Base coats
Ringo40k
painted before I field them. My question is what difference does a different
color base coat make? I used the Skull White for all my Orks and they turned
out alright. I've heard of other people using black or purple (In the case of
Tyranids) and they all looked good, but I accounted that to my sucky painting
skills. So, is there a differance?
Ringo
RLobinske
coats used over it. Generally, lighter color paints tend to allow the base
coat to show through more, especially for white, yellow and many reds. Darker
shades tend to be more opaque and cover the base coat more thoroughly. For
base coats, I recommend a pale grey for general usage (white can make the more
transparent colors a bit too bright). That said, for various special effects,
you can change the base color to get them (like the above brighter effect from
using white). I would suggest getting to a hobby shop and picking up a box of
the Airfix 1/72 scale figures (40-50 for something under $10) to practice on.
Try painting over various base coats with your paints so that you can directly
see the effect.
Myrmidon
Ringo40k wrote:
Good question Ringo!
There are a number of different strategies behind base coats. To explain the
strategies, I'll need to introduce some artist's terminology. The first and
easiest to understand is the tone contrast (tone - the degree of lightness or
darkness of a color.) Have you ever seen an artist's pencil tone scale - it's a
series of boxes side by side that go from white through increasing shades of gray
to black. That's tone contrast. (In the case of black and white only, it might be
called a value scale, but when artists talk about color they use the term 'value'
to refer to the extent which a color reflects or transmits light, so I'll try to
avoid improperly using value, and use tone instead.) The next term we need is
Chroma - the degree of saturation or intensity in a color. The last two terms are
'alla prima painting' also known as "direct painting" which is a one layer painting
technique, and 'underpainting' which is a preliminary painting over which other
colors are applied.
Ok, that being said, now we get on to the good parts. The human eye is a
pretty nifty piece of hardware, but there are ways it can be fooled. The human eye
uses two pieces of information primarily for determining depth perception. The
first is tone, the greater the contrast an object has (i.e. the bigger the
difference between the lightest and darkest contrast, and to some extent the
greater the number of shades in between,) the closer the individual perceives the
object in question to be. Psychologically, the object with more tone contrast
holds more attention as the eye finds it more interesting to look at (generally.)
Artists use this technique in pencil drawings to create the illusion of depth on a
2 dimensional surface. If the artist wants something to be in the foreground or to
be the center of attention, he gives it the greatest tonal contrast range of any
object in the drawing. Objects belonging to the mid-ground get a smaller contrast
range - perhaps no strong blacks or whites, and objects in the farthest background
would only have a few similar shades of medium gray. The second depth perception
item is Chroma. The more intense a color, the closer the eye perceives it to be.
Bright objects (particularly warm colors) seem to come forward, pastel and neutral
colors sit in the mid-ground, and cold colors, dark colors, and washed out colors
recede into the background. (Example: a bright metallic blue is a warm color, it
pulls forward and commands attention, sky blue is a pastel color and sits further
back, a dark navy blue would cold color that recedes.) Color has an additional
property - it tends to push or pull other colors around it. A fun experiment to
explore this - take a sheet of neutral gray paper and get some brightly colored
construction paper (orange in my example.) Cut a 3 inch square of orange paper and
cut a smaller 1 inch square opening in the center of the orange square. Place the
orange square in the center of the gray paper and stare at the gray area inside the
orange square. In only a few moments, the gray area inside the orange square will
start to look bluish gray. This illusion happens because of the cones and rods
(optic nerves) in your eyes, the orange in effect 'pushes' the inside gray area
toward the blue range.
So how does this help us with figure painting? Plenty! First is the tone
scale, the more lights and darks, and the greater the contrast, the more
interesting it is visually, and the more 3d it will seem (it enhances the
illusion.) For example, I'm painting a group of terminators in a tiger strip color
scheme. I could do an alla prima style of painting, and paint orange right on the
bare figure, or simply primer it white and then paint it orange. However, this
will give rather flat and ho hum results. Personally I'd much rather use the
artistic style called underpainting. Underpainting in a nut shell is applying
paint in thin (and often transparent) layers over the top of a base painting to
create deep contrasts and intense colors. First thing I did was primer it in
black - this is my base coat. Orange paint right over the top of black will look
muddy and dull - remember, nearby colors push and pull one another. So what I did
next is take a very dry white and paint over all the areas that I want to be light
colors. I used paint that wasn't runny so that it wouldn't get down in the
recessed areas of my figure. I've basically created much of the tone range for my
figure - it's literally done in gray scale. Next I paint my orange on top of my
white in the desired areas. This gives me bright orange upper surfaces, and nice
dark recessed areas - the figure now has a lot more illusion of being 3d and is
more visually interesting. I can add ink washes or brighter highlights to modify
the color intensity even more. Each additional paint coat or ink wash was is
designed to increase the 3d illusion. I finished it off by adding the desired
details. Another idea for base coating is using contrasting colors to greatly
increase the intensity of the surface colors. To use the orks you speak of as an
example, rather than just painting green skin over white primer, primer it white,
then try painting the skin in a red tone first. After that, paint your greens over
the red in thin layers and washes, slowly building up to your brightest green
drybrushing and highlights. Almost all of the red will be covered, but what red
that does show through the washes will push your green to an even greater
intensity. By practicing and experimenting with these techniques you can create
some great miniatures.
Well, I've rambled enough. I hope this helps, if you don't comprehend my
mutterings, ask and I'll try to explain it more clearly.
Later, Myrmidon
Roy
>
> Ringo40k wrote:
>
> > Hello, first of all I'm not artist but I do make an effort to have all my minis
> > painted before I field them. My question is what difference does a different
> > color base coat make? I used the Skull White for all my Orks and they turned
> > out alright. I've heard of other people using black or purple (In the case of
> > Tyranids) and they all looked good, but I accounted that to my sucky painting
> > skills. So, is there a differance?
> >
> > Ringo
>
> Good question Ringo!
>
> There are a number of different strategies behind base coats. To explain the
> strategies, I'll need to introduce some artist's terminology. The first and
<SNIP>
>
> Well, I've rambled enough. I hope this helps, if you don't comprehend my
> mutterings, ask and I'll try to explain it more clearly.
>
> Later, Myrmidon
VERY GOOD ANSWER!!!
Now that is what I like to see.
Roy