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The brush-cleaning stuff looks good. I'd pick it up if it was a realistic purchase, but the postage sadly prevents that.
As for the paint system, not for me, I'm afraid. I mix sub-colours all the time, but I'm not intertested in needing to use pipettes and so forth when I need a very small amount of a specific colour, and I like being able to eyeball what I'll get by mixing Warpaints Tanned Flesh with VMA Rose Brown, and then varying it by adding a drop (or less) of Panzer Aces Light Rust, and doing so to paint the flesh on 6 models.
If someone was using very few colours to do an army with a limited palette, then sure, but I like to be able to eyeball a lot of different shades and tones and then vary or play with them on the fly.
Azazelx wrote: The brush-cleaning stuff looks good. I'd pick it up if it was a realistic purchase, but the postage sadly prevents that.
As for the paint system, not for me, I'm afraid. I mix sub-colours all the time, but I'm not intertested in needing to use pipettes and so forth when I need a very small amount of a specific colour, and I like being able to eyeball what I'll get by mixing Warpaints Tanned Flesh with VMA Rose Brown, and then varying it by adding a drop (or less) of Panzer Aces Light Rust, and doing so to paint the flesh on 6 models.
If someone was using very few colours to do an army with a limited palette, then sure, but I like to be able to eyeball a lot of different shades and tones and then vary or play with them on the fly.
Ahhh, the syringes are only really needed if you're mixing from the RAL database to create full bottle of colour or creating a full bottle of colour from one of the mixing formulas, other than that you can just use drops from the dropper bottles much as you would using normal paints in place of the millilitres, the system is there to cater for everyone. It just generates much less waste and if you only need a very small amount, you can easily eyeball it if you count a single drop as "1" and then roughly guage what you need to remove so 0.4ml would be just under half a drop, 0.7ml would be just over.
The idea behind it was repeatability as that's one of the things that puts people off colour mixing completely, but you're doing exactly what the system was designed for by mixing paints anyway, just we offer it as a single pigment line rather than mixing pre mixed colours which can have a big level of unpredicatbility since you won't know what pigments are in the colour (Unless of course they list them...which most companies don't), but if you prefer mixing premixed colours, you can create your own specific flesh tones and bottle them up easily, then adjust them on the fly as needed.
It's pretty much how we're painting now, a select number colours that we use day to day and then adjust them with various levels of greys, yellow, reds and blues.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/02/24 10:13:25
New video up on our Youtube Channel, How to paint Onyx Skin
Also a free, updated guide on how to use our Alpha paints as well as how to mix colours using three different methods, The INSTAR system way, the traditional way and the bulk way
A friend just posted about the changes to your range on our club's painting page, and I am intrigued, to say the least.
I think the Alpha range might be risky for you, judging by the number of people here who seem reluctant to mix their own colours, but I am very, very interested in the idea. Before I next buy any new colours, I need to at least try this out. I am not as good as I should be when it comes to sustainability, but I am at least conscious of it and this seems like something that deserves a try. The level of flexibility certainly appeals as well.
(I wonder if some people who are reluctant to mix colours because they might not quite get a perfect match also over-estimate their own ability to paint well enought to exactly match previous models anyway!)
I am curious, how well would a paint mixed from your Alpha range mix with a regular acrylic from GW or Vallejo?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/04/07 17:36:23
Though guards may sleep and ships may lay at anchor, our foes know full well that big guns never tire.
Fifty wrote: A friend just posted about the changes to your range on our club's painting page, and I am intrigued, to say the least.
I think the Alpha range might be risky for you, judging by the number of people here who seem reluctant to mix their own colours, but I am very, very interested in the idea. Before I next buy any new colours, I need to at least try this out. I am not as good as I should be when it comes to sustainability, but I am at least conscious of it and this seems like something that deserves a try. The level of flexibility certainly appeals as well.
