How to Choose Colors for Painting Miniatures

Learn how to conceptualize a color scheme and how to choose colors for painting miniatures.

When we were kids, we spent our allowance or chore money on a model plane or car, a couple of enamel paint colors, and some really smelly and stringy glue. We were proud of our finished kits. We displayed them in our rooms with dignity. Yet, we yearned for the skill and ability to make them look as cool and as real as the picture on the front of the box.

You told yourself, someday…

Today is Someday!

Today you will be on your way to fulfilling a promise you made yourself when you were a kid!

In this post, you will learn how to conceptualize a color scheme for your model kit. You will learn basic color theory and how to choose colors for painting miniatures and model kits.

An Introduction to the Color Wheel and the Basics of Color Theory

This is a simple example of the color wheel. Before we get too in-depth, let us define some terms.

Primary Colors

The Primary Colors are Red, Yellow, and Blue. These colors are called primary because they cannot be created by mixing other colors, and they are the 3 source colors for all other colors.

There is a school of thought that White and Black are also Primary Colors, but we’ll get into these later on.

Secondary Colors

Your Secondary Colors are Green, Orange, and Purple

These three colors are created by combining equal parts of each primary color 50/50.

• Red + Yellow = Orange
  
• Red + Blue = Purple
  
• Yellow + Blue = Green

Tertiary Colors

The wheel above is absent of Tertiary Colors for simplicity’s sake. But, imagine tertiary colors are create by changing the proportions of a primary and secondary color.

For example:

If you take equal parts Yellow and Orange you will yield a Yellow-Orange or Amber.

Likewise, if you add more Red to Orange, the more the color will become Red-Orange or Vermillion.

This same system works all the way around the color wheel creating cool colors such as:

• Yellow + Orange = Amber
• Orange + Red = Vermillion
• Red + Purple = Magenta
• Purple + Blue = Violet
• Blue + Green = Teal
• Green + Yellow = Chartreuse

The ratio of Primary Color to Secondary Color creates infinite possibilities.

Tint

Tint is simply adding pure white to a color. This reduces the strength of the original colors as displayed in the inner ring of our color wheel. Adding white to a color is often what is done to create pastel or pale version of the original color.

Shade

Shade is to add pure black to a color. This creates a dark, more intense version of the original color.

Tone

Tone is when a neutral grey (equal parts black and white) is added to a color. This can dull the brilliance of original colors, depending on context they can be visually pleasing or sophisticated.

How to Create a Complementary Color Scheme for Painting Miniatures

Complementary Colors

Complementary colors are pairs of colors that are exactly the opposite from each other. Meaning, when mixed together they produce a greyscale color like white or black.

Complementary colors can be found opposite each other on the color wheel. They are called complementary because they create the strongest contrast with each other than any other colors.

Some basic Complementary Color Combinations are:

• Red + Green
• Orange + Blue
• Yellow + Purple

If you want to get a little more advanced, you can use Tertiary Complementary Colors such as

• Magenta + Chartreuse
• Vermillion + Teal
• Amber + Violet

How to Create an Analogous Color Scheme for Painting Miniatures

Analogous colors are basically colors that are adjacent, or next to each other on the color wheel in sequence.

Typically, an Analogous Color Scheme is going to have 3 colors with a single Primary Color being the dominant color in the scheme. The remaining colors could either be two Secondary Colors or a Secondary and a Tertiary Color.

For example, if Yellow were the Primary Color in the sequence, then two Secondary Colors, Green and Orange, would be Analogous. Another example of Yellow being the Primary, Yellow-Orange could be a Tertiary followed by Orange as a Secondary.

This type of color scheme produces a color family that can be very tasteful if the more vibrant colors are done in smaller proportions. These colors tend to match more than contrast each other, which can be very pleasing to the eye if you’re not striving for a particular boldness in your color scheme.

How to Combine Complementary and Analogous Colors for Painting Miniatures

All this color theory is great! But I know you’re about ready for a nap.

Let’s put all this theory into practice!

Take a good look at this Stormcast Eternal Figure. It has not been primed nor painted. Let’s make a list of the main components that we see on this figure:

• Armor
• Robe
• Tunic
• Weapon
• Shield

This seems like a lot, but much of this is going to have similar colors. For instance, let’s decide to paint all of the armor Gold, which can be interpreted as an orangey-yellow. And then, let’s paint all of the Clothes and Robe Blue, but we’ll lean toward a purple-blue to complement that orangey-yellow .

Other colors we use for painting accessories on the miniature will be analogous or complementary to the color scheme. For example, we’ll use white for the tunic with red details (using all primary colors and creating a Triadic color scheme). We’ll use silver on the weapon, some of his jewelry, and details on his shield. And, we’ll also use black

The tunic will be painted white with some orange-red trim to give us a combined analogous color scheme with the orangey and yellow gold. We can also make the Grip of the weapon pinkish-into purple to tie in another angle of a blue to red analogous color scheme.

The Maul Support can be Gold, and the Maul Head and other Jewel-type accessories can be a nice, neutral silver. Other details, such as lightning bolts on shoulders and shields can be painted white to match the tunic.

And one last thing! There’s something on his hip. To me it looks like a crystal shard. Let’s paint that a light blue to match blue highlights.

An Example of How to Use Complementary and Analogous Colors When Painting Miniatures

Here’s How Games Workshop Paints these Figures:

We weren’t too far off, and it’s not quite the same figure. I do like how they fleshed out some more details such as black layers of leather around the gauntlets and waist.

The key to color scheme, too, is to allow for your darker-to-lighter basecoats to highlights also complement or match your other colors. Let your highlight on your blue be the exact complement of the highlight on your gold.

Use accent colors on accessories and details to tie in your analogous color schemes.

And most importantly, incorporate neutral colors, such as the whites, blacks, and silvers (greys) to break up the color scheme and give direction to the eyes of the viewers. Any color scheme can get muddied if it’s not broken up by some neutral colors.

Wrap Up!

You’ve learned some basic definitions when it comes to colors on the color wheel and their relationships to each other. You’ve learned that brightening a color with white is tinting, and darkening a color with black is shading.

This is not to be confused with Shade-type paints. Shade paints are very thin paints used over a basecoat to dampen color. They penetrate and darken recesses and contours of a model to give more contrast to the details of a model. In effect, you’re dampening the color, just like adding black, however there are multiple colors of shades that produce all kinds of cool results besides just darkening.

We’ve also learned what colors are complementary for maximum contrast and what colors match analogously with others for a tasteful color scheme.

Lastly, we’ve learned that our base coats, layers and highlights can use secondary and tertiary colors to analogously tie into accessories and details on the model and remain exactly complementary to their counterpart colors.

I had some epiphanies myself when writing this, so don’t get too discouraged if you’re not following. In the end, use your eyes and your gut to tell you what looks good and what doesn’t. And in the end, it’s what you like that matters!

Happy Painting!

Please follow and like us: