Combining My Forces, Tying the Colors Together

Hey Guys,

So I have painted up a handful of my night goblins. I plan to have about 60 of them in my list if things work out right. I chose a red color scheme with yellow as a highlight color as seen here:







And a group shot of three of them together:


Now I really like the red on my gobbos, but I also test painted this guy for my blorcs:


I really like the yellow on my Orcs as its pretty vibrant and sets them apart. Now I tried to tie in by adding red as the highlight color for the mob but I'm not sure how many places are going to work as nice as the SB where I could use the whole standard as a tie in color.

Any suggestions on keeping Red and Yellow working together?

Thanks

KO

Make the NG banner and iconography yellow, and make the Orcs' banner and iconography red. Should work really well, they're nice-looking minis and there's no reason they shouldn't play together!

Theo

I think they will work well together, but I feel the BO has a bit too much yellow on him. The unit will probably look better if you reduce the overall number of yellow armour details.

Try using some purple in theNight goblins!!!
The results will be shocking and therefore interestibg to the eye...

IŽd go with single armour plates instead of the whole armour.

Cool paint jobs, I especially like the orc, he reminds me of a psycho bumblebee.
I'm still struggling through my Night Goblins, so it's a good motivation seeing some so well-painted!

To tie the red and yellow themes together you could possibly give him a red shoulderpad or kneepad. Or maybe greenstuf a red sash around his waist. Maybe one of the armour plates half yellow/half red?

Not too much red though, or he'll lose his bee-ness!

Thanks very much for the input guys. When I get home from work tonight I plan on finishing up the Black Orc and maybe I'll cut back on the number of places I've used yellow. Its not the best picture and he's changed a little from that original shot but I think he may be too yellow. There is a fair chunk of metal on him and brown straps but I think its all on his back so fails to show up on a front shot, especially when Orcs are naturally hunched over like that. I may replace some of the smaller skull iconography with red paint too, to help match him with the gobbos.

I would like to paint some free-hand yellow on the red banner to help match it up. Would using gloss varnish on the armor plating and dullcoat on the skin make the armor seem more "metallic" than just a base yellow and black? Or is there a better way to get it feeling like armor and not something I colored in a comic?

Thanks Again,

KO

I agree with Sokk_Likk, you could paint some bits on the Blorcs with red, and some bits on the goblin with yellow, mostly on the shields or the banners
Anyway great paintjobs

You're a pretty skillful painter, hopefully I'm not going through stuff you've tried already...

Something you could try (on a spare arm just in case it doesn't look right) is lightly highlighting the edges of the armour with a lighter shade of yellow (it looks like Bad Moon Yellow you've used, highlight with the next lightest shade, I think Sunburst Yellow? If it's still called that!)
Then a very light drybrush of gold around the edges. Or Mithril Silver mixed with a bit of yellow, just enough to change its colour to yellowish, but not too much that it loses its metallic tint.

I use a similar method for my grey armour, Boltgun Metal base, Black Ink, Fortress Grey highlights ( I usually paint a thin line around edges and sharp parts like spikes and spearheads), and Mithril Silver drybrush. Sometimes a little white in another drybrush. The armour plates on your orc look mostly flat, so you might not need ink at all.

If you use gloss varnish on the armour it will look a bit like samurai armour, I'm not sure of the exact name, but it's mostly leather that's been painted or dyed, then lacquered. That would still look kinda cool too.

Ok so now that I've been home I touched up the Blorc SB and toned down the yellow a bit. Shaded the flag properly and took a pic of him side by side with a NG. What do you think? More to tie in yet or just right?



KO

@Sokk_Likk

Thanks for the ideas. I think I might try them out I just haven't mastered blending metallics and nonmetallics together. Shading is one thing. Metallics are another lol. I was afraid the gloss or even semi-gloss varnish would cause the yellow and black to end up looking ceramic.

There are a couple examples of chipping down to a metal which I like the look of but I'm never satisfied with the look when I do it. I might just be using too much paint or too big of a brush.. Who knows? Practice makes perfect. And we're always our own worst critic.

Chipped paint effect is very tricky to make look good on very light colours as the silver won't stand out out much against it.

I don't actually think you need the yellow bits on the bases of the Goblins, You don't have to have the same amounts of all the colours on all of your units to make them coherent. Giving the badmoon icon on the shield yellow eyes I think is enough yellow, also give the NG unit standard bearer some yellow on the banner and the unit will tie in nicely. Add the same texture and the same grass to all of your bases and this will do most of the combining of units together to make a uniformed army.

For the Yellow armour I'd be really tempted to try drenching the new GW yellow wash Cassandora Yellow all over it allowing it to pool in the recesses, to create some nice shading, especially around where the horn joins the helmet. I'd maybe also add some big black (or red) dags along one edge of the large yellow shoulder pad to break it up and make the surface look more interesting.

Hope that helps.

This post has been edited by cb_rex on May 31 2012, 12:13 AM

Chipped paint on yellow is pretty easy.

Just use the following method:
Paint the whole thing yellow.

Now where your chips will be paint it black
Then paint it with boltgun metal leaving just a hint of black around the sides (to show where the paint is standing out from the metal a bit). This doesn't have to be an exact science as some of the paint still clings to the armour.

If you have a large chip you might want to highlight it some further.

Also it's easiest to work in small brush strokes going in the direction of the scratch. Any slight error you make will be taken as an additional scratch or the fact that some bits of the armour are scratched deeper than others.

This is how this looks:


And might I add a little hint: Less is more.
If you just add chipped armour all over it won't look very good.


Also. Your color scheme should be coherent over units. Not just judging single models. So you can have some models that just use red and other in only yellow and it will still look coherent if all the unit has both Red and Yellow.

So you should be fine not having each and every model employ both colors.

Grtz
-EM-

You could try dirtying up the yellow armour a bit to keep it yellow, but not make it appear as bright. Another possibility is to have a few weapons in the BOrc unit spattered with blood. Don't go crazy. Just little splashes on some weapons here and there. The red blood should help tie it to the red night goblins.

Oh yeah I found it took me ages to get the right look for blending metallics and non-metalllics. My first few dozen attempts just looked like two patches of different colours. I'm ever so slowly getting better at it

Blending and shading cloth and flesh seem easy enough, but metallics contrast too much when they're too close to flatter colours. I had a Judge Dread Mini that I used a similar blending method for his shoulderpad eagle, but I swapped him for a few Ral Partha orcs. D'oh, I would've shown you a pic otherwise, just for some ideas.

I tried the chipped metal method on some of my tanks, I think I was doing it wrong because they just looked like I'd given them a bad paintjob.

Now all of my tanks look like they've driven straight off the factory floor - shiny and new, no scratches or bullet holes or dings. Tanks are an expensive investment for any army, I expect my soldiers to avoid all muddy puddles, patches of gravel, and not park in supermarket carparks in any circumstances. I've considered modelling a little hosereel on each tank so they can jump out and rinse off any road grime as they go.

But yeah, I love the yellow orc theme. I figure it's a great form of psychological warfare, a beefy unit in bright colours which will divert the attention of your opponent. And while your opponent is busy being distracted by their yellowness, your other sneaky units will be busy being backstabby. Awesome.