(I wonder if some people who are reluctant to mix colours because they might not quite get a perfect match also over-estimate their own ability to paint well enought to exactly match previous models anyway!)
I am curious, how well would a paint mixed from your Alpha range mix with a regular acrylic from GW or Vallejo?
Weirdly the take up for the new system of the Alpha range has been pretty positive so far, probably due to the fact that we've stated that you can make the majority of the premixed Alpha range just through droplets alone, but the idea came about from seeing loads of forum posts where it starts with "I'm trying to find this colour" or "I want a specific colour but no range has it". We're also working on a system of painting that helps massively, rather than a how to guide tellign you step by step which colours to use, we leave that door open to the painter to decide on their colours and instead provide them with a guide on how to choose the colours to get the best effect possible for what they want, we're currently in the final stages of it.
Rather than going down the Kimera or Scale75 Artist range where you tend to put a big blob on the palette and then take a bit from each and mix somewhere else which does put people off, we decided to keep it simple and straightforward. Since every drop out of our bottles is pretty much uniform, regardless of the colour, it was easy to make recipes that just said "Mix 2 drops of this, 1 drop of that and 4 drops of this and you'll get this colour". Put that alongside easy to follow colour wheels and an ever increasing database of colours means that it's easy to find the colour you want and due to the way we've done it, what you see on the screen, 99% of the time will be what you get, but because every monitor setup is different it's difficult to get it to 100%.
Then we have swatch recording cards where, if you make a colour you like or paint an army up in a specific scheme using specific colour mixes, you can paint a swatch on the card and write down the recipe to make it, then, because of the uniformity of the droplets, means that you'll make that same colour every single time. Which comes round to the point about armies, because of the way the system works, there's no fear in trying to match the same colour to keep it consistent, so long as you write down what the formula was, you can repeat it all the time consistently and repeatedly. In our "Using Alpha" guide under the "Free Stuff" tab, we show three ways you can mix colours.
With your point about reluctance to mixing, We're not sure if it's because people might recognise that the colour they've used is not exact (Which if you get it close is going to pretty hard to spot anyway unless you paint side by side on the same model) or because they feel it's beyond their skill level which we feel is wrong, as we've pointed out, if we can do it starting entirely from scratch on an industrial level, so can everyone on a hobby scale ,though if more people come forward to say why they are reluctant to colour mixing, we can then improve the system to make it more accessible. At the moment we feel we've done a lot to make it easy from providing empty bottles, syringes, storage containers, recipes, colour wheels, some of our sponsored painters are doing paint alongs etc
Given that the Alpha range can be turned into washes and glazes easily using Water+ means that you have an incredible toolkit at your disposal to make the colours you want to make.
I'm not sure on the last question though....I know some people have added the Pure White to Corax White to make a super luminescent white so they do mix in well with other ranges meaning you can adjust them accordingly.
Well.....it has been a while since I've been back here, just over 4 years by the looks of things!
That's not to say I haven't been busy behind the scenes, a lot of life changes have meant I had to disappear for a while. But during that time, I resumed research on what was always the long term goal with ALPHA, to create a companion program to assist with the mixing of colours. This was always in my head ever since I first started INSTAR, but how to go about it was the hardest part since trying to translate analogue, eyeball viewing to match on screen proved to be almost impossible to achieve.
Despite buying colour scanners, contacting scientists around the world, delving into science articles and papers and looking at other programs that had been developed before, nothing seemed to come close to what I actually wanted to achieve. Some had some really good ideas in how to apply colour breakdowns, others had good ideas of mixing colours on screen, but just nothing really stood out or even matched what I was trying to do. That was until about two years ago when a specific paper caught my eye that had used some work from another scientist who's research I'd already been reading about. Taking their novel approach to colour mixing and incorporating my own research into the subject in regards to the way pigments behave when mixed (Short answer is no one really knows entirely ) has lead to the creation of PRISM, the first program of its kind in the miniature industry to incorporate several methods of not only colour selection, but also 99% accurate colour mixing.
