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I'm a new player who started War Gaming with Necrons. I'm painting them as an ice / snow themed army and I have thought about a scheme switching between silver for the metal, a very light blue for the energy source instead of green, white for "metal plates" with a mix of hot colours such as red or yellow for the Elite Units and beyond so here I was painting my immortals when I started thinking how different the effect of white and silver was when compared to what I was expecting.

So, how do you "test" color schemes for your army? Photoshop? A test model? I have one necron warrior that I named "Bob the Blob" (poor thing) before I decided the color scheme for my warriors and even now I know I'm going to switch on the next batch of warriors.

If you could share some tips, I would appreciate it

I paint up some test models. Either old knackered ones at the bottom of the bits box, or a new model which I can then strip and re-paint in my chosen scheme.

I think just about every mini I have ever painted has been a test mini.

I think the only tried and true way of doing it is just painting in whatever scheme and if it works great! If not then just strip the model and no harm done.

i got a couple of those small snap fit kits laying around that i use for test mini's or tutorials... those work the best... or just just old miniaturs or random bits

There's a few online interactive painters that let you test out colour schemes. If you can't find one for your specific army, it might be worth using a different one just to check the colours work together the way you wanted them to look. It's a lot quicker than spending several hours painting an actual model and lets you quickly change colours.

After that, yeah, paint a test model or two.

Try it out on a rank and file dude or two. Nobody's going to notice if one of your hundred guardsmen look slightly different.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
There's a few online interactive painters that let you test out colour schemes. If you can't find one for your specific army, it might be worth using a different one just to check the colours work together the way you wanted them to look. It's a lot quicker than spending several hours painting an actual model and lets you quickly change colours.

After that, yeah, paint a test model or two.

I have found some of those online painters and they are pretty good to see how the colors blend in.

And I guess nothing beats a test model to see the real deal.

Thanks for the tips everyone

goblins

You've got to love that necron warriors come in packs of twelve and the units come in multiples of ten, gives me two warriors a pack to experiment on

Second hand Cadians. They expect to die for the Emperor, a horrible paint job before a dettol bath is a much better deal ; )

edit: die not dye but strangely fitting.

I like to use a piece of paper and use color pencils. I make a big swathe of the colors next to one another. Then if I like the way the colors look together, I do a "test run" on a single fig, much like the way the rest of the forum here does.
Hope that helps :-)
Andyman

Test models, preferably metal ones - as they strip much easier later.

I paint some schemes in some miniatures (normally 5 of them), and compare them. After it i may strip the discarded schemes, or just leave them in the shelf as "prototypes". (but they will eventually be striped anyway ).

One little thing is that when im trying a scheme i always base the model acordinly. The base is an important part of the miniature you are presenting, and should combine well with the scheme you are using...

I usually paint either the squad Nob or the Squad heavy weapons choice in the scheme my weak little mind has devised - and see how I like it.