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Have you ever been unable to come up with a color scheme for a model or army? I think I have painter's block for my Warhammer Fantasy Chaos Army.

Let me just say, Im not a grey plastic/bare metal guy. I can't stand playing with unpainted models. I have three good size armies almost fully painted, and a handful of smaller ones fully painted.

Almost a year ago I really fell into a very large Chaos army and couldn't pass up the asking price. So, I grabbed it. I don't know if its the sheer number of models, that fact that this will be my first army using the new GW paints or the way Chaos armys seem to be a conglomerate of colors, but I can't nail down a color scheme! Its not the models, I think the chaos knights and warriors may be my absolute favorite model GW produces.

I'm really hung up here, and I guess Im asking if anyone else has been in this situation. Its gonna be a clean slate. No worries about GW no longer making a color and running out before I finish, so I should be excited, but I'm not. I'm frustrated. Ive looked at some painted armies online, images, and Im still on the fence. Im considering doing something "realistic" using greys, and giving NMM a shot. Then maybe have one colorful banner to tie the army together.

Thoughts?

Best thing to do IMO is jump in and just start painting a few. Use totally different colors. See what hits you once you're done. Try something crazy. Try something reasonable. Just get paint on the model and you can start to see what colors strike you. You don't have to be super neat or get into details, just try to get some base colors down, maybe finish one or two. The winner may even end up surprising you.

Start by looking at just one random model. Find something with an obvious or limited range of options; metal buckles, gun barrels etc. Choose a colour or method for that which suits the theme of the model. Once you have one colour sorted you can simply go with what you think will look good with it. Eventually a plan for the whole model will form.

With the titan I did, when first planning the scheme, I only knew I wanted to do the edging in a dark bronzy gold and do proper NMM style shading on it. That brownish metal led to a brown shade / dirt, which went to green, which went to light grey (and black) stripes. At which point it was basically painted! In my head, anyway... four months later...

Happens to me all the time.

What do I do? Start browsing randomly on coolminiornot.

So many beautiful pieces of work and I eventually get the inspiration/idea I am looking for.

I pretty much have this all the time. ALL. THE. TIME.

* As said, browse the internet for color schemes.
* Use a color wheel and color theory to narrow down your palette. Try Adobe's Kuler.com and http://colorschemedesigner.com/
* Might as well avoid colors that are difficult to paint. NO YELLOW.
* Likewise, if you're using black primer, narrow down to colors which work best with black primer. Same with white primer. NO YELLOW!
* When I was a wee lad, Chaos Armies *were* individualized. In this thread, notice that, while different colors are used, each *individual* unit has essentially only one color, with some contrasting (?) color.

http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=79381&view=next

I paint something else to take my mind off the decision... then pick up later when I get inspired