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Tuesday 13 January 2015

A hankering for Marsala

Not the wine, the colour. Or more specifically, Pantone Color Institute's Color of the Year for 2015. This year's choice made me sit up and take notice because I have always had a soft spot for this particular shade of colour. Something about it pushes all the right buttons and it oozes class. It's an earthy brownish red colour although in some instances it seemingly borders close to dark burgundy.

Pantone Color Institute's chosen hue for this year
Perhaps best described as an earthy brownish red

With Marsala being the 'in-thing' at least where fashion is concerned, we definitely won't be short of online resources to refer to. Below are some examples of Marsala in fashion and how we as miniature painters can incorporate this colour into our projects, either on clothes, accessories or even lips.

Source: www.eonline.com
Source: Oh My Jewelry! at blog.jic.org
Source: www.couturecolorado.com
Source: www.camilacoelho.com

I guess it it goes without saying that I would try to mix this beautiful shade of colour using the paints I have in hand. In my attempts below, you can see that the top- and bottommost rows are too brownish while the second row had what I would call a Marsala burgundy shade. The closest I came was by applying colors used by Moiterei when painting figures in one of his many beautiful projects which you can see on the third row. Looking back on my miniature painting projects so far, the only miniature I have painted with Marsala-like colours is the Super Dungeon Explore Ember Mage.  

Trying to find a mix of colours approximating the Marsala hue
Ember Mage is the only miniature I have painted so far with Marsala-like hues

Excited by the many possible applications of Marsala colour, I can't wait to see what I can achieve with this alluring hue. If you have your own Marsala paint mix, please do share. In fact, my own search for the perfect Marsala hue hasn't stopped. I plan to experiment with some ivory mixed into brownish red for extreme highlights, among others. After all, finding the right colour is half the fun.

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14 comments:

  1. Fed Zeppelin13 January 2015 at 18:52

    wow, your little mage is up to the monent then, she should be proud ;) I love this colour too

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    1. FourEyedMonster17 January 2015 at 14:48

      It's such a lovely colour. Heh heh, not really ... the ember mage is more of a dark burgundy as opposed to Marsala but she came pretty close I guess. :)

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  2. Luca Tempesta13 January 2015 at 19:53

    good choice for your mini!

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    1. FourEyedMonster17 January 2015 at 14:49

      I just simply followed her original colour scheme as discerned from her board game card art ... tried to anyway. :)

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  3. Unknown13 January 2015 at 21:29

    Beautiful colour. It looks great on the Ember Mage!

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    1. FourEyedMonster17 January 2015 at 14:50

      It was a better choice than bright red, that's for sure.

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  4. greggles13 January 2015 at 21:34

    I can't help but think Marsala became the in color, so that people could spill wine on themselves and no one would notice. :)

    Mini looks great. Great color choices!

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  5. Derek13 January 2015 at 23:11

    That looks very much like P3 Sanguine base! A colour I learned to love at the last painting class I went to!

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    1. FourEyedMonster17 January 2015 at 14:52

      Hmmm ... I'm not familiar with that colour but thanks so much for bringing it to my attention. :)

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  6. Phil15 January 2015 at 01:46

    Love these colors!

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  7. Moiterei_198415 January 2015 at 06:30

    Very nice work on your little mage! Haven't tried to do anything in Marsalla yet but my Late Romans certainly would look 'trés chic' in it ;-)

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    1. FourEyedMonster17 January 2015 at 14:53

      The colours you used last time to represent brown/red leather came very close if you ask me. :)

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