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hello dakka,

I've been using airbrush for base coating for a couple months. I'm looking to step up my game and use it for applying highlights and shadows as well. based on a number of painting videos I've watched, my technique will be something like:

- prime model (I use light grey now, but might move to black to get better shadows)
- spray the entire model with shadow color
- spray the base color from an angle slightly above perpendicular to the model, so the shaded and bottom surface areas keep the shadow color
- spray the highlight color, sparingly, at an angle close to vertical so only the upper surfaces are hit
- do everything else (details, edge highlights, etc.) with a brush

easy enough. the trouble I'm running into is finding the right shadow and highlight colors. at the moment, I'm doing a salamanders-themed C:SM army and my base color is VGC Goblin Green. I've tried using VGC Cayman Green as the shadow color, but the shading didn't seem stark enough. plus, it doesn't seem to mesh well with the goblin green. can't put my finger on it, but maybe it's not enough blue in the mix or something. for the highlight color, I've tried a 1:1 mix of goblin green and white but it was too subtle. I use a 1:3 mix of green to white for my edge highlights, but it's a pretty washed out green at that point. seems like it might be too bright for an overall highlight. the other greens I have available, like snot green or scorpion green, just don't feel right although I've yet to test them.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to select colors that will work well with each other. I know P3 sells triad paint sets which seem tailor made for this, but since I already 1k+ points of marines base coated with VGC goblin green, I want to keep that as my base color if I can. I suspect this is just a basic color theory problem and that there's a general solution. any pointers in the right direction would be great, since I'm going to have to solve this again when I start up my CSM army next year

cheers,

v

Adding white to a colour isn't the way to create a highlight for it. Adding black to shadow is equally bad.

Watch this video and your painting will forever be better for it - you can skip to 4.13 to get right to the good stuff, but the entire thing is great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WYZWDEmLR90

tl:dr

To highlight add yellow to your green, not white.
To shadow add red to your green, not black.

thanks, AG. that's a very helpful link. building on that theory a bit, how would you go about buying paints that follow these rules? do I mix up my shadow and highlight colors and then try to color-match paint bottles or is there a better way to go about it? I'm not opposed to mixing my own colors here and there, but for the sake of consistency and convenience, it would be nice to be able to just buy the colors I need

Reaper Master Series paints are offered in a "triad" system that have a shadow, base, and highlight. They are great paints as well, thin enough to require a minimum amount of thinning for the airbrush. Check them out if you haven't already.

Oh, woops. It was reaper I was thinking of and not P3 yeah, i like the triad idea. The trick is if finding one who's midtone matches the vgc goblin green I've been using for base coats all this time.

I would make a custom mix and decant it into dropper bottles.

Or, like you said, try and colour match with an existing line.