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I've bought 9(!) shades of green while trying to find a good pale greyish green for my new space marines chapter. the examples they have of what the colour looks like on the shelf NEVER matches what it actually looks like when painted, gah. 4 of those were expensive vallejo & citadel one's too. so much money wasted -_-

The Citadel catalogue thing of their paints was off by a huge margin too. Comparing what they said Ogryn Camo looked like to what I knew it looked like was shocking. What the tits is going on here? Are there lots of colour-blind or colour-blonde people out there working at these companies?

I'm going to write a book now titled 50 Shades of Green in which I go into more depth about my frustrations and OCD need for my army to look good / not be a replica of the dark angels.
Alright, I feel mildly better now. Thanks for reading my vent.

Are you going off paint swatches on racks in a store, or off pictures of the colour online?


Because the latter is never going to be accurate unless your screen is colour-calibrated, no matter how close the original sample is.


If it's the former, the swatch on the front of the shelf is really just there for easy reference. The pots are clear, so you can usually see what the colour actually looks like.

Paints are never a waste of money. You'll use them eventually.

The best way to get any real idea is to google the exact paint colour and look under images. Someone is bound to have posted some pictures of stuff painted with the colour you're looking for. That's as close to real-world examples as you're going to get.

 insaniak wrote:
Are you going off paint swatches on racks in a store, or off pictures of the colour online?


Because the latter is never going to be accurate unless your screen is colour-calibrated, no matter how close the original sample is.


If it's the former, the swatch on the front of the shelf is really just there for easy reference. The pots are clear, so you can usually see what the colour actually looks like.

I'm going off both, and the opaque bottles also seem to just give you a rough idea. Don't really know until it's on the model it seems. Here's an example of the insane variance on what the colour will look like:
https://www.google.ca/search?q=vallejo+model+colors+102:+german+field+grey+ww2&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjRx9DDk4LUAhWFtRQKHXNOCcIQ_AUIBigB&biw=1226&bih=715

Most of those are, in fact, for Vallejo Model Color 102 German Field Grey WW2. but it displays it as anything from brown to green to grey. lol.


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 Elbows wrote:
Paints are never a waste of money. You'll use them eventually.

The best way to get any real idea is to google the exact paint colour and look under images. Someone is bound to have posted some pictures of stuff painted with the colour you're looking for. That's as close to real-world examples as you're going to get.

Yeah, I did that with a a couple of them, but it was hard to find examples that were just that colour and not it being layered along with a bunch of other colours. oh well.

What color primer it's on top of can make a difference too. Colors on the internet are VERY inaccurate, depending on the light used for the photograph. Matching paints can be a huge pain in the behind. Exact shade can vary from batch to batch as well!

 benlac wrote:

Most of those are, in fact, for Vallejo Model Color 102 German Field Grey WW2. but it displays it as anything from brown to green to grey. lol..

Yeah, it really depends on the lighting in the original picture.


Although I did recently get caught out by the fact that Vallejo have two very different colours that are both called 'Yellow Green'...

 benlac wrote:
I've bought 9(!) shades of green while trying to find a good pale greyish green for my new space marines chapter. the examples they have of what the colour looks like on the shelf NEVER matches what it actually looks like when painted, gah. 4 of those were expensive vallejo & citadel one's too. so much money wasted -_-

The Citadel catalogue thing of their paints was off by a huge margin too. Comparing what they said Ogryn Camo looked like to what I knew it looked like was shocking. What the tits is going on here? Are there lots of colour-blind or colour-blonde people out there working at these companies?

I'm going to write a book now titled 50 Shades of Green in which I go into more depth about my frustrations and OCD need for my army to look good / not be a replica of the dark angels.
Alright, I feel mildly better now. Thanks for reading my vent.

I feel you, had the exact same problem finding a greenish Grey. If you don't know what the colour looks like before ordering online, you're going to have a hard time.
On what colour did you eventually settle?

 benlac wrote:
I've bought 9(!) shades of green while trying to find a good pale greyish green for my new space marines chapter. the examples they have of what the colour looks like on the shelf NEVER matches what it actually looks like when painted, gah. 4 of those were expensive vallejo & citadel one's too. so much money wasted -_-

The Citadel catalogue thing of their paints was off by a huge margin too. Comparing what they said Ogryn Camo looked like to what I knew it looked like was shocking. What the tits is going on here? Are there lots of colour-blind or colour-blonde people out there working at these companies?

