Idea for colour scheme, criticism/comments wanted

If you want to bring back some of the green, you could do a quick green drybrush on the scales.

 

I like the way the green came out, then I stupidly hit it with the brown (burnt umber) and I think the brown clashes with the green. My goal was to make it look more gritty and natural rather than just purely green, but the brown I chose was wrong. Should have gone with a more neutral browny grey or maybe a very dark brown-green rather than the burnt umber.

I don't "hate" it, but it just kind of clashes. Maybe once I finish the Howdah and details it won't bother me so much.

 

Finished airbrushing some Temple Guard. Just started the gold and bone detailing.

Ya know, the more I paint this scheme, the less I like it, grrr.

 

The picture from the front of the Temple Guard looks brilliant, in my opinion, but I think back lacks the pop. Maybe you used too much orange? Still, I think they look great. Maybe you are just getting tired of painting those colours. Trying something different with other models, like one of the big dinosaurs, could make it more interesting again.

 

I think it's the lack of pop that's bothering me. For a while now I've been wanting to paint a really cool looking army, I mostly just paint "table top quality" models, and I was hoping the Lizardmen could be an army that makes people go "wow cool!" (since Lizardmen were the first army I ever collected back in the day).

I think part of the problem is yeah, too much orange. To get more pop I think I need a dark green (almost black) transition from the green -> red -> orange and that kind of got lost on the Temple Guard. I might need to go back with a dark green or black and add a line between the green and orange... just not sure how to do that (logistically speaking, airbrushing a dark green line between the green and orange will be hard).

 

try doing a wash on the scales. The drybrush is getting into the recesses and that makes it all blend together. I think the greatest detail of our lizards is the depth to their scales. Use a dark green and that might help. Just my thoughts.

 

Hmmm, yeah. I wanted an army that was striking at first glance but also didn't look boring over time.

I think I chose bad colours for that, hmmm, what to do now, lol.

Also I'm beginning to think Lizardmen aren't a great army to airbrush (not that you can't, but it seems if you want a good result you end up spending just as much time with a hairy brush in the end anyway).

I was maybe thinking completely swapping schemes, going for something single coloured, and varying from very dark to very bright to get the striking contrast I want, rather than trying to get the contrast from different colours. Something like orange/red, fading from red to bright orange. Or something inspired by my Aeronautica Eldar, something like this, but imagine the skin is the medium blue, the scales the dark blue, and then the really bright blue just down the spines:





I'd do a blue wash over the entire thing, black lining between the scales, the armour black, red gems, red eyes, dark blue shield. Gah, I dunno, that's a lot more work than I was wanting to put in (ok for a few models, painful for 2000pts worth ).

 

Ok, here's a blue Saurus prototype. The skin is actually probably faster to paint than the green/red saurus, but the model overall takes a bit longer. What do you think? Worth repainting them like this? lol

 

Not bad at all...
(considers buying airbrush)

 

Unfortunately that will be the last thing I spray for a while as my compressor sprung a leak while I was painting him that's what I get for buying a cheap Chinese compressor. Don't have the money for a new one just now, so I'll take it back to where I bought it and see what they say.

But yeah, do you reckon go with the blue instead of the green? There'll be w bit of repainting but hopefully not too much, the blue is easier to spray.

 

Sorry to hear about your airbrush troubles, those things can be really expensive, but I hear you usually get what you pay for. I think the blue looks really good, but lacks the wow factor that the original scheme had. Probably because it's almost the same as the GW is using. Not saying it's bad, I really like the original GW scheme, it is just so common... Though if you feel like the blue is the way to go, then you should do it. There are many ways to make it more interesting. Good luck!

 

I supose you could keep the orange/green temple guard scheme and still paint your regular saurus blue.

 

The blue Saurus looks good. I also like the green and orange color scheme. Rather than repainting everything blue, perhaps use a dark green for the scales and just us the orange as a highlight as you did with the light blue on the spines? That would make the orange pop much better and would be a cool look.

 

I think my problem with the green/red is that it lacks depth and I'm not sure how to give it depth. I have tested green or brown washes and they tend to wash out a lot of work I put in to get the fading, but I also can't really do the fading after the wash. With the blue I could do blue basecoat -> blue wash for depth -> airbrush lighter blue on belly for contrast -> airbrush light blue on spine -> wash scales black for depth -> black line between the light blue scales.

I can't figure out a similar process for the green/red that will preserve the airbrushing but also add the depth I want. The blue has more pop to it without looking gaudy. I could wash the flesh green and then blackline ALL the scales, but they will be terribly time consuming. I was hoping I could use an oil wash to do the black lining but it didn't really work out.

If you can't tell, I'm not a terribly artistic person, lol.

Oh well, I have a little while to decide as I can't fix the compressor immediately anyway.

 

Yeah, this may have been mine fault. I typically drain the tank after a project, so that means every few days and then if it's sitting for a long period it will be drained. I was in the middle of a project when a family member got sick and is now in hospital and in all the turmoil forgot to drain the tank... so it has been sitting for a few months with moisture in it, doh! When I came to use it to paint that Saurus, I think one of the welded fittings had rusted and caused it to start leaking. I'll see what I can do about it, the compressor itself is still working fine, just the tank and/or tank fittings are leaking.

Yeah true, I think the blue scheme actually has more pop than the green/red scheme, but the wow factor is probably reduced by the fact GW have been using a blue scheme for a long time, of course I could emulate the blue scheme with almost any colour, it's just a basic concept of creating contrast when using a single colour by doing extreme dark and extreme light versions of that one colour.