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Hi Everyone,

Just working on the webstore and I want to link other products when a colour is selected that you can buy, however instead of it being random I thought I'd ask the community their thoughts as to what they would prefer to see whne it comes to buying several different paints so I created this poll to see what people think.

Personally I like seeing Triad colour schemes since I play Tau and like to have more than one option when it comes to complimentary, but if I was choosing something else, I'd still rather see colours that work together as a three.

But it's not about me, it's about you guys

Just in case people are not familiar with the terms on the poll, here is a handy infographic

Honestly I ignore recomendations for paint colours, so bear in mind it's not the biggest issue in the world to lose sleep over

The only sets of colors I've ever gone for were shade/base/highlight sets. Outside of that, I determine colors individually.

It really depends on the model, so my answer would be "all of the above and some other options you didn't list". I own a ton of paints and most of them actually came from trying to match specific historic military colours.

To be honest I usually don't think about a colour wheel at all when choosing my colours I think it's overrated. Even discordant schemes can look nice if executed well. A lot of the colour theory "rules" that might apply to designing a company logo, interior decorating or choosing a font and background colour that are easy to read aren't as important to miniatures where almost any arrangement of colours can potentially look good if executed well.

I think there's also a good argument to be made that a lot of colour harmonies are ingrained through their teaching and usage rather than naturally harmonious.

I usually think of the colours I want to actually paint then tweak them until I think they look good rather than looking at a colour wheel.

Where I get in to trouble is when I choose my main colours and accents then part way through realise that a certain detail needs to be a different colour and I can't think up what to make it that'll work well with the colours I initially chose.

It's all valuable feedback so i appreciate the comments

PossumCraft

Haha, I won't lose sleep over it, but it was an option that was available so I thought i'd see if it could be used more effectively than just a random smattering of colours.

Maelstrom808

I had another request about sets not too long ago, it is something we're looking at doing in the future when our colour range expands

AllSeeingSkink

I find the colour wheel useful, but not the be all end all when choosing colours, I found it helpful when choosing colours for my Tau Army.

However I find that I run into the same problem as you, maybe the recommendations section might help a bit as you wouldn't have to add the item to the cart to see the recommendations, they would come up when you select a colour so you could see what options work well with it.

Went with triads, when selecting a colour to be presented with an easy way to select say two shades lighter and darker would be very useful.

Ditto a complimentary wash colour.

Guess for a website its down to having a data table to show "related" colours for any given colour - washes, glazes etc.

Also if your range includes a thinner medium and a retarder then these would also be useful.

Where there is a complimentary say metallic as well that could be useful, likely not in most cases but useful.


What could be a step up from what other sites do though, have a range of ways to calculate whats "recommended" and let the user select - they may want a triad, they may want a secondary colour to work with it, give the option.

For a bonus though and something that really is a step beyond - include other companies paint products where these "work", in effect allows you to make your own range much larger and show it working nicely with others, then gradually replace with your own colours over time.


Really comes down to allowing the site user to configure what they see (if anything), stick a cookie on to remember the last used option and have a sensible default (triad or whatever people want)

Triads, but not 'color theory' triads as you have depicted here, but "miniature painter" triads with a shadow - mid - highlight color.

Model 48 needs to match model 4, and that's either going to be with dropper bottle 'recipe' matching or 'easy mode' with a color triad.

I agree with the triad system of base, shade, and highlight. It's one of the things I love about Reaper's paints.

Normally I would pick a single core colour, then two roughly ajacent to it and a spot colour that is complementary to any of my three others.

So blue, blue-green and green would be spotted by red for example.

As long as there are clear examples of what that colour is I dont really mind.
Suggestions of similar colours would also be useful (shades and highlights) along with brighter and duller equivalents.

To be honest none of that colour theory stuff influences me, I often have an idea of what type of colour I'm after, so what I really want is an example of how that colour looks out of the bottle (either on a miniature or a swatch). I end up image searching most paints to try and find examples of how they actually look since I've been burnt before by pictures of the bottle or (worse yet) a digital colour swatch.

A system like Reaper's shadow - mid - highlight can be useful, though once you've actually settled on the colour you want.

 sockwithaticket wrote:
To be honest none of that colour theory stuff influences me, I often have an idea of what type of colour I'm after, so what I really want is an example of how that colour looks out of the bottle (either on a miniature or a swatch). I end up image searching most paints to try and find examples of how they actually look since I've been burnt before by pictures of the bottle or (worse yet) a digital colour swatch.

A system like Reaper's shadow - mid - highlight can be useful, though once you've actually settled on the colour you want.

I completely get this and it’s actually one of the things I would like to do is to have a seperate picture to go with the digital swatch to show how the colour looks on a model, however I haven’t had much to be able to do that yet so i’ve had to go down the digital swatch route for now.

Saying that though, the problem with monitors and mobile screens still means you won’t always get an accurate represatation of the colour as there are still issues with the type of light the model is seen under and in our case (meaning INSTAR) which vase you order as well which will determine how the final colour will look.

I’m sure i’ll come up with a clever solution in due course

I voted for "Analogous schemes" not because that is how I select my themes, but rather because when I am buying paint, I want to know where I am at "on the spectrum," i.e. how light or dark I am generally. Also, seeing what is a shade lighter/darker can help people pick colors for highlights or basecoats.

What if, once you are on a selected color page, there was something like a "previous" and "next" button to take you to the corresponding "lighter" and "darker" shade? Then, below there can be a suggested color area, where it could suggest compliments (maybe whatever you choose).

Possibly you can just have a drop down, where one could side-by-side compare colors of the user's choice? This way, you can "build your own scheme" and see them next to each other? Later you can always build that to automatically show a "suggested scheme" that can then be tweaked by the user (like, going a shade a different direction, or some such).

