December 26, 2011 by dignity
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Romain continues his epic tutorial on colour theory.
See the whole series...
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Romain, just wanted to say thanks very much for this excellent series so far. It’s really making me think about what I am painting, rather than just slapping down the basic colours from the painting guide. How many parts can we expect?
Also as an aside, I know you have already revieved paint makers in the past, but is it possible for you to let us know what you think the closest matched paint to the primaries are for the major ranges? I imagine that Vallejo will probably have close matches given the size of their range?
Thank you ever so much ! I do my best… You can expect six parts, I believe. The best bet to get affordable primary colors in acrylics is to buy them in tubes in a department store or an artists’ supplies store… They’re clearly labeled “Cyan”, “Magenta” and “Primary Yellow”. In no particular order : In Vallejo, it’s “Bald Moon Yellow”, “Magenta” and “Magic Blue” or “Intense Sky Blue”, I think. For GW, it’s “Warlock Purple”, “Sunburst Yellow” and “Enchanted Blue”. In the P3 range, it’s “Murderous Magenta”, “Cygnar Blue Highlight”, and “Sulphuric Yellow” (although “Cygnus Yellow” is an acceptable… Read more »
Romain, first, thanks for these series. I love them. Second, can you cover de-saturating metals? I would assume its just adding gray to darken it, and white to make it brighter?
Thank you, you are kind… Desaturating metals can be tricky… I’ll cover it in a tutorial as yet unfilmed ! However, here is some short advice : For metallic silver and iron, it’s impossible to desaturate it, because it’s already grey (albeit metallic). Metallic gold is desaturated in the same fashion as yellow, or warm yellow… That is to say you may add grey, or ochre, or black in the shadows, and white (or better yet, silver, to keep that metallic sheen) in the highlights. In the same fashion, you can desaturate copper as if it were a red/orange, and… Read more »
Thanks! You sure did answer it!
I’d imagine the next video would be more appropriate to metals. If you think about your more common metals of silver/steel/iron they’re basically grey i.e. they already lack any hue to desaturate. If your painting a coloured metal like gold then you’re essentially painting yellow and you’d work it the same.
What makes it ‘metal’ is either grainy flecks of reflective metal in true metallics or extremes of contrast in NMM but colour wise the theory would be the same I’d imagine. If the next video is on brightness then that’ll probably be more relevant to metal.
Indeed, metallics are worked just like their regular color equivalent !
It is brightness that makes a metal shiny…
However, it is important to know about saturation or desaturation of metals, to obtain (for example) rich vivid golds, or very subdued, white golds…
BoW Romain
The desaturating with the complimentary is quite interesting. I had some Tamiya Gold Leaf on my pallet and mixed in a dab of VMC violet and the colour (or hue I suppose) had almost vanished to a near gunmetal but with the slightest hint of the golden colour still remaining.
Even though you’ve not put paint to mini yet I’m finding this series great! Can’t wait to the next one =D
I can see now how the eye will go the the saturated colour before the desaturated. Also I found it hard to choose or where the eye should go with the 2 saturated beside each other. This saturation method can be used to guide focus on many things. I think this will help me a lot in the future.
romain, i love these videos so much. it has helped me a lot on colour harmony and colour theory. keep up the great work man, ur the best 🙂
Your definitions / terminology confuses me just a bit. This is how I think of it… A completely saturated color is a “pure” color. Perfectly saturated colors are also referred to as Hue’s. It is the purest expression of a color: absent any influence of the gray scale, either as value or as saturation. There are no neutral pigments of any kind in the color. One of the most confusing elements of color theory and saturation seems to be the problem of describing hue without using terms like bright or dark (which are values of light). For example, you can… Read more »
Keen as ever, @ubiquanon ! Yes, if you manage to find the complementary color (exactly) to the one you’re using, and at the same pigment concentration, shading with it tends towards grey, then black… In practice, it’s almost never possibel to find it exactly. And you don’t always want it anyway. As you pointed out, I used a purple to shade yellow into brown… But I used a purple that had more red than blue in it, not the exact complimentary color. Thus, it pulled the color more towards the orange (red + yellow) while darkening it… And dark orange… Read more »