Colour theory question

[grunts1175]

Hi everyone. I am not the best when it comes to putting together effective colour schemes, and I was curious if someone here could help me out.

I'm currently painting some kitbashed cultists for my Warhammer Chaos army and am using Vallejo Terracotta and Vallejo Falcon Turquoise as the main colours (which look quite sharp imho). What colours (if any) would compliment these well? I've tried Vallejo Bonewhite but it looks out of place, and I've tried GW Scorched Brown which looks...ok. I'd prefer to stick with a more neutral scheme if possible.

Thanks for any help, Cheers

 

[TAB Studio]

Kuler
Create themes
Great place to play could solve your quest maybe a green-ish gold brown

 

[Jericho]

I'd really love to see a real model in these colors, they do sound very interesting. Anyway for accent colors I'm a huge advocate for gold/silver on metal parts or black/white/grey on anything else. Avoids having your models turn out like this guy (not picking on anyone, just my overall thoughts on color theory!!):

The image is a t-shirt from Threadless in case anyone was wondering.

 

[grunts1175]

@ TAB Studio - Thanks for the link, that thing is sweet.

@ Jericho - I was thinking something along the lines of dark grey or dark brown, glad I'm not the only one. Definitely don't want the model looking like the clown, but really want that t-shirt.

I'll see about putting up some pics when done

 

[Einion]

@ Jericho - I was thinking something along the lines of dark grey or dark brown, glad I'm not the only one.

Grey is often a good choice if you're really stuck as neutrals will tend to go with anything.

One thing you might like to consider is using related colours to one or both of the main ones. So here where you're using Terracotta and Falcon Turquoise you could use a darker earth colour in the same ballpark as the Terracotta and it should also look fine with the turquoise. Adding grey to that will give you an easy fourth colour.

Beyond that, if you want to plan a scheme in the future triadic and quadratic schemes might be the best bet for three or four dominant colours, which Kuler can be used for really easily using the Custom option.

Einion

 

[grunts1175]

I've settled on my 4 colours. Along with the turquoise and terracotta I've added a dark grey (4:1 mix GW chaos black/VGC Bonewhite) and VGC Bonewhite which actually looks good when the skin is painted. I'd put up some pics, but my GF has my camera atm so it will have to wait (which also gives me time to finish him )

 

[grunts1175]

Ok, I finished one up (sans basing). Unfortunately my daylight bulbs all blew out simultaneously, so I had to use normal bulbs that were a bit yellowish which made for a bad pic (especially the back shot, the highlights on the robe are nowhere near as orange as it looks)