Revisiting color schemes

[Plague Angel]

Once upon a time I was a young man playing with the Space Marine painter, planning my Blood Angels army. Eventually, I settled on this:

 

http://i60.tinypic.com/fekltj.jpg

 

Coming on five years later now, I constantly find myself looking at my models and asking the same question: what was I thinking? The scheme is way too busy, using five(!!) colors in it. It's no fun to paint, making me an even slower painter than I already am. So I'm starting them over, trying to reduce the army to a more reasonable two-color scheme.

 

Things I've come to learn over this time:

 

1. Blood Angels successors that break away from the flat reds, like the Lamenters, stand out more. I've always been fond of brown, and it can look suitably gore-like with the right shading.

 

2. Halved schemes are fun to do, especially on helmets. It's one part of the scheme I think works.

 

With those in mind, I've come up with these.

 

http://i62.tinypic.com/e1dxlw.jpg

 

I think this is fairly unique, keeps a lot of the feel of the original, and will be distinctive. But it uses enough red to make people passing by at the game shop still say "oh hey, you play Blood Angels, neat."

 

 

http://i59.tinypic.com/xlxpqe.jpg

Option two is basically the original scheme, minus the noise. It requires the least amount of repainting, obviously. I do like how it fits in with the canon successors; in my mind it's a very "believable" scheme in that way.

 

http://i61.tinypic.com/35ktw6p.jpg

Option three is simply the compromise between all of the above. I like it least on its own, but there are some nice things about it. If nothing else it serves as an example of the range of heraldry you can use in a basic scheme.

 

Opinions? I'll note that I'm stumped on eye color (always the hardest part of a scheme for me), so anything above is just random place-holders in that area.

[baldur27]

I quite like the first one and given all the warm colours you've used  a cool colour for the eyes like green or blue would work

[Lysimachus]

I'm not sure I get the two tone red, to be honest I think the original scheme would work in black/red if it was just one red. The yellow pad could even work if you made it that your successor shows squad markings by pad colour rather than BA head colour (i.e. Red standard, yellow for Assault, blue for Devs)?

[Plague Angel]

Squad role is exactly what I had in mind, yes, so Devastators would have blue pauldrons and so on. I don't like how it looks in practice, though, at least not for whole squads. It's something I've decided to leave for sergeants only know, more like how the Ultras do it.

 

Top red/bottom black looks nice, but it's basically inverted Flesh Tearers, and I've seen others use it. I know there are enough players that any name or scheme would be doubled somewhere if you look, though.

[Conviction]

Call me cray but I love the second scheme and wish I had thought of something like that. It probably wouldn´t appeal to the majority but I think it is downright awesome. Two different tone reds makes them look VERY bloodthirsty and I think it would make them stand out as a more unique choice for colors.

[Plague Angel]

Posting another option, trying to be a little less Minotaurs-y.

 

A little more traditional, testing out a quartered scheme instead of a halved one, just to see what it looks like. I'll come back to it in a few days.

 

http://i57.tinypic.com/30sksac.jpg

[Reyner]

I like the quartered one, I have a soft spot for quartered schemes. My next Chapter will have one :P

[baldur27]

yeah the quartered is nice

[incinerator950]

When I played Space Marine, I also liked Halved schemes.  I was using my family heraldry colors of Blue and golden yellow. 

 

My favorite is the 2nd one.  Probably because I'm a stickler for simpler jobs.  However if I may suggest a color option (don't listen to me, save yourself), half the brown and the crimson, and apply  black to the Pauldron trim, possibly the knee-pads and the backpack.  I'm almost tempted to make a few color attempts, what hex codes are you using?

[Aqui]

Posting another option, trying to be a little less Minotaurs-y.

A little more traditional, testing out a quartered scheme instead of a halved one, just to see what it looks like. I'll come back to it in a few days.

http://i57.tinypic.com/30sksac.jpg

I quite like this one

[Plague Angel]

When I played Space Marine, I also liked Halved schemes.  I was using my family heraldry colors of Blue and golden yellow. 

 

My favorite is the 2nd one.  Probably because I'm a stickler for simpler jobs.  However if I may suggest a color option (don't listen to me, save yourself), half the brown and the crimson, and apply  black to the Pauldron trim, possibly the knee-pads and the backpack.  I'm almost tempted to make a few color attempts, what hex codes are you using?

 

Like so?

 

http://i57.tinypic.com/adj447.jpg

 

Hexcodes are different from actual paint, of course, so I'm not worried about holding to the same ones so strictly! But if you want to try, what I've been using are:

 

Brown = #B86539

Bright red = #DE0F00

Dark red = #990000

"Generic" in-between red highlights for face grill, pipes, weapons, and such: #A00000

Black = #121212

 

Now that I've actually got the Militarum Tempestus codex, though, and seeing all the inspiring regiments, I'm thinking about using brown on them and leaving the Marines to be more red. Having the same colors on both detachments would look pleasing from a table's eye view, but would suggest heretical implications in a Badab-sort of way!

 

Oh oh oh, and also, something I have planned that the B&C painter can't represent: my chapter's mutation is stigmata, with bleeding palms, so the plan for the hands is for the palm to be bright red no matter what the color otherwise is. Sort of like the paladin gloves from World of Warcraft:

 

http://www.icy-veins.com/thumbnails/d5abe6e385f248c57991759ad24ddae2c71e2acd74a75dc6bdd9819226cc5917.jpg

[incinerator950]

I like that a lot.  An esoteric mutation such as stigmata is unique, and very acceptable. 

[Plague Angel]

SO BASICALLY. I know where I want the bright red to be. I just don't know what color I want the rest of the body to be. Otherwise, though, it's really narrowing down.

Brown, dark red, or something else entirely? Heck, maybe it should even be that same shade of red. The Angels Vermillion and Encarmine get away with it, after all. I'd just have to make sure the finished paint is a different tone from the bright, vibrant Blood Angels red (the softer, cooler shade on the Crimson Slaughter photos looks nice) and make sure the heraldry markings are different than the BA use.
 
http://i58.tinypic.com/1zczf9d.jpg
 

[incinerator950]

I'd roll die for it at this point.  I just got home from work, and I can see what you're going at.  I also thought of doing an opposite spectrum of the Flesh Tearers with white instead of black and a the BA deep red.  I also considered your half pattern a quarter with the two crimson shades. 

I need to get to sleep, but I'll try them later too.

 

Edit:  I noticed my earlier idea is similar to the Angels Encarmine.  My bad.

[Plague Angel]

Nah, Blood Angels overall have a lot of similarity, except for the Lamenters being the odd ones out.

 

Thanks a ton for your help. I'll save you the trouble, though. I went back to my original scheme, looked at the pictures and the models, thought about how cool I thought it was when I started it, and just how unsatisfied with it I am now and what mistakes I'm trying to avoid. Mistakes I'm already making again.

 

Less is more!

 

So I've come up with this.

 

http://i62.tinypic.com/2efnsxv.jpg

 

Sleeping on it is always a necessity, but I think I'm pretty content.

[incinerator950]

Congrats.