So I finally carve out some painting time on my day off and I'm real excited 'cuz I decided I want to paint one of my chaos characters and... I'm not too happy with the results.
My concept is that Doctor Faustus (my homemade Fabius Bile) is one of the Angels of Purity, a succession chapter of Dark Angels that has fractured and gone chaotic. My envisioned color scheme for the AoP was bone armor with green cloaks. Actually, I'm pretty happy with the bone color I managed for the most part. But the model overall... It just doesn't *POP*. There's nothing that stands out. It's very basic and way too subtle.
These pictures don't show what your eye could see but it doesn't really matter -- the one nice detail I like is so weak that the camera isn't picking it up, which indicates a problem. What you can't really see is a faint green glow in the face slit of the helmet and the third eye on the forehead, which looks kinda nice but again... Too subtle. No pop. BORING.
Maybe if I did the extra limbs in a shade of green instead of fleshy pink, with bone scythe blades (my original idea, though it ended up too much blah bone white) to keep a more consistent color scheme?
Someday I'll get back to him, but no time soon. Should have done the chaos centaurs instead...
Everything is really a complimenting color with no contrast. A few simple things you can do.
ReplyDelete* Do the helmet horns in another color. Leave that base color but wash it with a red, blue or purple, something to lend contrast.
* The assorted claws, same thing as the horns but a different color than you do on the horns. Just wash over it to change the color.
Those two things will help bring the eye back to the model's center mass and in turn let that lighting effect on the helm be seen.
Aye - the strongest colors are all at the outskirts of the model, which draws the eye away from the helmet. Overall I love the scheme and the shading is top notch but I agree with Thor, perhaps a stronger-colored helmet would help draw the eye back in to the center of the model.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year!
Agree, horns a different color like red could help, plus maybe pick out the chest symbol and eye a bit more.
ReplyDeleteI'm no expert (Thor, Mordian 7th and sonsoftaurus are prolly WAY more knowledgeable than me), but while I like the soft look of the model, it seems like it's missing transitions due to the lack of things like a shoulder pad logo to break up the solid color of the upper body.
ReplyDeleteI really like the colors you chose though...it's just missing...something, y'know?
Thanks everybody! Great advice and way more tips than i expected, which is great. I'll have to chew over which colors would work, but I think you're right about drawing the eye away from the center of the model. And yes, SinSynn, I do know, it is missing... something. :) Hopefully these ideas will help fill that void.
ReplyDelete