Help with color scheme and concept for Slaves to Darkness army | minipainting | Page 1

soft crypt Feb 13, 2023, 12:52 AM

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Hello,

I'm hoping to create a Warcraft Death Knight themed Slaves to Darkness army for AoS.

I've never really painted black armor and I'm a relatively new painter as well.

I'm not really sure how to make this work, I'm thinking that the more elite troops will also have weapons that are made out of ice/frost, but I'm not sure how that would contrast with the black armor.

All of that being said I'm not dead set on anything so I would be willing to make alterations based on suggestions, any help would be greatly appreciate I'm a bit anxious about this.

I was planning on starting today painting the armor but it seems that most recipe's call for a dark blue color such as Vallejo dark sea blue or incubi darkness from citadel... I don't have either and I'm not sure how to mix them honestly.

gray relic Feb 13, 2023, 5:59 PM

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soft crypt Hello, I'm hoping to create a Warcraft Death Knight themed Slaves to Darkness a...

Hello!
Black is hard to paint but fortunately, these armors (especially the first image) are definitely dark blue, so that'll help.
I would suggest choosing one of these images and using any image editing tool to see the colors of the pixels (using a pipette tool inside that image editor). It helps find the palette. You can draw a disc with the various nuances of blue that you find to better internalize what colors you are trying to get

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How about trying this first (on the first image if you like it?) to have a clearer view of the color gradient for the blue?

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then we can talk about mixing it 😉

soft crypt Feb 13, 2023, 6:10 PM

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gray relic then we can talk about mixing it 😉

Amazing! Thanks for the feedback. I’ll work on doing that tonight!

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I think I like the armor in the second image the best but I’ll get the results from both!

gray relic Feb 13, 2023, 6:39 PM

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soft crypt I think I like the armor in the second image the best but I’ll get the results f...

Choose the image you like

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the second one looks like non-metallic metal (i.e. metal surface painted with greys and such)

soft crypt Feb 13, 2023, 8:05 PM

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gray relic the second one looks like non-metallic metal (i.e. metal surface painted with gr...

I’ve never done NMM 😆

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Doing a whole army in NMM seems difficult to achieve so maybe we can figure out another solution

gray relic Feb 13, 2023, 8:59 PM

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soft crypt I’ve never done NMM 😆

Yeah I wouldn't recommend NMM this soon 😉

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you could make it a grey armor but would you be happy with the result?

soft crypt Feb 14, 2023, 5:44 AM

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gray relic you could make it a grey armor but would you be happy with the result?

How did they do the armor in the third photo down? it looks like a black armor with edge highlighting

gray relic Feb 14, 2023, 3:55 PM

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soft crypt How did they do the armor in the third photo down? it looks like a black armor w...

The photo is limited in resolution but it looks like black armor alright to me. Black is basically a grey gradient where "about half of the area is actually black or very close to black" (to paraphrase Vince Venturella)

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The main difficulty with this exercise is that you paint gradients on just half the area (the rest is black, or almost). This is also a gradient in value only (black dark grey lid grey light grey white). You cannot use color to introduce an intermediate tone to help. And white (in the grey mix) is harder to layer with. It is chalky when thinned, covers a lot more than other pigments. Oh, and using washes with black "sort of works" but won't mostly give great results. (Even if it works better than a wash on white...)

soft crypt Feb 14, 2023, 6:22 PM

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gray relic The main difficulty with this exercise is that you paint gradients on just half ...

I’ve seen a lot of people painting black armor with dark blue or dark bluish greens

gray relic Feb 14, 2023, 6:32 PM

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sure

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whatever works for you. I'd be more naturally attracted to dark blue, personally

hollow thunder Feb 15, 2023, 5:23 AM

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When you say you are a new painter, like how new? There is a lot of good advice here but if you dont have much experience it will be difficult to implement and look good.
Especially painting an army you might look into Contrast options. Throw down some black contrast, edge highlight everything in blues. Paint the swords white then put a light blue wash on them.
Paint a few foot soldiers first, find something that looks good and you can do decently. then do the rest of the soldiers. After you have done those guys you can then do your commanders putting a little extra time on them and using the experiences you learned from the others. Its going to be a dark army, the lighter colored swords will help break that up but you might want to figure out a way to throw in a splash of color somewhere. I think thats what I would do.

soft crypt Feb 24, 2023, 10:31 PM

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hollow thunder When you say you are a new painter, like how new? There is a lot of good advice ...

I’m newish I’ve painted one army previously

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Some of my previous projects

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I just want them to look clean so I worry about using contrast

hollow thunder Feb 24, 2023, 10:44 PM

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I dont use contrast too often but when I do I dont use it as a finisher. I still will go back and fix stuff and its a quick way to add depth and highlights, you could try it on a practice mini.
Its just with an army and not a lot of experience (your army does look good) you want something you can do, will look good and wont take forever. Unless time is of no consequence.
If it were me, I would paint everything in black, edge is all in blues or purples, do the swords white, then add a light blue wash over the sword, re-edge the swords in white. then I would want to add a splash of color so its not just a solid wall of black, add a red piece of cloth or glowing eyes. Just something that is relatively quick and clean. do a practice mini to make sure you like the look and you have a system that works. do your characters last and take some extra time with them. Im sure you know a lot of this already, Im just saying all the stuff I would do 😀

soft crypt Feb 25, 2023, 5:08 PM

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Yeah that makes sense

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I’m thinking of trying that new pylar glacier contrast on the weapons

soft crypt Mar 12, 2023, 3:32 AM

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First attempt @hollow thunder

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Not enough contrast i don’t think

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The leather looks kinda off

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Idk

warped orchid Mar 12, 2023, 4:56 AM

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I absolutely adore the death knight vibes! Excellent work so far, mate!

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For leather, usually I would paint it a very dark brown and then slightly lighten it up. I would start by painting it black, then going over parts with a dark brown, then even lighter brown. You want it to look old, dark and dirty given the nature of the frozen design you are using.

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https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/old-worn-soldiers-work-boots-15319030.jpg

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Take a look at photos such as this for a good idea of what old, distressed leather should look.

soft crypt Mar 12, 2023, 5:09 AM

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I feel like the armor doesn’t pop enough

warped orchid Mar 12, 2023, 5:11 AM

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Highlights help with that.

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Frosted tips on hair. Blue and white on the metal edges, as you showed in those first few pictures.

soft crypt Mar 12, 2023, 5:15 AM

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Hmm

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Idk how to pull that off

hollow thunder Mar 14, 2023, 9:50 PM

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Okay, i did this in 10 minutes and most of that time was finding the colors i wanted, lol. But the pictures you have as reference the armor isnt really black. I wanted to go as fast as possible with painting an army in mind so i threw this together. Its 6 colors. Could even go faster painting all the armor blue and using nuln oil maybe.

soft crypt Mar 15, 2023, 4:27 PM

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What’d you do just glaze the blue on?

warped orchid Mar 15, 2023, 4:49 PM

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You can glaze or wet blend.

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You can also feather blend.

hollow thunder Mar 15, 2023, 8:51 PM

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I just did a quick wetblend

#Help with color scheme and concept for Slaves to Darkness army