Eureka Miniatures terrapin loving and colour trials

For my next later piece I’m wanting to try some different colours, mainly very light (and bright) greens.  However the figure I’m thinking about using is very detailed so I need to get my colours sorted first.  So I experimented on some 28mm trial figures.

These terrapins are from Eureka Miniatures and have been in the stash for awhile.  Originally I purchased them for playing Runequest in Glorantha.  They are a bit rough on the arms/legs with some simple indenting for texture which is always a pain as any glaze/wash will pool in those recesses.  But it’s a simple way to add texture.

For the figure with the spear I tried using a warm green palette.  I also wanted to try having two similar greens on the same figure but making them different enough so as not to blend.  The base green is Jo Sonja’s Sap Green, a very yellowish green.  For the shell this was highlighted up with Jo Sonja’s Yellow Light and then some white.  For the shades I used the complement of VMC Violet Red.

For the arms/legs/head I used the same Sap Green base and highlighted up with Jo Sonja’s Indian Yellow and white.  This kept the green values more.  For the shades I used some VMC Flat Red (I think).

The spear is meant to be bamboo so I found VMA Yellow Ochre as a good bamboo brown base.

For the figure with the bow I wanted an overall cooler colour scheme.  The base of the shell is VMC Sky Blue and an old Citadel Jade Green.  This was highlighted with some more of the sky blue and white, with a bit of Jade Green added to keep the green tones.  I couldn’t get the shades right and ended up with grey.  This usually means that I’ve got too many colours in the mix and I suspect that the Jade Green is the issue.  I tried various red/oranges/browns/etc and couldn’t get a clean shade that didn’t end up purple grey.  I’m thinking that the jade green has too many colours in it already.

The skin was the same base but highlighted up with VMC Lemon Yellow (a yellow I hardly ever use it being very cool and a bit green).  The shade used more Violet Red in the mix.  Although there was no detail on the bow I continued the bamboo theme and tried to replicate the segmented look of bamboo (even though I’m pretty sure a bamboo bow wouldn’t work in practice).

So on both I’m happy with the colour pop I managed on the shells.  It avoided the issues I had previously of trying to get things brighter by adding more white and ending up with bleached out colours.  I need more practice on getting the complements of colours however.  I’m also seeing more reasons to not use premixed colours and keep with just base colours and mix everything.  That way you know what it is in there and makes mixing complements easier.