Colour Theory… Part 2
December 20, 2011 by elromanozo
Video Sponsors: Dark Age - Heavy Gear
Romain continues his epic tutorial on colour theory.
See the whole series...
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When do we write the test Mr.Romain? 🙂
For those who want to dig into it a bit – Visible Light Spectrum: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visible_spectrum and http://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/Wavelengths_for_Colors.html Hue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hue Value (lightness): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightness_(color) Saturation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturation_(color_theory) Pigment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigment A really cool color blending tool: http://www.colblindor.com/color-name-hue/ And another: http://colorschemedesigner.com/ Academic article: http://www.ncsu.edu/scivis/lessons/colormodels/color_models2.html Free Printable Color Wheels: http://www.color-wheel-artist.com/printable-color-wheels.html Of course, you can google these, but I thought it would be helpful to put them in one handy location. Actually I think you should encourage people to remember primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. Really helps when you are doing tutorials and you are color blending… Why are we told that Red, Blue, and Green are… Read more »
@ubiquanon, not sure what the music is as Justin was the editor on this.
Ah ok. Actually it was just an obtuse suggestion on my part to add some, not really a serious suggestion…
Look at the demos for the Cool Mini or Not painting videos. They have background music so that when the painter is just painting and not saying anything there is some sound filler.
Yeah, but BGM can be more annoying than helpful for filling a gap, and would probably just about double the time to edit I.E. balancing the sound out when Romain actually is saying stuff then watching through to make sure its all audible.
Depends on your editing software. You can set the second sound track – the bgm – to compress at a preset (i.e. subdued) level anytime the first track shows active sound waves or waves at a particular decibel, and its done automatically.
(Why is it we always seem to digress??)
Personally I think the music choice should reflect the character of the speaker, so maybe something like this:
http://youtu.be/6Wnw2-7N13A
😉
Red, Blue and Green are primary colors in the additive color circle, not the substractive one. The additive one is used for composing colors with light, not with paint. I explain it all later on…
Those articles are all fine, but they’ve always been there… I’m trying to make it simpler, and strictly applied to miniature painting, so as not to frighten anyone with physics or big theories.
BoW Romain
on the articles, I hear you… just added them for anyone who was interested in exploring more, just if they were curious. Not trying to compete in any way. Sort of like textbooks to support your lectures. 🙂
So you didn’t like the disco?
I do indulge, now and then, but my abba days are over… My true love is baroque, my friend !
BoW Romain
@Romain
Will you show something on a Miniature to use color theory. Examples are better than theory for better understanding.
lol, the general idea is theory first then application. A presentation of theory with direct application is, by definition, no longer theory (and it takes a lot longer to go over). If you look at any of the recent 3 color up painting vids Romain often talks about the use of theory on his applied technique. (Light, complimentary color, blending, etc…) Essentially, any time you apply color to a mini you are utilizing color theory, you just may not know the particulars. Also, his BoW site name is elromanozo. Thats why the @Romain did not link.
You are right and I watched every video and cant wait for the next free one. But there are a lot of 3colorUp in the Backstage I have never seen.
I try to show you how to apply that to miniatures in most tutorials I do…
As for this series, there will be examples on paper when we reach each subject, don’t worry.
BoW Romain
At the risk of coming off as creepy, I must say your voice is like made for making tutorial videos. It is very soothing and a delight to listen to.
All in all these are great tips for making people think another time about which colours to apply to their minis. I enjoyed it, thanks!
I like what Romain does and the first colour theory video was great but I couldn’t sit through this one. As a bit of background I have studied at art college to degree standard and I’ve used the three main colour theories in different disciplines. I dont like to cross these themes because they are meant to work in different ways. First I strongly disagree that our medium is ‘light’. It isn’t. Our medium is paint. If your medium is light you do photography and you use filters and light bulbs to enhance the subject you are photographing. Second the… Read more »
Gah! I’ve tried to delete and edit the post but it wont update. Please ignore the Paragraph that starts “second…” I got my own colour theory muddled. But I stand by what I said about CMYK printing inks and monitors not producing colour the same way as traditional paint. I guess this video got me so riled I started raving.
But yes. Our medium isn’t light. It’s paint. We are using paint to emulate 2D paintings in a 3D way.
In a purely technical level, it is true that the actual medium is paint, and the base is plastic / metal / resin, but what you are trying to accurately represent is color, and color is a phenomenon of light. So while the medium is paint, the product, if you will, is the accurate representation of light. Your last line is confusing. I believe that we use artifice to correct for the loss of detail and dimensionality that occurs due to limitation of scale. I don’t think we are trying to emulate 2d paintings, but rather are trying to make… Read more »
Indeed, as I understand it, @ubiquanon is right in this case…
This is color theory (simplified, or at least explained to the complete layman) and applied to figure painting.
@bloodwin, I’m sure you have an excellent grasp of many ways to apply the different color theories to different mediums, but I would humbly ask of you to leave your preconceptions at the door…
I’m sure you’ve seen many things written somewhere, but that doesn’t make them true regarding miniature painting, which is an art form in and of itself.
BoW Romain
As I said I’d rather have deleted and re written the post. I watched the rest of the video and it wasn’t as bad as I thought but I’m still not a fan of cyan magenta and cerise. I think it’s valuable as you said in the first video that people shouldn’t feel the need to paint models with paints retaining the hue straight from the pot.
Oh, I’m not a fan of obtaining everything through a mix of very few colors… We have the luxury of several great ranges of paints out there, with original mixes to inspire us.
The color circle is not a tool for mixing colors, but merely a device to help people understand what to contrast with, what to harmonize with, what to shade with, and so on !
BoW Romain
To some degree I know what you feel like @bloodwin as I work with a giant 60″ printer that uses CYMK but also has a light “C” and light “M”. I have a real hard time trying to help customers understand print is very different from looking at a computer screen. They often say “I wish it to look exactly like on the screen” and I have to let them down a bit. This colour theory for painting is a bit easier for me, but in my field of work it’s the bane of all when people don’t understand the… Read more »
The the visible spectrum ranges from wavelengths of around 400 nano meters (violet) to around 750-800 nano meters (red). Many people confuse wavelength and frequency in terms of electromagnetic radiation.
This is about as much input I can add to this discussion, as a physics student and someone who’s dog can paint better than him haha.
Bravo for posting this video! I’m always glad to see more gamers exposed to the importance of basic color theory and how much of a difference it can make when deciding what color combinations to go with. I already knew this from graphic design/art but a lot of people don’t take the time to really think out their color schemes and hopefully this opens their eyes to it.
Someone who paints on a average skill level can still make their minis really pop out with the right colors.