Do these colours go?

[CutlassCam]

I'm just getting started forming a new chapter; (I'm considering naming them something with 'tempest' in it, not sure yet.) and my paint scheme is going to be:

 

Main colour: Dark Blue

Secondary: Silver

Spot colour: White

 

This is my proposed idea for the should pads, and I'm not sure how well the White will contrast with the Silver: (sorry for the crappy paint job)

 

http://i1096.photobucket.com/albums/g330/magicmerce/speess.png

 

The grey area is the closest thing I could get to silver.

 

Thoughts?

[IdOfEntity]

Dark Blue (I'm assuming a Navy Blue), White, and Silver work well together as long as there is no white overlapping silver. You're proposing putting white decals on a silver surface, and that means you're not going to have much contrast. If you're going to do it, make sure it's not an actual silver, but a darker metal. Boltgun metal that has been applied over a chaos black will provide better contrast for the white decal.

 

If you can make the squad decals blue on a silver pad....now that would look pretty snazzy. Plenty of contrast to give the piece some definition. Or have a dark blue shoulder pad with a white decal.

 

We don't want an invisible decal, right?

[CutlassCam]

Silver with Blue decals might indeed look snazzy. But then where could I use the white?

[OptiMAT]

Silver's neutral so should go okay with anything, but it tends to be bright (even the darker shades will still strongly highlight) so as Id says, a darker blue will turn out better.

 

Taking a page out of Painting Space Marines, take two complementary colours (google is your friend) and make one a darker shade and one a lighter shade to increase the contrast.

If you're desperate to use silver then that's your lighter shade. Although, IMO, silver marines always look a bit tacky. (sorry guys)

[Lorenzen]

silver and white go fine together as long as the contrast between them is high enough, white decals dont show up particularly well however and would need to be painted over as they are slightly transparent and will pick up a duller grey tone when placed on silver.

 

oh and silver marines dont look tacky, compare them to bright red marines or baby blue marines.. seeing as how power armour is essentially space armour and armour is generally silver...

 

lets look at some classic imagery

 

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd199/typhion/arn-the-knight-templar.jpg

 

the knights templar classily combining white with silver, and being the stereotypical idea of all knightly and stuff.. plus tabbards yo!

 

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd199/typhion/Bromshield.jpg

 

blatent self advertising, but hey ho.. marine in silver with some white stuff on him, doesnt look all desaturated and stuff now does it?

 

essentially if the metal has enough contrast to it, the white will work, if its just plain mithril with a white transfer, then it wont work.

[IdOfEntity]

Is that a still from Arn? Nice.

 

Because of the luster from the metallic paint lines any silver you place on the model will look brighter under lighting. Fluorescents lighten metal colors considerably. It reduces whatever contrast you had between white and silver. In warm or minimal lighting the contrast will be greater.

 

A silver Non-Metal Metallic in combination with white works much better since under most lighting conditions you'll retain the contrast.

 

Since NMM can be a pain (I still can't really do it) you can still maintain a clear difference by using an offwhite and offsilver. Offwhite in a warm direction with a cool silver will help preserve your contrast. Neutral white and neutral silver is folly.

[Lorenzen]

it is indeed a still from Arn.

 

What you're saying about the lighting is true, but as i said as long as the contrast in the metallics is good, the lighting shouldnt affect how your eyes perceive the metal in comparison to the white, for example the above picture was taken under pretty stark white lights and 99% of the metal is still identifiable as being "metal" without making the white look odd or over exposed.

[Jacinda]

From a heraldic point of view, silver and white are the same color.

 

The basic rule of tincture is to never put color on color and never put metal on metal. There are only two metals, gold and silver. The colors are blue, red, purple, green and black. While there are plenty of examples of heraldry that break this rule (most notably the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Vatican City and a bunch of stuff involving these properties) as a good rule of thumb, if you want a good contrast, follow the rule of tincture. If you go with the default setup of these boards you will be seeing light grey words (silver) on a dark grey background (black). This is a good level of contrast that makes for easy reading because it follows the rules of heraldic tincture -- but I doubt the colors were chosen with that in mind.

[IdOfEntity]

From a heraldic point of view, silver and white are the same color.

 

The basic rule of tincture is to never put color on color and never put metal on metal. There are only two metals, gold and silver. The colors are blue, red, purple, green and black. While there are plenty of examples of heraldry that break this rule (most notably the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Vatican City and a bunch of stuff involving these properties) as a good rule of thumb, if you want a good contrast, follow the rule of tincture. If you go with the default setup of these boards you will be seeing light grey words (silver) on a dark grey background (black). This is a good level of contrast that makes for easy reading because it follows the rules of heraldic tincture -- but I doubt the colors were chosen with that in mind.

 

And this old guideline for heraldry survived through our modern insignia systems for militaries. Even current "shields" or badges that are worn on the tedious United States Air Force uniforms attempt to adhere to this guideline.

 

Adeptus Astartes may not consider their designators (infantry, heavy support, etc) on the pauldrons true Heraldry though. That shoulder pad is not really a badge, flag, or shield. It's a fully functional piece of armor. Just as officers will still wear a silver oakleaf on their desert camouflage helmets, marines could be wearing silver on a white pauldron. As long as there is enough contrast to make out the symbols it shouldn't make too much of a difference. Sometimes to aid this a uniform places a dark square (forrest green, burnt sienna) to provide enough contrast to spot the silver.

 

@OP

My suggestion would be have the pauldrons be a deep blue with a silver border, and then place the white decals. It'll look the cleanest and the easiest to spot.