Reply To: Beyond Primary. The essential minimum for detailed figure painting?

[Universal Head]

Well, I’m impressed. You do know your colour theory, so you should have no problem mixing up a good variety of colours there. You can get darker and lighter colours by mixing in your black or white, and you can get get different shades by mixing between them (eg a more lime green by adding yellow to green).

The huge range of paints available these days (especially from GW) is really just for convenience (and increasing revenue); a lot of the shades can be arrived at by mixing, but hardly anyone seems to do it anymore. The Old Masters would be horrified! That said, you’ll probably quickly find yourself wanting to get some of the more subtle colours, especially a few browns, as these can vary a lot. Also, I use a bone colour quite often as a lightner for browns instead of white (and for … bones).

And perhaps a couple of very different shades each of blue and green if you have any money left in the piggy bank.

Nicely worked out!