HQ12-02 Race Queen [WIP - Mixing Pantone Color of the Year 2016 and Painting Basecoats for Racing Attire]

At this early stage of the Race Queen attire I sought only to apply the mid-tones of the clothing's color scheme, which in my way of doing things is synonymous with the basecoat layer. As to the colors themselves, I went for a previously used combination namely the Pantone Color of the Year 2016 comprising Rose Quartz and Serenity. The Vallejo Model Color rough equivalents are 70.944 Old Rose and 70.902 Azure respectively (both tinted with 70.951 White).  

atelier iT 1/12 scale Race Queen work-in-progress: Preliminary basecoats for her racing attire

At this stage the racing attire basecoat colors have yet to painted with their shadows and highlight

Shadows for the mid-tones will play a big part in the added accuracy as well as an even closer match to the Pantone Color of the Year 2016. Such shading can be created by adding either small amounts of 70.958 Pink to 70.944 Old Rose and/or an Old Rose/White mixture; and 70.839 Ultramarine to 70.902 Azure and/or an Azure/White mixture. I'll expound on this in the next Race Queen update. At this point in time I applied the mid-tones to see if the general color scheme fits her skin tone. 

A trial and error process towards achieving a close match for the Pantone Color of the Year 2016 

Because of her fairly large size, the 1/12 scale Race Queen tends to react with light much more naturally when compared to the tinier 1/60 or even 1/144 scale figurines I've worked with before. What this essentially means is that the Race Queen will require less contrasting of hues i.e. lighter shadows and darker highlights, and let natural lighting effects take care of the rest. Of course adding different hues to the basecoat colors will make the color scheme more aesthetically pleasing. However care must be taken not to overdo the contrasting, especially in larger scale figurines.     

Pantone Color of the Year 2016 - Rose Quartz and Serenity

As alluded to earlier, I had used this color combination before on an earlier project. But back then I wasn't too particular about how close a match the painted colors were to the real thing. This time I did so I tried my best to get as close to the actual Pantone colors as I could.

All important mid-tone of the Race Queen's attire is now done and it awaits shadows and highlights

Sadly the photos above don't really do justice to how close the painted basecoat colors do indeed match the Pantone Rose Quartz and Serenity hues, to the naked eye. There are just too many variables involved, some controllable some not, ranging from photography lighting to camera settings to PC/laptop color display settings and monitor quality. Even if every aforementioned variable is set to perfection the colors still might not look right to an observer with an uncalibrated electronic display incapable of handling high color accuracy. So you will just have to take my word for it.      

A look at Pantone's Colour of the Year 2017 (Greenery) through geek lenses

If you're a fan of the annual Pantone Color of the Year announcements you would've long known by now that greenery is this year's hue of choice. So you guessed it. Painting a miniature in predominantly green hues is now a to-do-item in my ever expanding hobby checklist.    

Pantone Color of the Year 2017 - Greenery

Greenery comes in a variety of hues which enlarge the pool of potential projects

While I wouldn't say for sure that green is my favourite colour, it certainly vies with blue for that dubious honour. If I had to choose a favoured hue it would be more of an amalgam of pastel greens and blues with the occasional soft desaturated pinks and purples thrown in. But that being said, looking back at my past miniature painting projects I seem to have painted a lot of miniatures with predominantly green hues. I guess I like green a lot after all, subconsciously that is.

My past miniature projects which had major elements of greenery in them: clockwise from top left - The Hulk, Freya, House Baratheon Knight, Nurgle Chaos Chosen, Gretchin, and Wood Elf Goddess

Going forward, I might add two more miniatures into this green group i.e. the 28 mm heroic scale Legolas of the Fellowship of the Ring and the 1/28th scale Loki of Asgard. They are from Games Workshop and Knight Models respectively. In a weird coincidence, at this point in time both companies no longer produce miniatures for the Lord of the Rings and Marvel licences.

Potential miniature painting projects with high levels of greenery - Legolas and Loki

In honour of all things geek I thought I would share some green-hued characters in a few of my favourite science fiction, fantasy and horror universes. Of the characters below, Yoda is doable as a project Bandai just released a Yoda plastic model kit. The zombie too as I should've some zombies lying around somewhere. Legolas is already in the to-do-list while Tauriel not so much as I don't have a miniature equivalent of her. Sadly nada too for Vina the Orion slave girl and Arwen of Rivendell. 

Star Wars - Master Yoda, Jedi

Star Trek The Original Series - Vina, the Orion slave girl

The Hobbit - Tauriel and Legolas in elven travel wear

The Lord of the Rings - Arwen in her coronation gown

The Walking Dead - a zombie with green tinged skin tone crawliing on grass

Now that's enough greenery to last beyond 2017, miniature painting-wise. This was the third year in a row - coincidentally the length of time I've been following Pantone's annual declarations - in which I had loved the hues in question. Hopefully next year's hue will be equally lovable. But until the next announcement in December, I will have plenty on my plate as it is with regard to this year's colour. Well, the minis aren't going to paint themselves. I had better hop to it then. Time's a-wasting.

Slaanesh Chaos Chosen [WIP - Claws & Colours]

I may be a year late but I've finally managed to incorporate the Pantone Color of the Year 2016 - namely Rose Quartz and Serenity - into a miniature painting project. Two years ago saw the start of my fascination with Pantone's annual Color of the Year announcements. It has become a treasured source of inspiration for my art projects especially miniature painting. Last year's was no different.  

Slaanesh Chaos Chosen: work-in-progress on claws and colour scheme

Admittedly though, not even I could have foreseen the miniature I would eventually use the hues on. Pantone officially describes the colours in question in the following way: Joined together, Rose Quartz and Serenity demonstrate an inherent balance between a warmer embracing rose tone and the cooler tranquil blue, reflecting connection and wellness as well as a soothing sense of order and peace. So I'm pretty sure they didn't envision them being used to depict a servant of chaos.   

Pantone Color of the Year 2016 - Rose Quartz & Serenity

Slaanesh Chosen's colours run the gamut from Rose Quartz to somewhere in between to Serenity

Another miniature, another first. Here, the Slaanesh Chosen's claws marked the first time I had ever used Vallejo Model Color metallic paints. In this instance, I used Vallejo Gunmetal Blue with Citadel Chainmail and Mithril Silver in varying ratios to achieve a kind of 'pastel metallic hues' for want of a better description. A thin wash of Citadel Asurmen Blue was also applied on parts of both claws. 

Sheen on the Slaanesh Chosen's claws were painted using Vallejo Model Color and Citadel metallic paints

Light blue bordering on violet was used to nudge the colour scheme towards Pantone's Color of the Year 2016

A couple of shots below provide a sneak peak of the Slaanesh Chosen's front end but it's not the finished article yet. Not much remains to be done, yet enough that a complete reveal is still days away. What little that can be seen, however, shows a variety of surfaces from metal to cloth to bone.  

An inadvertent sneak peak of the Slaanesh Chosen's front end during a closeup shot of the claws

Violet blues of the loincloth completes the range of Pantone's Color of the Year 2016

Awash in pastel hues, the existence of any creepiness factor whatsoever is debatable. That said, I'm hoping the dichotomy which exists between the sculpted details and the colour scheme would still instill a sense of unease in anyone who lays eyes on the Slaanesh Chaos Chosen. 

A closeup shot of the Slaanesh Chosen's back to show the piece's predominant colour scheme

All this talk about Pantone's Color of the Year has gotten me all excited about this year's iteration too. But that's a story for another day as I finish painting last year's hues on this W40K miniature.

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.