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OK, so here are 3 works in progress, close to completion, but not quite. Where, if at all, am I going wrong?

1st Model is an Imperial Fists Captain. I had some issue with a dodgy metalic paint so it looks thick on the gun and scabbard as the gold came out pink and I had to try and recover.

2nd Model is a Necron Destroyer. My issue here is that the colour scheme, which I like, does cause the model and base to be too similar, how can I contrast the two without changing the scheme too much?

3rd Model is a Necron Lord Thingy. I wanted to mark leaders out with some additional, but the blue isnt working for me. What could I have done different?

Honestly, I think the Marine looks fine. The the pinkish red on the his gun looks like a little like rust and I think it looks good. My only complaint about the guy is that his skin looks jaundiced; that could be merely from the photo and being surrounded by so much yellow.

I like the Necron Destroyer a lot. If the base needs more contrast, you could either darken it with a wash or drybrush it so it's lighter than the the plating on the Destroyer.

I agree that the Lord Thingy looks not quite right. I think the greenish-gold (like on his face and ribs) looks more "off" than the blue accents.

Not a bad effort overall with all of these. The yellow is decent (If a little gaudy for my taste)
Criticism wise my suggestion would be to think a little more about colour selections. The space marine has lots of different bright colours which can have tendency to make the eye pinball around the model when looking at it.. maybe try and reduce the number of bright tones, or tone back some of the brighter colours, like his hair and the green laurels for example.

The necrons look good too. I would suggest trying to bring up some of highlights on their upper facing surfaces to draw the eye up towards the faces and add a little contrast.

 KidCthulhu wrote:


I agree that the Lord Thingy looks not quite right. I think the greenish-gold (like on his face and ribs) looks more "off" than the blue accents.

It must have been an atificial light thing as the gold doesnt look anything like that in normal light.

I didn't think about your lighting. That might also account for the yellow tinge on your Marine's skin as well.

Perhaps some more highlights as QAR suggested might be all that's needed

You could try just adding some grass tufts to the bases to give a bit of a different colour

The imperial fist...the orange wash(?) looks a bit blotchy and wash-like in general. Could be cleaned up in a few places to make the transitions look more like shades of light and less like water-marks. Maybe just do some very light dry brushing with your base yellow color to soften the transitions of the orange shading. Also could use a very light touch of near-white highlighting on a few of the more upward-facing hard edges.

I like the blue on the necrons lord-thing, I think it just looks flat compared to the rest of the model. I'd experiment with some lighter-blue highlighting on the upper portions of the blue collar, and a bit of green OSL-style highlighting on the lowermost part.