    When it works people will like your models despite of the paint job, but not know why. an example is the rough riders I have painted recently. They are an exact triad of dark red, beep blue and deep yellow (which I actually made gold-ish). I actually thought that Winterborne's were painted better but a lot of people liked mine more. sooo anyway, to the point. If you are going to paint red (obviously) put green on the model. OR put 2 other colours: purple and orange, Blue and yellow, or any two hues that form a triangle with red on the wheel. this is why the standard for Praetorians have blue pants, while historically it is more of a black. the brown of the helmet is actually a hue of orange or yellow forming your third colour.

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  2. sorry about the grammar and wording- I should have proof read it!

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  3. Ooh a bit of colour theory I like it! Think about your bases as well that has a big impact on the look. I also agree with the helmet mention, try it with the browny khaki colour instead of white.

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  4. That's fine I understood it all I think!
    Thanks for the tip on colour theory. I was tempted to paint the cuffs and collars Dark Angels Green so I might do that in future then, but I want to keep the trousers black as I have never liked the blue trousers.
    Its weird because I loved your rough riders as soon as I saw them, thought they looked outstanding! I would never have guessed the colour scheme was over emphasising how good the models were, even though I think you are being very modest as they look very well painted to me!

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  5. Which citadel colour do you suggest for the helmet?

    I have desert yellow but that is probably a bit dark, I'm not really sure what brown to use that wouldn't look too dark. I have bleached bone but thats too light and yellowy I imagine?

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  6. Id say Winterborne's bestial brown and bleached bone then highlights looks the best.

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