(BTW, I am eager to see your web-store launch, I recently uncovered my old paints and luckily I still have two pots of Charadon Granite, but definitely would be eager to have a fresh supply.)

 Supershandy wrote:

 sockwithaticket wrote:
To be honest none of that colour theory stuff influences me, I often have an idea of what type of colour I'm after, so what I really want is an example of how that colour looks out of the bottle (either on a miniature or a swatch). I end up image searching most paints to try and find examples of how they actually look since I've been burnt before by pictures of the bottle or (worse yet) a digital colour swatch.

A system like Reaper's shadow - mid - highlight can be useful, though once you've actually settled on the colour you want.

I completely get this and it’s actually one of the things I would like to do is to have a seperate picture to go with the digital swatch to show how the colour looks on a model, however I haven’t had much to be able to do that yet so i’ve had to go down the digital swatch route for now.

Saying that though, the problem with monitors and mobile screens still means you won’t always get an accurate represatation of the colour as there are still issues with the type of light the model is seen under and in our case (meaning INSTAR) which vase you order as well which will determine how the final colour will look.

I’m sure i’ll come up with a clever solution in due course

Oh yeah, it's no panacea and I've still made purchases I've regretted despite my image search-fu, but I do find it very useful. Perhaps some brief description of the photo conditions to try and help people make adjustments be they mental or to their monitor?

I'm sure you will fella. Kudos on the amount of community involvement you're soliciting., the only other company I'm aware of doing it to this extent is Anvil Industry and it certainly doesn't seem to be hurting them (from the outside looking in).

This thread is a bit of a mess. The headline seems to be talking about diferent paint ranges, while the thread talks about contrasts.

Quantitative serveys are also poor when asking a qualitative question. Not every contrast is an option like light/dark contrast that leviathan uses. Nor is qualty contrast.

Also, it leaves out non contrast options. Like painting them in the colours of your favoret football team.

That being saidt i often find peoples colour theory foo weak. I think most people know to little about it.

 H wrote:
I voted for "Analogous schemes" not because that is how I select my themes, but rather because when I am buying paint, I want to know where I am at "on the spectrum," i.e. how light or dark I am generally. Also, seeing what is a shade lighter/darker can help people pick colors for highlights or basecoats.

What if, once you are on a selected color page, there was something like a "previous" and "next" button to take you to the corresponding "lighter" and "darker" shade? Then, below there can be a suggested color area, where it could suggest compliments (maybe whatever you choose).

Possibly you can just have a drop down, where one could side-by-side compare colors of the user's choice? This way, you can "build your own scheme" and see them next to each other? Later you can always build that to automatically show a "suggested scheme" that can then be tweaked by the user (like, going a shade a different direction, or some such).

(BTW, I am eager to see your web-store launch, I recently uncovered my old paints and luckily I still have two pots of Charadon Granite, but definitely would be eager to have a fresh supply.)

I can actually group them into the next nearest colours, we only have 40 or so colours available at the moment so we can get it close but as we add more colours we can make this better so as you said, you can go up and down the spectrum.

Would also help with the shadow, mid and highlight issue too.

And thank you for the support, it's always good to hear that people are interested in the brand and what we're doing, give us a nice little boost

sockitwithaticket

Oh yeah, it's no panacea and I've still made purchases I've regretted despite my image search-fu, but I do find it very useful. Perhaps some brief description of the photo conditions to try and help people make adjustments be they mental or to their monitor?

I'm sure you will fella. Kudos on the amount of community involvement you're soliciting., the only other company I'm aware of doing it to this extent is Anvil Industry and it certainly doesn't seem to be hurting them (from the outside looking in).

Changing a monitor would be a bit of a nightmare I think as most people have their monitors set up just how they want so I don't really want to be blamed for messing up someones display , we have kind of gotten around the issue in a way by providing 2ml sample bottles so you can try the colour first.

Again, thank you for the support and that Scab Red you sent for INSTAR Vintage has now been resurrected, it's a little shiner though than the original but i'm going to see if I can fix that and try and do a MK2 Version that has less shine.

Niiai

This thread is a bit of a mess. The headline seems to be talking about diferent paint ranges, while the thread talks about contrasts.

Quantitative serveys are also poor when asking a qualitative question. Not every contrast is an option like light/dark contrast that leviathan uses. Nor is qualty contrast.

Also, it leaves out non contrast options. Like painting them in the colours of your favoret football team.

That being saidt i often find peoples colour theory foo weak. I think most people know to little about it.

It has actually been quite informative, true the original questions are not really reflecting what the community is saying, but the responses are helping me shape the way the store will finally look. Colour theory can help in some cases as I said with my Tau Army right at the start, it wasn't the deciding factor, but it did help me decide on a colour scheme that I have to say works really well on the table.

The idea of the questions was to just get some idea of how the community buys their paint, but since it's such a random element as to how people buy their paint, the colour theory was, in my mind a good starting point and it would seem that it has created a bit of a discussion.

However, I'm not flaming you as your point is valid, valued and taken on board

Asides from using the color wheel on occasion i just buy paints that i need. but i already have stuff in mind.

most useful is a color matching system for other systems

alternatively i also like buying metallic paints because oo shiny

These 3 titbits are small, but quite good.

http://theback40k.blogspot.no/2010/05/little-color-theory-part-iii.html

That was a good and informative link, Certainly explains a bit more from a miniature perspective

I feel sad for the people who chose "Whatever GW recommends for painting."

 Luciferian wrote:
I feel sad for the people who chose "Whatever GW recommends for painting."

Whats wrong with that? some people want models that are painted in the scheme specific to the game lore.

http://theback40k.blogspot.no/2010/05/little-color-theory-part-iii.html

Super little article.

Thanks for all the input so far and links to articles, it’s all really useful stuff!