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OK, feel free to tell me that this method for creating a custom colour is either blindingly 'ing obvious or very commonly known, but this is a trick a friend taught me and it works really well, I couldn't find any other article on here describing it so I thought I'd be a friendly dakkite and share. I'm gonna feel stupid for typing this out if everyone already knows the trick, but here goes.

Do you ever want to paint an army a specific colour but can't find it in the standard range? It's not unlikely, no matter how many paints the companies produce, our eyes can distinguish up to 10 million shades of colour so they can never create every single possible shade we might want to paint in. The answer is to mix your own paints to come up with a 'custom' colour to your liking. This presents some difficulties; i.e., how to achieve a consistent colour when you're mixing the paint. I'll tell you how to do this.

TBH it's something I recommend to you anyway. Our eyes are very sensitive and we can tell when someone's painted their army in a colour that isn't 'out-of-the-tub'. It shows you've spent a little more time and effort, shows a little pride in your work and looks great.

THE METHOD

Some tips:

● This is messy work. Wear old clothes, protect work surfaces, and clean materials in between use. Don't use containers or tools if you're worried they might get ruined.
● Always write down your recipe. You'll need it if you want to mix it up again.
● If you're worried the paints might be toxic, don't pour them down the sink. Most modelling paints should be fine though.

1. Create a recipe for your colour. Buy a few paints similar to the chrome you're looking to achieve. To start off with, I'll go onto photoshop, come up with a "swatch" (colour chart showing a range of colours). I'll try to come up with a few different shades and pick the one I like best. I'll try to pick a shade that's noticeably different to a 'standard' colour. When you've got a colour you like, go to your FLGS (or, you know, GW) and pick out a few different paints that you think will achieve it. Experiment at home mixing them up to make sure the result is what you want. Try to keep the recipe simple, using at least three pots of colour, so you will produce a decent amount of mixed paint at the end. Ideally you'll want to come up with a recipe that's either 1 part each of three different colours, or 2 parts of one colour and 1 of another. Here's a few shades I came up with:
Dusky blue: 1 part enchanted blue, 1 part nausious blue, 1 part lupin grey (all coat d'arms paints - made a purply-grey blue)
Military green: 2 parts luftwaffe camo green (vallejo), 1 part scorpion green (coat d'arms)
Dark aqua: 1 part hawk turquoise (coat d'arms), 1 part blue green (vallejo), 1 part emerald (vallejo), with drops of chaos black (GW) added to achieve a desired darkness

2. Mix it up.. Once you're happy with your mixture, next comes the messy bit. Pour the entire pot of each paint into a seperate container. Use an large paintbrush to scoop out every last bit. Add a few drops of water into the pot, shake it up and pour it into tub, to get the bits lingering at the bottom (obviously this will water down the mixture slightly but I don't consider that to be huge issue. Even so I don't do it more than a couple times). Now wash out the old paint pots thoroughly. You have to get every last drop out. This can take some time, but it's important. You can use an old toothbrush, that helps. Dry them out ready for the next bit. Return to your container, get a swizzle stick or a large paintbrush and mix up the colours really thoroughly. If you don't the colour won't be consistent. You need to achieve perfect uniformity, again this can take some time (I find some colours mix better than others). Now get your clean dry empty paint pots and pour the mix back into the tubs (you'll find you get slightly less returned than what you poured out, don't worry about it). Label the pots with a chosen name and store.

You should now have three pots of custom colour, enough to paint a reasonable size army, and you can of course easily mix up more if you need to by repeating the process. It usually looks great, and it's very satisfying to achieve the exact shade you want (and when someone asks you what colour it's painted you can say it's your own shade, and you look badass).

Hopefully all this will be new to at least someone. Here's a couple pics of mine:




Automatically Appended Next Post:
I just realised that perhaps this should be in 'tutorials'. My apologies.

Is there a shorter version of this?
I'll write a proper comment after class when I can read The whole thing.

uh, get three different colours, pour into a seperate container, wash out pots, mix and return to the pots.

You could make your own range of paints you will be using constantly, in mixing pots. Don't make the primary colour one of your own colours, because if the paint dries... you are ed

I usually browse non-GW Acrylic paint range, e.g. Vallejo, Reaper, Revell, Tamiya and usually find enough diversity there. Just found the ideal metallic blue for my Dark Eldar at Tamiya.