To sum it all up, trying to find shortcuts for this kind of work turn up empty, there is a lot of effort outsode of the program to make all this work and it's a time consuming process. However, the initial Alpha trial, which you can still download (It's not digitally signed so your PC may throw a wobbly, it is however entirely safe to install) went very well and pushed the program in the right direction of what people wanted to see that will be coming up in the, soon to be released, Beta trial.
Currently, in the Alpha version it only has a scheme editor that will create a balanced scheme for you from just a single colour selection, right now you can use my own INSTAR Alpha Pure paints, of which you will only require Warm Blue, Yellow, Magenta, Warm Red, Oxide Yellow, White and Black or you can use Citadel Pre Mixed colours, which no doubt most of you will have.
Some scheme examples
The upcoming Beta version still contains the scheme editor, but now includes a paint mixer for the INSTAR Alpha colours as well as a module that lets you break down an image into less colours and show you how to make those colours or which Citadel colours you would need, it's great for those images or box art that you want to recreate, but don't know where to start. Not only that, but the ability to load and save schemes as well as create your own colour palette.
It's quite a full on piece of software!
If you are interested, there is some more information on my Instagram page (Just search for instarpaint) where you can see my attempt of the Mona Lisa, plus a few pounds....that was painted using the information from the Image analyser module. If you want to give the program a try, just head to INSTAR Prism webpage and head to the "Software" section, you will also need to purchase a key but these are free for now while the trials continue on. There is also a feedback button in the app too and it would be great if you could leave some feedback on the application as this helps its development even further.
At the moments it's only for PCs due to the requirements of the scheme editor.
FUTURE WISHLIST OF THINGS TO ADD
Ability to use on mobile devices.
More manufacturers paints
In-app painting
Custom Selection of seven paints to use
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2025/03/22 22:53:22
Saying the last 12 months have been busy would be a massive understatement.
Life’s finally back on track, and development on this app has been full throttle. A lot of it was built in the background during INSTAR’s lifecycle (as mentioned in the last post), but actually turning all that research into something functional has probably taken a few years off my life—mostly from repeatedly bashing my head against a wall over code that should work but just refuses to
Still, persistence pays off. The app has come a long way from its first alpha release to what is now the final alpha version.
V0.2.3 - The Beginning
This is where it all started—V0.2.3. A basic setup that only let you input codes from the attached database. It would search through an extensive dataset and tell you how to mix that color, along with its shades and highlights. Effective? Yes. Usable? Not so much… because unless you already knew the exact codes, it was basically useless. Not exactly user-friendly.
V0.2.5 - The First Big Leap
V0.2.5 was when things started taking shape. You still had to input codes, but now there was a color wheel to show exactly where the color sat, plus a bunch of colour scheme styles to choose from. This meant you could preview multiple schemes at once without manually searching for each one. The app would automatically pull them from the database—along with their shades and highlights. A much more complex operation under the hood, but it laid the foundation for everything that followed.
V0.6.3 - A Whole New Level
This was a huge jump. Schemes were still there but now in a much more polished, user-friendly format. The days of relying on codes alone were over—now you had HSL and RGB controls to really dial in colors.
- HSL Mode let you tweak hue, saturation, and brightness, all visible in the Target window—so you could fine-tune colors and adjust highlights and shadows to create mood in your schemes.
- RGB Mode let you input an exact color match using an RGB code from a pixel picker or another database.
This update also introduced the ability to select different paint databases within the INSTAR family, expanding the app’s flexibility.
V0.7.0 - The Final Alpha
The last alpha release focused on refining the experience. Scheme editing was smoother with dropdowns, improved searching, and a cleaner UI. But the biggest change? The introduction of Citadel Pre-Mixed colours for scheme creation.
