Hi all!!

I am seeing a video on youtube of danillo cartacci painting a figure and he only uses 3 colours to make all the shades and lights in blue parts of the uniform: andrea prussian blue, black and white. Well I'm facing a figure that needs a blue painting and I really like the tone he does. Anyone knows if this is enough?? Is there any counsels?? What do you say??

Thank you

Pedro

I'd say it's plenty.

I also only use about three tones to paint blues. Vallejo Dark Prussian Blue, Black and Sunny Skintone. Just make sure your shadows arent too black looking. I've never had success with painting anything other then whites and tans by using white as a highlight color though and find Sunny Skintone to be an excellent option.

Thanks for the help Anders. I'm researching here in PF and saw lots of discussions and tips about the napoleonic blue.
Looking to paintings of the time, and seeing that a little white can be dangerous I agree with the flesh yellow... I found the blue of the uniforms not only are very dark, but also a little greenish sometimes...cause they are dirty or just worned out. . . so it might be a good mix.

Pedro

I'd agree with Anders, three can be enough; I often used to paint blues using a dark blue that formed the basis, with white and an umber and nothing else (excluding weathering).

White by itself can work for highlighting some things but it can tend to produce highlights that are too 'bright'. This is why a fleshtone, sand or buff can work so well for blues because they dull down the mix in addition to making it lighter. If you were using black, you can mix a simple light grey and use that to highlight the blue and get somewhat similar results.

BTW I don't agree with Anders about the shadows, not just that they shouldn't be too dark, I think they should be black. This kind of uniform colour is really dark, so dark that it can look nearly black even outside in daylight; they're barely blue as we'd usually understand it!

Einion

Do you have the link to that video please?

Hi!! Thanks for the tips, they were helpfull. This is the video and ou can see almost the whole painting of th figure.
Please take a look at my work until now, and comment , I'm looking forward to see what you think about the blue in particular.

http://www.planetfigure.com/threads/captain-adc-to-marshal-suchet-1811-75mm-pegaso.48230/


Pedro