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Ive been a little stumped on where to take my armies colour scheme and could use some opinions. what I love most about Lizardmen is that you can paint them bright and colourful and they still look amazing, I love seeing those dinosaurs with patterns in bright colours but when it comes to my army I have an idea but not the colours.

My army will feature different colours depending on what type of unit it is, like real dinosaurs they will be different colours, so Saurus warriors will be say red whilst skinks may be orange or yellow scaled.
Now my army will have a fairly simple scheme to pull off. They will have a base colour, a colour to separate scales and such (not sure if it should be just a lighter shade or a different colour all together) then they will have a pattern which will be an entirely different colour to the skin/scales but what colour compliments whist standing out im not sure about.

Heres some inspirations Ive been looking at that kinda match the idea:



I need a way to implement these kind of schemes without constant second guessing or using uncomplimentary colours.

I'll show you what I have so far, its simple because i didn't want to do anything till I had the scheme idea down so it just has its base colour and a little wash shading.



How can I get the same style as the images above on my troops? which colours go with and compliment their shade of dark red, what colour should I use for the pattern, should it be a bolder, brighter colour or even darker?

Help!

I hate bumping threads but im looking for any painting advice and can't currently continue painting any models until I have this figured out and im eager to get back to painting.

If you want to keep the red you have and want some complimentary colour to do patterning, I'd suggest bright greens and yellows. Since the red you have is kind of dull and on the browny/purpley side of red, so I'd be pushing more to the yellow side of things for patterning to make it pop. Maybe something like a bright yellow-green (EDIT: I'm not sure of the current GW range, but I'm guessing Moot Green would be the yellow-green of the current range, what used to be called scorpion green).

The pictures of lizards/dynos/things that you've posted are all very bright and vibrant, where as the saurus you've painted is more dull, if you want the really striking contrast you probably want to go with either a brighter red (more in to the orange) and contrast it either with a complimentary colour (a bright green) or something near to black (to make the orange really pop). EDIT: Either that or go really dark with the red and then use green to get your contrast, basically what I'm trying to say is it's hard to get a real eye-popping contrast with a dull red like you currently have either go darker and use another colour to get your pop, or go brighter to make the red itself pop).

I guess you have to decide more which direction you want to go with it and then perhaps ask for tips on how to achieve it?

Well if you go by colour theory, you can easily find what colours compliment others. With the red, the complimentary colour is green, if you go by the basic colour wheels. So I think since you have the base coat red, you can make the scaled a varied amount of shades of orange and yellow, to match/transition nicely from the red, and then for the pattern that's a totally different colour, go for green. I think blue would look more striking on red in this case however. For my colour scheme I painted the basic colours on a program to see how it would look, so maybe try the same thing? Use paint or whatever digital program you could have to do a quick digital painting of some colours and see if they work out.

Im currently experimenting with different patterns and colours but I don't want to go through too many models testing out different things as I would have to repaint them. Heres the first so far, trying to make the darker red work with a brighter orange.



I think it still lacks character though, it feels a little bland.

The problem and good thing about Lizardmen is you're spoilt for choice in colours, I didn't want anything bland after painting so many samy space marines, I want bright and full of flair and character.

BRIGHT COLOURS EVERYWHERE!!! MUHAHAHA



Sorry got a little carried away there..

Firstly, I really like the dull red with orange scales. Looks grouse.
Secondly, I agree with Skink. Bright greens and yellows would complement the dull red really well.

If you want to do patterns on the lizzies that aren't just the scales then i'd be looking at doing red basecoat (like what you've got), big green splodges, followed up by lines of yellow either A. following the outline of the green splodges or B. just where ever you think they'd look good.
Also if you want the orange scales on that model to pop then try highlighting them with yellow. Red, orange and yellow go well together.

 AtomicEngineer wrote:
I think it still lacks character though, it feels a little bland.
...
BRIGHT COLOURS EVERYWHERE!!! MUHAHAHA...

Sorry got a little carried away there..

If you want it to look brighter, you need to start with a more pure red. Unless it's your camera playing tricks, you have a dull red to start with, which doesn't look bad per say, but it's hard to get the eye popping contrast with dull base colour. You need more saturation.

Go here:

http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html

For R,G,B, type in 110, 60, 70 respectively and click "Set RGB". That's basically the colour I got off your images and you can see it's quite a dull colour (and the site is suggesting dull colours to go with it!).

For a pure red, type in 255, 0, 0. If you want a real bright scheme, you need to be starting with reds that look like that (colours like GW's Blood Red). If that's too bright, type in 128, 0, 0. You can see that's a much darker red, but still a very pure red, so if you place another colour next to it, you'll get that bright contrast you seem to be looking to get (at least that's what I think you want from what you've said!).

So when looking to buy colours to paint those bright schemes, look for colours that are more saturated reds, greens, yellows, blues (like the colour palette you get by typing in 255, 0, 0).

Things like brown or black washes tend to reduce saturation, as does drybrushing pale colours. This is often what people want when painting miniatures because it makes models look a bit grittier and dirtier. To bring saturation back, use coloured washes rather than brown/black washes and use bright glazes to bring back saturation if you've gone too pale with highlights/drybrushes.

Also black undercoats aren't conducive to having bright schemes, you can definitely get a bright scheme with a black undercoat, but it's easier if you start with a white IMO (depends on your painting technique though, I'm sure some people will disagree with that!).