I'm going to write a book now titled 50 Shades of Green in which I go into more depth about my frustrations and OCD need for my army to look good / not be a replica of the dark angels.
Alright, I feel mildly better now. Thanks for reading my vent.

Heh reminds me of yesterday when I was airbrushing some bases for my sons of horus. Wanted dark grey to start with so looked at my bottles. "Sombre grey". Sounded good and bottle colour looked decent so decided to give it a try. Imagine my surprise when the colour was more akin to PURPLE

http://www.firestormgames.co.uk/game-air-sombre-grey

That does not quite match the purple I got...

Guess I know what colour to use as a base if I want to do genestealer cult!

 Hanskrampf wrote:

 benlac wrote:

I feel you, had the exact same problem finding a greenish Grey. If you don't know what the colour looks like before ordering online, you're going to have a hard time.
On what colour did you eventually settle?

I haven't yet. I might just end up going with Castellan Green and shade it pretty hard. Any suggestions?

Games Workshop did a really good colour chart for their entire range when they released their current set.

If you can find it, and have a (whats it called?) true colour(?) printer that might help you... then again, you might still run into the same problems.

Of course, the underlying layers can make a great difference to the appearance of the top coat. As paint is rather translucent, especially when applied thinly, this is something to consider.

As such this transparency is something you can come to exploit: e.g. paint green on top of yellow will give a nice 'snotty' appearance where the most light hits and the yellow 'shows though' more strongly.


If you want a chalky appearance, perhaps undercoating grey and adding white for highlights may be effective?

I think it works just fine if you consider paint separating from the medium and paint not necessarily being opaque and thereby previous layers shining through and mixing in.

Although I have to admit to once painting a fantasy donkey mondel blue since it said "fenrisian grey" on the jar. LOL =]

 insaniak wrote:
Although I did recently get caught out by the fact that Vallejo have two very different colours that are both called 'Yellow Green'...

Yeah, that's one that seems to have been lost in translation from Spanish to English. It looks like VMC 112 should have been 'Green Yellow' instead of 'Yellow Green' from what I remember from my middle school Spanish class.

Green is a problem color for artists of all types, and like Red (its complement) so much of how it looks depends on the context of what is around it.

Most of the time I'll base darker, add more shadow, but then highlight up and up. With green however, I start with nearest my highlight color and just add lots of shading, mixing red into my shade color to dull the intensity of the green.

don't forget people see colours differently, sometimes extremely so - and it also can be different between the sexes (I remember the hugest argument that spanned about two days, in one of my jobs, as we were split between whether a lumber marking crayon was yellow or whether it was green - all the guys thought it was green, all the gals, yellow)

Anyway, just my two cents, if you're going for a particular colour - try mixing your own. Keep notes, so you can recreate what you did, and as mentioned above, keep in mind it will also depend on what colour you're going over (base/primer/shadow). It's quite a lot of fun to mix your own colours! And really if you keep notes (ie - one 'drop' of green, one of grey or what have you) you can pretty easily recreate it time and again.

Also, that way when you are trying to remember later how you did a particular colour for your army, you'll be able to find your notes and remember!

Good luck

 benlac wrote:

 Hanskrampf wrote:

 benlac wrote:

I feel you, had the exact same problem finding a greenish Grey. If you don't know what the colour looks like before ordering online, you're going to have a hard time.
On what colour did you eventually settle?

I haven't yet. I might just end up going with Castellan Green and shade it pretty hard. Any suggestions?

I ended up using Vallejo Heavy Grey as a base, highlighted with Vallejo Dead Flesh and plan to give it a greyish glaze and then further highlighting.

 Guildenstern wrote:
don't forget people see colours differently, sometimes extremely so - and it also can be different between the sexes (I remember the hugest argument that spanned about two days, in one of my jobs, as we were split between whether a lumber marking crayon was yellow or whether it was green - all the guys thought it was green, all the gals, yellow)

We all remember the dress from a few years back...

 Hanskrampf wrote:

 benlac wrote:

 Hanskrampf wrote:

 benlac wrote:

I feel you, had the exact same problem finding a greenish Grey. If you don't know what the colour looks like before ordering online, you're going to have a hard time.
On what colour did you eventually settle?

I haven't yet. I might just end up going with Castellan Green and shade it pretty hard. Any suggestions?

I ended up using Vallejo Heavy Grey as a base, highlighted with Vallejo Dead Flesh and plan to give it a greyish glaze and then further highlighting.

