I,ve been painting a villavicoisa dragoon and have run into to problems with the yellow. I used vallejo flat yellow for the base; cadmium yellow pale and cadmium yellow for the highlight; add yellowochre for lt shadow; also, yellow ochre and raw umber for the dk shadow.It looks "Blah".I've tried to put dark shadows under the forearms and it became a big mess.
I am also having a coverage issue with the base color. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Chris

Chris, Yellows seem to be almost as much fun as white to work with They seem to me to be very transparent. Many of us use contrasting colors to shadow base colors.(red for green, violets for yellow ect). There are some great painters on this site who can help you. I hope they will jump in on this "cause they really know what they are doing. I'm still a journeyman at this point.
Good luck and good painting
Herb

Hi Chris,

My amigo, Herb, is right. Your shadow colors are too close to the midtones, and that is why it looks "blah." Try shading (wet on wet?) with violet and I think you will be happier with the results. When in doubt on any color, consult the color wheel and use the direct opposite (called a "compliment") for shading. Also, I have had good luck using burnt sienna or burnt umber to shade yellow. Play with all of these and see which you like.

I'm not sure to what you refer about coverage with the base color. Generally the base should be pretty close to the oil color or it will show through, especially if it is lighter.

If you've got a "mess" the best thing to do is strip the area and start over or you will have too much paint built up. Use a little Easy Off oven cleaner brushed onto that area to "spot strip" and you are good to go.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Hi Chris,
I've always had problems painting yellow too.
I did just have some luck on a piece but I don't know if this would be a good yellow for you. Take a look here...
http://www.planetfigure.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22921

If this works for you, here's my mix...
Yellow mix:
Paint for average with a mix of Gold Ochre lightened with Naples Yellow.
Shadow with Mars Yellow
Highlight with Naples Yellow
And the seams were done with just a tiny bit of Burnt Sienna
Again, all were applied wet-on wet.
Of maybe some variation of these colors might be worth trying.
Good luck
Craig

Complement Pat

Mixing complements are generally a little more complex than this, unfortunately, but I'd also suggest you try adding a little violet into the cad yellow + ochre Chris, see how you think it works (the results will vary with individual examples of each colour so it may not work equally for everyone).

I'd recommend you mix the violet for this, for any yellow actually, instead of trying to rely on a tube violet; if you happen to have Dioxazine Purple for example it's so strong that there's great difficulty in not having it swamp the mixture, even adding only tiny amounts. And apart from that it's not quite the right colour generally, acting as a good mixing complement for a couple of greens (!) not any yellows.

You may also find that for the lighter shadows a touch of added white will help get the colour you want, strange as it sounds.

Another approach you might try is adding a dot of black to begin with (yes, it'll turn a yucky green) then compensate by adding a dot of red, which pulls the colour back toward yellow; a cad red would be good to use if you have one. This uses the same number of colours as the above method and some people find that it's easier to judge, plus they sometimes find they end up preferring the colours you get by this method anyway.

Einion

Thanks for the help fella's. I got him stripped down and am going to make another attempted at it. Einon, I'm glad you brought up that dioxine purple would not be a good chose. Because that is exactly what I was thinking about using. So I'll scratch that. Thanks again everyone.
Chris

Einion,
Could this be a good time to bring out the article you did, on one of the old websites, on complementary shading? It has been a great help to me. It seems that there are plenty of new guys out there who could benefit.
Yep, always happy to toss more work into someone else's lap!
Herb

glad I mentioned it then!

Er, maybe, but it's woefully out of date now. I really should get around to writing a new one but the problem is that there's no direct replacement, what I would end up with would be twice as long (at least) and read like VCR instructions translated from Japanese by a Bulgarian.

Einion

Ok.
I'll be quiet now
herb