While pre-mixes aren’t as accurate as mixing from paints (300+ pre-mixes vs. 200,000+ mixable colours), this made the app more accessible to those who just want to use the paints they already own, know and enjoy.
This version also laid the groundwork for:
- A dedicated paint mixer for INSTAR colors
- An Image Analyzer to break down images into paint schemes
Both of these features are now finalized and will be fully available in the upcoming Beta version of Prism.
Good to see! it's coming along in leaps and bounds.
One slight suggestion: Make a colour picker, so people can, for example, take a picture of a colour they want to replicate (either by itself or on a mini), pick the part of the image that has that colour and then the app uses that as the input, rather than people having to try and tweak the RGB to get exactly the right shade, they can just go "that colour, I want that"
Just a thought, people can of course do this themselves with other apps to grab the rbg/hsl values they need, but doing it all in-app would mean they can do the whole process. I'm not sure if this is what you meant by "Image analyser" but to me an analyser would look at the whole image, and a picker lets you choose the specific pixel with the colour you want
Charax wrote: Good to see! it's coming along in leaps and bounds.
One slight suggestion: Make a colour picker, so people can, for example, take a picture of a colour they want to replicate (either by itself or on a mini), pick the part of the image that has that colour and then the app uses that as the input, rather than people having to try and tweak the RGB to get exactly the right shade, they can just go "that colour, I want that"
Just a thought, people can of course do this themselves with other apps to grab the rbg/hsl values they need, but doing it all in-app would mean they can do the whole process. I'm not sure if this is what you meant by "Image analyser" but to me an analyser would look at the whole image, and a picker lets you choose the specific pixel with the colour you want
Thank you
The Image Analyser already lets you do this but in a slightly more user friendly fashion. Instead of all the colours in an image, it breaks it down to a more managable level and takes the average colour of all the surrounding pixels. I'll tough on more details as I start getting the video demonstrations prepped for the Beta version. There is a quick preview of it on my Instagram page when it was being developed alongside the paint mixer. It took it one step further by isolating the colours as well. At the time it only showed you the colours which then needed to be used with a separate app, over the weeks the two were seperated and the Image Analyser was made as a standalone module. It mad ehte colour breakdowns selectable so you could select the exact one you wanted, load it into the scheme editor, and find out how to replicate it along with the shades and highlights. Pretty much exactly what you described in your suggestion
As you say, there are apps out there that can do all these things individually, but this is combining them all in one and showing you how to make the colours accurately, this has all been painstakingly done behind the scenes of the past year. The app plans to go much further though, the current wishlist is on the first page
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2025/04/01 01:56:06
Rewind the clock to June 2021. After years of trial and error, the research I started back in 2017 was finally bearing fruit. Countless attempts at extracting colours from images, matching shades, and translating digital hues into physical paint had led to one undeniable truth—this wasn’t going to be a quick process. But persistence paid off. Slowly, piece by piece, I built an Excel database that could match colours mixed from INSTAR Alpha Primaries with around 95% accuracy.
At the time, my focus was on the hardest challenge of them all—faces. Skin tones are notoriously difficult. They’re not just "peach" or "tan"; they're an intricate blend of warmth, shadow, and highlight. Too bright, and the face looked artificial. Too dark, and the depth was lost. Highlights that didn’t blend right made the entire piece feel wrong. Every attempt either got close or missed the mark entirely.
Then came the breakthrough.
A separate research paper showed a way to break down an image and extract RGB values directly. It wasn’t perfect. Lighting conditions could throw everything off—a slight yellow tint in the image made everything warmer than it should be, and poor lighting turned colours into a muddy mess. But, in the right conditions, it worked. Using this, my developing database, and an algorithm to match RGB values to the closest available mixed colour, I started testing. 3D prints, images, different lighting setups—I tinkered with everything. And the results? Surprisingly natural-looking.
