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Hi Everyone,

Doing an Urban Camo Scheme on my Ethereals robe(?) however i'm not sure if it's just me but something looks a little odd about it?

Not sure which wash to us either to show off the recesses better, I'm worried that Nuln Oil will darken it too much....



Thoughts?

There's so much contrast between the black/grey/white camo dots that it floods out the highlight/lowlights on the cloth. Makes it look flat.
Really great camo though! Maybe cutting the number of dots in half would allow the shading on the cloth to come through.
*Ooh, reread your text. I'd try a dark purple wash for depth. If you go with black it will blend in with what you already have and just add to the camo, not add depth.

It's also hard to paint genuine camo by hand on a miniature, you end up with more blobs than interesting patterns. You also don't want to paint appropriately scaled camo because then it's almost invisible on a 28mm mini.

I have the same issue on my Redemptor dread. No matter what I do it just don't look right to me. And it's bigger scale then yours. I thought I might try a blue grey as the mid tone, see if it helped the contrast.

The 2 dark tones are so close together it's hard to tell them apart. Rather than shading the recessed try highlighting the greys and blacks.

Once long ago i painted some catchans as an urban fighting force (and by long ago i mean about 20 years ago for a huge event at the Manchester GW store pre bombing). I found tge best thing was to use large swathes of colour that you can easily highlight and shade, rather than a more realistic camo. I used 2 dark shades of blue for my guys, which kept it easy for me.

Lines and stipes work better, and more accurately represent real camo. Dots tend to look like blobs on models at this scale.

From the picture you've posted it looks a bit like the camo patterning at the bottom of the robe is larger and more widely spaced than at the top. It also looks like there's a disproportionate amount of light grey vs the contrasting pattern colours. It looks like three different shades painted onto a grey background rather than four interlocking patterns. When I've done camo schemes in the past, IIRC they've looked better when I'd painted one tone first, overdone the contrasting shades a bit, then gone back and added more of the original. This tends to lead to a more coherent looking scheme and less like three colours painted over a fourth. Hope that makes sense.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=combat+soldier+95&oq=combat+soldier+&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l3.6094j0j7&client=tablet-android-samsung&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=B5vMLXWpej_FIM:

Have a look at this, old style british military woodland camo. Large patches of your base colour (green) with black and two colours of brown. This fulfills the idea of leaves, with areas where you can see branches and shadows, breaking up the outline of the soldier making him harder to see and shoot.

Techinically a cloak isnt ideal for a camo pattern, as it would swirl and move drawing the eye to the target. However, maybe paint the cloak with your basecoat and shade highlight. That way when you put your other large colour areas on you know where to add a slightly lighter or darker shade to follow the contours of a model. It is hard to pull off correctly however.

Your alternative is an American digital style https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=american+digital+urban+camo&oq=american+digital+urban+camo&aqs=chrome..69i57j33l3.13417j0j9&client=tablet-android-samsung&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=-tOy-lVMETsNXM:

Also note, no blacks in there just shades of grey. The white with black is an Arctic camo designed for Norway/Finland or the Russian winter, breaking up an outline against the stark snows and bare trees.

I'd say your black elements are too large. It might be better to have a white background, large light grey elements and small black elements.

Yeah i think its because the patterns for all the colors are too big and sameee.

After reading the comments I looked at your Camo and the top half looks great. If you cover the top and look at bottom half that's where the problem is. It's more dense at the top so doesn't look painted over a background.

Thanks for all the feedback and tips, i’ve already shrunk some of the coloured parts and it’s looking better already!

I think camo is just difficult on minis. Like people have said, a realistic scale pattern is impossible to even see on them. In addition, camo is supposed to blend, smush and reduce contrast. Thats its purpose, not what we really want in many cases. So when painting it for aesthetic hotness your sort of fighting the fundamentals of what it is supposed to do. I think the tau camo looks good but it has the help of sharp lines in many cases with the digi/zag patterns that draw your eye to it. That being said I don't think your's looks bad, better than I can do, but as others pointed out the pattern changes as it goes down and your midtone greys are dark. Def post a pic when you get it sorted out or the models finished as I haven't seen camo crons yet. I'd like to though!

You guys are doing well painting the camo patterns but to my eye it looks flat because there's no shading to it.

skysky

It’s kind of two stage as i’m planning to use it on the urban tabletop at our local club so it’s trying to make it look good, but somewhat functional as well, I’ve had some of my opponents not realise where my units are sometimes because they blend in

I’ll probably get some shading on it at some point tomorrow, i’m really nervous about doing it though!

I find I want to base them to match the camo but ends up looking rubbish because you can’t see the details properly. Sharing is easier on the marines, got some reivers in classic dpm and it’s easy to edge highlight due to the scale.