Off white for (i)mperial Snow Trooper fabric

[Beaky Brigade]

To put it simply I want to match the colour of the fabric on the Star wars snow trooper for my guard. There are a lot of pics which vary in colour, but I'm just going to use this one, as there are whole hobbies dedicated to matching the 'screen used' look, and I don't have all day ;).

 

I'm Hopping Pallid Wych Flesh would be a good match, though the problem is I don't own any and can't wander in a local store to eye it. Ushabti  bone/ screaming skull would seem a little to cream/ tan for a match, but any opinions are welcome. I'd prefer to use GW paints if possible.

 

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

 

[Major_Gilbear]

I think you may have to mix that colour - Pallid Wych Flesh, maybe with a bit of Screaming Skull and some white. I'd work this over a basecoat of Rakarth Flesh perhaps, and then add a little bit of Celestra Grey to the Rakarth for local deeper shading, and add more white to the the Wych Flesh mix for highlights.

 

However, it's extremely hard to give genuinely helpful guidance on these things, because it depends on:

• What you're painting
• What the colours on the rest of the model are
• What colour are you painting over
• What effect you're trying to acheive (for example, white is rarely just a flat plain white)
• Whether it's for a model, a squad, or an army
• Whether you are prepared to mix paints - either by fixed ratio on a palette as needed, or as a whole pot to save time in the future

 

On top of that, is there any reason they must be Citadel? That again rather limits you if you just want to buy a single colour off the shelf. If you wanted to try Reaper paints for example, they actually have tool which lets you find the best match to any part of a photo that you upload (link). Ultimately, I have loads of different

 

Hope that helps, but please feel free to ask more questions if you need more, and I'll do my best to help you. :)

[Beaky Brigade]

Thanks Major!

 

Yeah I agree there would be a lot of variables!

 

I'm painting some elysian drop troops (a small force), and I'm trying to copy the snow trooper look. Elysians have a similar mix of armour and fabric so I think it would work well, especially with gas mask heads. Obviously an exact colour match is not important as long as the overall 'look' is right as a whole. I've seen some others attempt this before where the fabric was too tan or too pure white for my taste

 

What I'm painting over is yet to be decided, but it may be a grey or white undercoat given the models will be mostly white.

 

I'm not against mixing, I just want something easy to repeat for an army.

 

I'm not against non citadel paints, I've got a load of other brand paints, I've just found it easier to motivate myself following the GW guide for something recently, not very imaginative I know, but I have a poor record on painting models. I'd hoped to slowly build up a good selection of GW stuff over time.

 

I'll try that reaper tool.

[Major_Gilbear]

Okay, well in that case I'd suggest starting with any suitable buff/beige, and adding a little grey and white to get a nice starting colour. Highlight by adding white, but avoid pure white (stop when it gets to an ivory colour).

For the hard armour, I would suggest starting with a cool light blue-grey, and adding white to it all the way up to pure white.

 

This gives you a warm off-white for the soft cloth parts, and a contrasting cool off-white for the hard armoured parts.

 

The sharper pure white highlights on the hard armour areas help to convey that the material is hard and shiny.

 

For the soft cloth parts, I would ensure a slightly darker colour where it meets the hard armour (for contrast and detail definition), and I wouldn't bring the highlights up too much - to convey that the material is soft and non-reflective.

 

If you have a simple mixing ratio (say 3 beige, 2 white, 1 grey as an example) , make a note of it somewhere and keep it with your paints. That way you'll be able to match it in future if you need to. If it's a bigger army, consider buying some empty bottles and just mixing up a batch of the key colours.