Now, I’m not the greatest painter in the world. Don’t expect any Da Vinci-level masterpieces. But that’s a story for another time…
Expanding the Research: From Skin to Fabric
With that success under my belt, I decided to push further. What if I could replicate clothing colours from on-screen images onto miniatures? The same challenges cropped up—lighting, angles, image quality—but I kept at it. Testing different sources, I eventually entered the painting competition here with the "Rebels" category. My entry? An Ewok Bounty Hunter. For the cloak, I matched the Rebel camouflage from Return of the Jedi—a proof of concept that clothing patterns could be translated, even with limited paints. It also did surprisingly well......
From there, I took things up a notch. I combined both techniques—skin tones and fabric matching—on a single model from my Loot Studios haul. I pulled a texture file from a Fallout 4 Synth and paired it with a red leather biker jacket sourced from a shopping website. The result?
A fully realized model painted with nothing but a five-colour mixing system.
Of course, there were limitations. Five colours could only go so far. But the concept was solid. It just needed refining. That refinement came at the end of 2021 when I put the system to the test with Rumbleslam miniatures. Using Ork and Goblin reference images from Dungeons & Dragons, I cracked a variety of natural-looking skin tones. Even the pinks of the Hart Foundation came together convincingly
The Evolution of a System
Over the next four years, everything improved—the database, the colour-matching processes, the research behind it all. New studies opened doors to better techniques, and the clunky Excel sheet slowly transitioned into a fully developed software environment.
And that’s where things really started to take shape.
One of the core ambitions behind the PRISM system has always been this: to take a piece of box art, a painting tutorial, or even a random piece of artwork online and recreate it convincingly in real life. That goal eventually led to the development of the Image Analyser a year later, but before that tool existed, everything was done manually, in-house.
A key milestone for this part of the project was taking an existing Citadel painting guide and attempting to convert it into ALPHA colours—INSTAR’s own range. For the test subject, I went with a box of Cadian Shock Troopers. Their mix of armour, cloth, skin, and metallics offered a balanced challenge that would give the system a proper trial by fire. If PRISM couldn’t replicate this convincingly, I’d have a serious problem.
So, off to the local Warhammer store I went. (Shoutout to the manager there, by the way, he knew exactly what colour I needed before I even opened my mouth .) Armed with the full Cadian paint selection, I spent the better part of the day building three Lasgun troopers in similar poses and kit, just to eliminate variation in the test.
For comparison, I used two different matching methods, Mono One and Mono Two. Each followed the same approach: identify a base, shade, and highlight colour. I used a small colour picker to sample each basecoat colour the Citadel website. The resulting RGB value was then entered into PRISM to see what paint mix it suggested. As you can see in the above photo, the Mono One method came out with a near-perfect match to the original. The fatigues on the Mono Two version leaned a little more yellow, but overall both test models came surprisingly close to the real thing, especially considering the fact that I painted their metallics using Non-Metallic Metal techniques, which added an extra layer of complexity. The gun barrels are the easiest giveaway, but elsewhere the differences are much harder to spot.
To push the challenge even further, I photographed the models from the back and above, flipping the visual cues most people rely on to tell paints apart. I posted this version to Instagram and got a wide range of guesses on which was the original. Up close, sure, you can zoom and tell—but on a phone screen, it's a much trickier call.
This stage marked a real turning point. It wasn’t just about seeing if PRISM could replicate a known paint scheme, it was about proving that the system could hold its own against the tried-and-true standards in the hobby, If it could do that manually, the next step was clear: automate the entire process.
There’s a certain satisfaction when you line up three models, painted using completely different methods, and you genuinely have to stop and double-check which one used what. It definitely made the long hours behind the scenes feel worth it.
This test did exactly that.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2025/04/12 15:38:18
,though if more people come forward to say why they are reluctant to colour mixing, we can then improve the system to make it more accessible. At the moment we feel we've done a lot to make it easy from providing empty bottles, syringes, storage containers, recipes, colour wheels, some of our sponsored painters are doing paint alongs etc
