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After taking a long break due to school/work stuff, I wanted to get back into the swing of things and IG (now astra militarum I hear) seemed appealing. I tend not to paint flambouyant colour schemes so I thought a military dark green with lighter colouring along the edges would make a good flak armour colour scheme, with greyish pants and dark boots.

Let me know what you think so far, I'm iffy about the brown belt, but his lower half has so much grey I thought a dark brown might add some diversity without being too bright. His face will be pale but I'm still using my old dummy faces to practice flesh before I go above the brown basecoat, I am still appalling at face layering sadly.

The colour scheme is nice and the brown belt is fine but everything seems to blend together with nothing much standing out, of course that could just be the photograph lighting which seems a little low.

Maybe a slightly lighter grey would allow everything to stand out a little more, of course as I said that may just be a symptom of poor photo lighting. Maybe try taking a picture on a windowsill during the daytime so we can see the colours a little better.

I like it, nice, simple and clean looking, good highlights, but I have to agree, it would be nice if there was something that made them pop a bit more, although these do look very realistic if that's what you're aiming for.

I think all it needs is a lighter flesh tone and a lighter brown for the belt, not too much though, just enough to give a slight contrast. Would help to make the colours stand out a little.

one thing you could do, to help with the loss of detail on the lower half, is to paint the pants a lighter shade of grey than the coat. the lighter color pants is a tradition going back to the old civil war era cavalry,(if I am remembering things correctly) where in, the cavalry men would pack their coats up, and their pants would get sun bleached. after the war the military decided to alter the uniform so that it was standard for the coat to be darker than the pants.

Just a thought,

 LazzurusMan wrote:
I think all it needs is a lighter flesh tone and a lighter brown for the belt, not too much though, just enough to give a slight contrast. Would help to make the colours stand out a little.

I agree with this.

I personally like the dark tones, if this was real life then that would be some good urban camoufladge, but for the tabletop; it might look a little too dull, and some might think that you stopped halfway; maybe a brighter edge highlight for the army; (loren forest or straken green if you're using GW paints.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And don't worry about the faces, I too am absolutely terrible

Thanks everyone, I agree with the lack of things standing out, maybe there are details I can add like the belt (the lighter pants compared to coat is a great sounding idea). I was aiming for more realism from shininess so I am glad a few people have said it looks appropriate for that - I have always liked dark, non-flambouyant colourings. They seem military-ish.

If the belt and face were made a bit brighter, I think that would do it. The face is the central point on the model, and once it has a little contrast it'll look really good. I'm a fan of really bright armies, but I think your more realistic and muted approach can look really good with that bit of contrast.

Agreed. A lighter skin color would definitely help. I also think it would be nice if you had some sort of spot color on the weapon once you paint it. Maybe squad markings?

I think it looks fine so far. It is a bit hard to pass a final judgment without the the model being completed. The color you choose for the gun can have a big impact on the overall look of the model.