I have been painting these for a while and decided to finally share on the forum. I consider my painting to be mediocre, but looking to improve so feedback is welcome. I also have a YouTube channel where I upload my painting process. If any take your interest I appreciate any views and comments. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUSgZWcSn1LaIwxENoaRNyg Here are some of my recent Aristeia paint jobs. I was pretty pleased with Axle and Bixie, but the others I know have a lot left to be desired.
Hi, thanks for sharing some pictures of your painting! I don’t know Aristeia character names, but I’m going to focus on the one in the second photo with the big yellow cape. Yellow can be tricky to paint, and it looks to me kind of like you did this over a black primer or undercoat. It also looks like you tried to paint somewhat thick layers to compensate, and got a somewhat uneven coat as a result. First advice for almost all painting is to thin the paints with water so that they flow very easily, and then to not overload your brush. The way to get a smooth finish is to just be making the surface damp rather than wet; this thin coat will then dry quickly and can be covered with another equally thin coat. This lets you build up layers without leaving visible texture or uneven areas where more or less undercoat shows through. Yellow tends to have bad coverage, and it looks like you have black underneath. White primer might make your life a little easier, since it will contrast less with the yellow if some is not 100% obscured by enough layers of paint. Also consider doing a first coat with a more opaque yellow paint, such as GW Acerland Sunset. It’s not very vibrant itself, but it covers black fairly well and provides a compatible basis for subsequent layers of brighter yellows. There may be some technical issues of paint application, but I like your sense of color and composition. Keep up the good work!
Thank you for taking the time to give advice. Completely agree on the yellow. I believe I had a grey undercoat, but definitely needed to be lighter if not white. Being married with a child I find I don’t have as much time as I would like to paint, and therefore get a bit lazy when I am not feeling like spending the time a model might deserve. Gonna take on your advice and try and spend that little bit extra care, especially when working with those difficult colours like yellow to spend more time on getting a smoother blend and avoid those nasty brush strokes you can see in the paint job. Thanks again!
I have gotten some more painting finished, so here is Gaia. The NMM took a long time, but I also rushed it in places as I just couldn’t spend anymore time on her. I have made a YouTube video showing my process with her. If interested please check it out. Thanks. Painting Gaia from Aristeia! https://youtu.be/UrRA1tlVRb0
Been painting up some Shasvastii I got from the Black Friday sale. Trying to decide on a colour scheme as I am not a fan of the red and black. I have painted up the Nox in 3 different styles. 1. painted in the old Shasvastii colour scheme. 2. Painted up in the genestealer cult scheme. I loved genestealer cult when I was a kid and since they got rereleased I wasn’t able to afford a new 40K army. I feel Shasvastii are the closest Infinity equivalent. 3. This last one was based off the colour of my bearded dragon. I wanted the armour to look like bone. I am undecided as to which I like best. They were all fun to paint, but I am leaning toward either 2 or 3.
In my uneducated opinion: 1. lacks contrast between the two colours. I would probably tint the armor parts with a blue wash to make it stand out from skin more, while tying it to blue lights on the gun. 2. Blue is nice but this shade of pink looks a bit cartoony to my taste and/or kinda flat. I think I would desaturate by adding more white or more dark it and/or add more shades/highlights overall for more contrast. 3. is fine as is. Maybe some little bits of colour to break the two tones, like glowing red/blue/green eyes. Or maybe a red tinted wash on skin, but that's risky.
I agree with all of that. The first one definitely needs greater contrast. I used the chance as an experiment with different greens. I was happy with what I got, but it really needs more. I can see what you mean with the second, but I personally don’t mind the cartoonish element. I could add another colour to the extremities, such as a white as you suggest and I think it would improve the overall look. I am happy you like the third, when approaching this colour scheme it was the one that I was the least confident with, but as it took form I really enjoyed painting it. These were all a tester, once I decide on the style I want I can spend a bit more time refining the overall look. Thanks for the comments!
Another vote for 3. Maybe inner (or outer?) parts of armour, where there are many layers, can be a different colour.
Any suggestions on a colour to add to the armour? I am struggling to think of what would go well against the bone Ivory and orange skin. I wouldn’t want it to be too contrasting as I kind of like how clean in looks as a uniform.
Try a photo editor to touch up the picture, or the painter hosted/updated by @Koin-Koin http://koin.koin.free.fr/perryfraser-infinity-coloring/Current/ and test some colors. I would try (greenish?) grey (to link with weapon and follow the neck of dragon... or too much grey then?) or more probably red (stays in the warm zone and can add a bit of variation). The chest plates look great in ivory, so I would do it in the body sides, thumb leaving the hand plate in ivory and some "under" of the legs, as some kind of undersuit, "this is more flexible and holds the plates". Sorry, not much time to test myself these days (fucking 2020 being 2020 until the end), so just trying to imagine how it would look.
I would go for number 3. But I think it might be a good idea to go for a 3-color scheme. Skin, under-armor-suite and armor. Now you have the suite in the same color as the head and it EITHER looks a bit weird OR it looks like the Shasvastii under-armor is really a part of the Shasvastii and not removable (which could work, always obsessed with survival light armor is integrated into the embryo already). I went for the studio scheme but with white armor instead (and probably brown cloaks) on my "test model" [emoji6]
I actually see the arms, stomach and back of the legs as part of them and not actually armour. That is the way I like it and part of why I am not a big fan of the red-black is that it looks weird to me that the arms and face are different colours. But I do think I need a third colour to add to the armour subtly.
Thanks for the link to the painter and suggestion to use a photo editor. I had a quick play around in both and I am looking at possibly just adding some dark grey to parts of the armour and avoiding the large chest plates as you said and just painting some of the ‘under armour’, just to give it a little contrast in brightness or adding a pale blue or green. Going to experiment and try to finalise the scheme. Thanks for all the help!
I also prefer 2 and 3 to 1, with a slight preference for 3 because you were able to make it personally meaningful. Color scheme 1 is struggling due to lack of contrast. Not just that it’s all green (color contrast), but also that it’s all the same level of brightness (value contrast). If you look at the photo in black and white, you can see that you need to make the components of the model have more light/dark variation. The bearded dragon scheme is also more or less mono-colored, but it has good value contrast between the white armor and orange skin, as does your classic shasvastii reference picture.
Thanks for taking the time to post this. It is a really good point to check that I forgot to do. It would probably be a good idea to take a photo in black and white of the paints I plan to use and check the level of brightness to find the paints that can give me a better value contrast. This was really helpful.
Double checking my schemes in black and white is something I find super helpful, so I always like to recommend it. I did that picture by turning the saturation down to 0% in my phone's built in photo app, but iOS also lets you set up accessibility shortcuts so that I can triple-click the lock button to switch my phone into b&w mode. Really easy way to get a quick check of brightness levels of anything.
So I have been slowly working on some models and got my second Shasvastii painted in the ivory bearded dragon scheme. I decided to go with red for the robes of office. His mask is also black to represent a bearded dragon in the wild.
I painted up the Chemical Brothers for Aristeia! There was a lot of green and I tried to use different shades and contrasts. With Hammerhead so bright I decided to make his base monotone. I think this worked out pretty well, but I can see brush strokes and areas still lack depth of colour. I made a YouTube video about the process if you are interested:
