Painting Essentials For Tabletop Games - Paint & Color Theory

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Painting Essentials For Tabletop Games - Paint & Color Theory

Don't know what colors to paint your D&D or Warhammer minis? Read on to learn what makes certain colors work so well together and how paints blend. In our , we looked at the tools and techniques needed to start painting minis. Today we look at the often overlooked topic of color theory. Knowing how paints are made and how they work with each other will up your game and your minis will look better for it.

How Paint Is Made

Hobby paint consists of finely ground pigments suspended in an acrylic medium. This viscous blob is carefully mixed over and over until the pigment is equally distributed throughout the base. This concoction forms the basis for all the paint a manufacturer makes. It is taken and processed further to achieve different levels of viscosity and pigmentation levels. High-quality artist paints will be heavily pigmented and be quite thick, whereas cheap craft paint will have reduced pigmentation and have lots of acrylic medium to thin it out. Hobby paints fall somewhere in between, more towards the cheaper end of the scale. THEGAMER VIDEO OF THE DAY With all that said, you can use any paint on your models and there will be use cases when cheaper paint may be more suitable, such as large scenery pieces. You can also use high-quality artist paints with an appropriate thinner as well. Mixing the pigmented base together with another gives a near-infinite amount of different colors. If we take a microscopic look, however, we will see that the mixed pigments within the medium are not joined together chemically. They reside side-by-side, giving the illusion of a different color. This is why we sometimes see a clear separation of color in a paint pot. Always shake/mix your paint before use!

Everything You Know Is Wrong

You may remember back to learning colors during your childhood and being told that the primary colors are red, blue, and yellow? Unfortunately, you were lied to. While mixing two or three of these together will make different colors, they will often not be quite right or match the shade or tone you are looking for. The science behind this is too complex to go into here, but needless to say we need to find a method that actually works.

Color Models

The two color models you will be familiar with today are RGB and CMYK. RGB is used in TVs, monitors, and other screen devices. It is an additive model where the colors Red, Green, and Blue are (in this case light) are added together to make all the different colors. CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. This is how ink-jet printers mix colors as they print onto a page. It is a ‘subtractive’ process where the ink takes away the brightness of white. Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow are mixed together using percentage quantities that produce different colors. Additional tones can be achieved by adding black to darken and white to lighten. Black is also often used for text but can appear more of a dark gray. For this reason it usual for other colors to be mixed in to give a more 'rich' black. The CMYK model is a good approximation when paint minis.

Color Wheel

You may have heard of a color wheel and wondered what it is. A color wheel is nothing more than a tool to help us work with colors. You can buy a color wheel from most arts and crafts stores. For the purposes of illustration, we are working with the CMYK model discussed above. Color Wheel demonstrating how colors can be mixed
Copyright © Barry Ashcroft As you can see from the above illustration, a color wheel is an easy to use, visual representation of color and how it mixes with others. The three primaries can be mixed together to make secondary colors, and in turn, the secondary colors mix with primary colors to create tertiary colors, etc. Example of how colors work well together using a color wheel
Copyright © Barry Ashcroft In addition to mixing colors, we can use a color wheel to find colors that work well with each other. The above illustration shows the relationships between colors.

Complementary

Complementary colors are found opposite each other. They can be difficult to use on large areas, but they bring amazing contrast when used well.

Analogous

Analogous colors are found next to each other. The main color is in the center with a secondary color to one side. The color on the other side should be used as an accent color.

Split Complementary

Split complementary is a variation on complimentary. Instead of using the opposite color, it uses the colors either side of the complementary color.

Triad

The triad uses three colors that are evenly spaced apart on the color wheel. One should be used as the main color and the remaining two as accent colors.

The Real Color Wheel

There are several alternatives to the CMYK color wheel, most are for screen use or for a particular printing process. There is no benefit to using these than the CMYK model. However, there is a better alternative; attempts to more accurately portray the relationships between colors based upon the available pigments found in high-end artist paints. Copyright © The Real Color Wheel

Warm And Cold

You will often hear a color described as warm or cold. Warm colors will feature a lot of reds, oranges, and yellows and evoke images such as the sun and fire. Cold colors are typically your blues and greens and remind us of cold experiences such as snow and ice. There is also a psychological effect where cold colors ‘push you away’ and warm colors ‘draw you in’. If used well this illusion can bring additional depth to your painting. Try painting shadows with hints of blue. I hope this primer on paint and color theory has helped you understand a bit more about how things work. As with anything, there are no hard and fast rules that you have to obey. Experiment and find what works for you, there are plenty of examples of these rules being broken with outstanding results. Whatever you do, keep practicing and have fun doing it! Sources: ,