MechCommander Davion Guards Paint Scheme

[jamesbeil]

Does anyone have a recipe recommendation for painting Yankee, Zulu, and X-Ray companies of the 1st Davion Guards during the battle for Port Arthur from MechCommander? I imagine a blue primer followed by a dark blue wash would do the armour fine, but the yellow sections are giving me a headache.

[worktroll]

Yellow is always painful. The best approach would - in my opinion; I'm an experienced tabletop painter, not a CSO level artist - would be to do the blue a shade lighter, then hit all over with a blue ink wash or two (Citadel inks FTW!), to bring up the panelling. Then do a ghostbrush (even drier brush) with the base colour to bring up edges.

Then paint the bits you want yellow first with grey, then with bone, then white, and then yellow. And some more yellow. And then use a fine brush to put yellow ink into any panel lines you want to emphasise.

Then add detail - black & drybrushed metal over bits you want metallic, do cockpits however, etc.

And hope you don't spill any of the paint over the blue you already did ...

Yellow is just that painful, and there seem to be few yellow paints that provide a reliable base colour.

Hope that gives some ideas.

[abou]

If it helps, painting a light brown first, then yellow seems to improve results according to some of the tutorials I have seen.

[Nomad]

Worktroll's and Abou's suggestions are both good ways to approach yellow. I use Reaper's Saffron Sunset as the base and then go over that with increasingly lighter yellows up to the desired effect. Another method would be to primer yellow, mask the areas you want to keep and then go over the rest again in blue. Yellow from a spray can or airbrush will always give better and more even coverage.

[Empyrus]

Is there some particular reason certain colors are often said to be difficult? Do the paints not stick things well or what?
Seen yellow and white cited as especially difficult.

[shadhawk]

Is there some particular reason certain colors are often said to be difficult? Do the paints not stick things well or what?
Seen yellow and white cited as especially difficult.

White and Yellow have major problems with bleeding.  The under or primer color tends to change the shade. In the end you need a lot more of them to cover the base coat.

[Black_Knyght]

Is there some particular reason certain colors are often said to be difficult? Do the paints not stick things well or what?
Seen yellow and white cited as especially difficult.

Painting a light color, most particularly white or yellow, over a darker colored base is a pain because it's hard to get a good look without gooping on too much paint.

[Xiwo Xerase]

Is there some particular reason certain colors are often said to be difficult? Do the paints not stick things well or what?
Seen yellow and white cited as especially difficult.

Reds, oranges, yellows, and some greens tend to be difficult because the paints are more translucent. I believe I was told this is a side effect of the pigments.  This means it takes more layers of paint to achieve a smooth coat.

Some paints, e.g. many whites, use larger pigments and tend not to thin well with water.  This can lead to thinned paints looking chalky, which also affects their opacity.  (You can work around this by thinning with matte medium or another non-water thinner.)

Some colors are just tricky to highlight (white) and shadow (black) without accidentally shifting the perceived color to something else.


It's worth noting that some of the characteristics of paint depend on manufacturer or even paint line, so what holds true for Reaper MSP may not hold true for Vallejo Model Color or even Reaper Bones paints.  (The paints in the Reaper Bones and discontinued Reaper HD lines are supposed to have a higher pigment density and may require less coats for tricky colors.  I haven't experimented much with this myself.)

[Empyrus]

I see now. I've so far stuck with greens and browns mostly.

Gotta keep these things in mind once i get to stuff that needs something else...

[worktroll]

Must admit, I've never had problem with greens. Orange, yes, yellow definitely, Red, only once. It's true that different manufacturers use different pigments, so if you find a brand that works for you, stick to it!

[Valkerie]

It is all about the pigments they use.  Some are far more translucent than others.  Even in the house paint industry it is a problem.  The materials that are used for the red and yellow tints are semi-transparent, so thusly the don't cover as well.  That issue seems to be the case throughout most paint types.  Red and yellow are just tough colors to work with when it comes to paint.

I will second the spraying note above.  Paints based on semi-transparent tints seem to benefit from it.