The Heavy Green I got from Vallejo was realllly watery. Left me questioning if it was actually a shade? it has a grey lid (rather than white) and says 'extra opaque' on the front. either way, i was planning on watering it down a bit more to use as a shade along with athonian camo shade. surprisingly, after all my searching I found that Castellan Green from GW was actually pretty nice when painted over a dark grey primer with shading. Will post a photo when one is done.
I found that GW paints seem to leave the smoothest finish after just 1 coat, whereas Vallejo only looks good after multiple coats, and craft store paint even more so. Also, I don't know, maybe this is an amateur opinion at this point, but I feel like there's no need to water down paints? As long as I don't glob on the paint it seems to me like it keeps the detail and gives a smooth finish. Idk maybe I'm wrong, but at this point I seem a little baffled by the emphasis on watering down your paints that I've seen. Thoughts?

It's not a shade, the Heavy Green as you said is an 'Extra Opaque' which should be Vallejo's thickest formula (same as Vallejo Model Colour). Either you need to shake it better or you have a bad bottle.

I think i get far more frustrated when i forget how i did a thing rather than spending time getting the thing right in the first place :X

i end up stripping and repainting everything again

Here are a few other things to consider and things I would try to dial in the colors you want.

Primer: Black, Grey, White, or Colored will all affect the brightness of the next layer of paint. I know you mentioned you used grey, but the picture you are looking at could have been black or white primer.

Wash: A layer of wash can change the tone and add shading. Try your green with black, brown, green, camo, or red washes.

Glazes: Now I have recently been very impressed with the recent range of GW glazes. These will change the color tone pretty effectively and create new vibrant colors. You could try a green or yellow glaze on the ogryn camo to see what you like better.

 Gunzhard wrote:
It's not a shade, the Heavy Green as you said is an 'Extra Opaque' which should be Vallejo's thickest formula (same as Vallejo Model Colour). Either you need to shake it better or you have a bad bottle.

I shook it before, but I tried it again just now. It still came out pretty runny -maybe just an off batch or bottle?


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TremendousZ wrote:
Here are a few other things to consider and things I would try to dial in the colors you want.

Primer: Black, Grey, White, or Colored will all affect the brightness of the next layer of paint. I know you mentioned you used grey, but the picture you are looking at could have been black or white primer.

Wash: A layer of wash can change the tone and add shading. Try your green with black, brown, green, camo, or red washes.

Glazes: Now I have recently been very impressed with the recent range of GW glazes. These will change the color tone pretty effectively and create new vibrant colors. You could try a green or yellow glaze on the ogryn camo to see what you like better.

I will probably avoid glazes seeing as I want this colour scheme to be darker, more militaristic in tone, but thanks for the heads up.
For washes, I've used the camo shade and liked it, but maybe I should compare that to the brown shade. There's almost so many options that it's stressing me out, lol. I can only paint so many test guys.

Has anyone used Agrax Earthshade on green?

Vallejo Model Color paints can be thick paints that need more than a couple of quick shakes. A new bottle (or a bottle that hasn't been used in a while) may need a few minutes of vigorous shaking or removing the nozzle and giving the paint a stir with a toothpick.

For a more militaristic green, I'd recommend a castellan green base, camoshade wash, Loren forest layer, straken green edges, and Nurgling green highlights(or you could use the dry nurgling green dry brush for speed). I've been using it for kroot skin recently and love the results.

For a good look on that ogryn camo, I'd go. Deathworld forest base, camoshade wash, elysian green layer, and ogryn camo edges, and optional underhive ash dry brush.

 Ghaz wrote:
Vallejo Model Color paints can be thick paints that need more than a couple of quick shakes. A new bottle (or a bottle that hasn't been used in a while) may need a few minutes of vigorous shaking or removing the nozzle and giving the paint a stir with a toothpick.

Yeah, above all else, the Extra Opaque colours NEED 2 agitator balls and a few minutes shaking before using.

Vallejo recommends rolling the bottle between the palms of your hands rather than shaking it.
It seems to work well for me, but it's hard to be certain.

fresus wrote:
Vallejo recommends rolling the bottle between the palms of your hands rather than shaking it.
It seems to work well for me, but it's hard to be certain.

i think you might be right. i shook and then rolled it for a while and it had a much thicker consistency after

Paints will always change tone depending on the colour you have under it, a grey prime or basecoat should keep the tone fairly neutral rather than brighten or darkening it. I'd suspect the citadel catalogue thing would have the colours likely as if they were on white.