A little advice please

[wotan]

Paul

Acrylic paints are probably the easiest to use and need not be expensive. I echo Peter's suggestion to avoid the complete sets since you may well not need the colours they contain. You can even start off with the cheap craft paints that most art stores sell. They are cheaper than the big name brands and the pots are bigger too. You probably need buy only 12 colours to make a start. Look out for tips on making your own colour mixes and feel free to experiment. I would suggest the following set of colours to start which, with a little experiment, will enable you to mix almost everything you will need. You can easily thin down acrylics with plain tap water.

White
Black
Yellow ochre
cadmium yellow
Vermillion
Ultrmarine blue
Burnt sienna
Burnt umber
Chrome green

For mixing: yellow ochre and black makes all sorts of olive drab colours, German greys can be mixed with black, white, some ultramarine even throw in a little burnt umber. Experimenting allows you to create many variations which will add to the interest of your figures. Basic flesh tones can be made with white, burnt sienna and yellow ochre, add some vermillion for pinkish tones or some ultramarine for cool flesh tones. Just add a little at a time until you get the colour you want.

John

[Peej]

Paul

Acrylic paints are probably the easiest to use and need not be expensive. I echo Peter's suggestion to avoid the complete sets since you may well not need the colours they contain. You can even start off with the cheap craft paints that most art stores sell. They are cheaper than the big name brands and the pots are bigger too. You probably need buy only 12 colours to make a start. Look out for tips on making your own colour mixes and feel free to experiment. I would suggest the following set of colours to start which, with a little experiment, will enable you to mix almost everything you will need. You can easily thin down acrylics with plain tap water.

White
Black
Yellow ochre
cadmium yellow
Vermillion
Ultrmarine blue
Burnt sienna
Burnt umber
Chrome green

For mixing: yellow ochre and black makes all sorts of olive drab colours, German greys can be mixed with black, white, some ultramarine even throw in a little burnt umber. Experimenting allows you to create many variations which will add to the interest of your figures. Basic flesh tones can be made with white, burnt sienna and yellow ochre, add some vermillion for pinkish tones or some ultramarine for cool flesh tones. Just add a little at a time until you get the colour you want.

John

Thank you very much. That's a great help.

[Dave Ward]

Paul,
the ICM models come with an instruction sheet & colour call outs - Tamiya & Revell, but you can find equivalent charts for most paint makes
Dave