How do you paint your teams?

Regash · Post by **Regash** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 7:23 am

A search turned up no results, so I thought I'm asking...

This goes out to those pro-painters and all of you with magnificent skills on the brush.
All other opinions are welcome too.

I'm not asking for tutorials or how-tos.
There is tons of sites and videos out there.

What I wanna know is if and how you are planning your color schemes.
How do you pick colors?
Do you test them? On what miniatures?
Do you know where wich color goes on every mini or is it developing while painting?

I'm asking this because I mostly do not plan anything, pick two colors and off I go...
...and get stuck in the middle of painting when I realise that, somehow, this won't work on all of the minis.

spubbbba · Post by **spubbbba** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 10:11 am

This is an area of painting that I have long thought was not covered enough. I wrote a blog about it over on FUMBBL that I am planning on turning into 1 of a series of articles about painting and converting Bloodbowl models.

That covers one common technique I use when painting a team, though I also often go with those I think fit that particular race.

I will also use test models if I am struggling to come up with something. An advantage to making teams out of plastic models is that you end up with spare bits. Also after collecting so long I have loads of old unpainted models lying about and can easily find something that can be used as a test model. If I want to test a lot of schemes I will paint the left and right side different colours to save having to redo them and can always paint over certain bits.

I tend to go for quite a limited palette with my teams and often all the same type of bits will be the same colour. All shorts white, all tops and armour plates blue, whilst metal parts are silver and extra details like boots and belts are black. On occasion there will be bits that don't fit in and I have to decide if I want that part of the model to stand out or match the rest of the team colours.
If it stands out that can be a good way of helping to define certain positions.

Regash · Post by **Regash** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 10:43 am

The "same part - same color" makes sense.
We're, more or less, paint sports uniforms, right?
Seems like I never really thought about it before.

How do you pick colors?
Do you decide randomly or are there rules to easily decide, which color goes with which others?

howlinggriffon · Post by **howlinggriffon** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 11:43 am

You can apply colour theory (the colour wheel) to decide which colours are complimentary - or you can just look at sports teams uniforms or adverts. They tend to have good examples to follow. Some teams have a theme which mean they might look better with a darker or lighter colour scheme (Undead or Dark Elves with a scheme, High Elves with a light scheme...) You can also look up old classic team colours and follow those if you want to try to recreate them.

There's lots of nice examples on the Blood Bowl Old Skool Picture Archive :

http://www.bloodbowl.org/index2.htm

Post by **lunchmoney** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 11:51 am

How do I paint my teams? I give them to some one else, some time late they give them back painted

Hucker73 · Post by **Hucker73** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 11:53 am

When it comes to picking colours, I follow the following rules:

1) If the team is a 'classic' team i.e. Chaos All-Stars, then I'll use the colour scheme for the Chaos All-Stars.

2) I'll peruse the BB Old School Picture Archive (http://www.bloodbowl.org/) (As already suggested! That's how good that site is!) and see if there are any team colours I like or can approximate / adapt for my own.

3) Base the colours on existing 'real world' sport team colours - e.g. Red and White, Claret and Blue, Yellow and Black etc.

4) If I'm creating my own colour scheme I follow the following rules to start with:

Pick the 'Primary' colour - Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue etc. etc.

Add the 'Secondary colour - Usually White or Black, but not always. Should contrast Primary colour. Bright, uncommon colours can be best - Pink, Jade/Turquoise for example.

Pick metal - Gold, Silver (Using different inks / washes to colour / tarnish / age the metallics can make or break a colour scheme)

And that's normally that. Depending on the miniatures you're using, the colour of the player's flesh can be almost inconsequential or the most critical choice you have to make - especially when it comes to those Orcs / Goblins / Lizardmen / Slann etc. where human flesh tones aren't appropriate.

There's no right answer. If you like your team's uniform, then it's good.

Interested to hear how other people pick their team colours.

Madsherman · Post by **Madsherman** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 8:03 pm

I really like to steer away form the classic red, blue, green etc. as the main color at least and go into a bit more unknown territory. Pages like color scheme designer is a great help, and I paint samples both on paper, in photoshop and on a test mini. I've also stopped painting metal, as I see it as a sport more than a battle, so every bit of armor would be painted in some form of color. For my next project I'd like to use three team colors and then have yellow be more dominant on one type of positional, pink on another, green on a third and linemen be more motley or brown.

Regash · Post by **Regash** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 4:28 am

lunchmoney wrote:How do I paint my teams? I give them to some one else, some time late they give them back painted

Gotta try that technique some day...

Kaiowas · Post by **Kaiowas** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 2:20 pm

Madsherman wrote: For my next project I'd like to use three team colors and then have yellow be more dominant on one type of positional, pink on another, green on a third and linemen be more motley or brown.

theidea im using for my tron dark elves is similar. different fluorescent glow on edges of armour for different positional

orange - blitzer
pink - witch elf

etc

DixonCider · Post by **DixonCider** » Wed Jun 17, 2015 2:54 pm

scrub minis with soap and water, let dry overnight, prime white, use ink to block out different cloth/armor/some skin tones, dry brush lighter colors than the ink, use a wash to even out the dry brushing, seal with gloss varnish, seal with mat varnish, base with sand/grass/rocks, feel like I could have done better strip the mini and start over.

Regash · Post by **Regash** » Wed Jun 17, 2015 3:16 pm

DixonCider wrote:feel like I could have done

Wow, I use the same technique!

DixonCider · Post by **DixonCider** » Wed Jun 17, 2015 10:13 pm

Regash wrote:
DixonCider wrote:feel like I could have done
Wow, I use the same technique!

painting bros!

horekim · Post by **horekim** » Thu Jun 18, 2015 11:50 am

Great topic.

I always try out new colours schemes in Photoshop before I actually paint any miniatures. In the case of my newly started dark elf team my proces looked something like this:

1. Tried out scheme in Photoshop. Decided I didn't like it
2. Tried out new scheme.
3. Painted the actual miniature. Decided on wacky hairdo as I went along

Chris · Post by **Chris** » Mon Jun 22, 2015 8:36 pm

Copy a team I have seen online or a real life sports team, modified to be a very simple scheme

Oh, and always bright! This is not the grim dark future of fantasy football!

Madsherman · Post by **Madsherman** » Wed Jul 01, 2015 6:34 am

Yay bright!

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