"Paint Triads - What makes a good one?" Topic

Is there anything special about a paint triad, or is it just a convenient way of getting a base a shade and a highlight together?

I have a triad sheet for Vallejo from Darkson Designs and it has 30+ triads on it. But even though I have 15+ blue, or brown or green Vallejo shades I don't have the right ones to make up and of the triads (or even many pairs) on this sheet.

For one of the brown triads I had the highlight and the main colour, so bought the shade. Now I am even more confused as the main colour is English Uniform a medium brown with a touch of green. The highlight is Dark Sand which is a very pale brown – getting towards GW Bleached Bone, and the shade is Leather Brown which is a dark brown, but with a hint of red.

I'm not sure I would ever of picked these 3 colours as shades of each other myself. The highlight seems far too light and the shade seems the wrong "shade" of brown.

Picking paint colours is particular tricky over the internet as the names aren't much help and on screen reproductions of colours are poor – so I was hoping a triad sheet would help.

The key to a successful triad for me is that the shades go well together and it either fits your painting style or you can paint to the style the triad calls for. Personally I prefer a lot of contrast between the shade and the base and not so much between the base and the highlight and I've not been very successful at adapting to the latter.

I always smile when I find a triad where I would never guess that the shade and base would go together but work perfectly when you use them.

Try it anyway. I don't use the Vallejo triads, but the Reaper ones usually work, even if the colors seem too different. Sometimes you want to mix the base and mid tone to create a 4th color, and the same with the mid and highlight. This will give you more even shading.

I dont think triads work at all. The "jump" between the stages is too strong for my taste. I like the technique of using colour steps, just prefer smaller steps not the huge strides of a triad scheme.

I tend to mix batches of 5 or 6 colours from a single central colour by adding darker and lighter colours to make a series of less distinct colour steps. A GW scab red centre gets a little scorched brown for 1st shade and more for 2nd or deepest shade. A little blood red for 1st highlight and more for 2nd. Each colour being mixed to a pot or at least half GW paint pot quantity.

Thanks guys – I'll give the ones I have a bit of a try.

I expect that a set of paints like the Reaper or Foundry ones that were designed as triads work rather better than vallejo were someone has to select potential triads.

If anyone has a link to other lists of vallejo triads I would be interested.

Fred, you have been around here quite a while. Can we really tell you something you don't know already? Triads are definitely not a panacea. I will tell you how I use some of them.

Let us say I am painting an army of Early war Germans in their green gray uniform and I want to use a triad. I can do it with out but I need to look for a bottle of dark green. I don't want it to be on the drab side but rather the blue side of green without being teal.

I use Foundry Dark Green Shade. Now for the mid town-I look to VMC Green Grey don't know the number off hand. I don't happen to have a highlight shade so I have to mix. For me to mix I use a lot of paint. I may paint the whole platoon or stop halfway to answer the door, the phone or do something else. Once mixed I have to use it otherwise it will sit.

If it dries,and I must mix a second batch it may or may not be identical. So it is a drag. I throw that whole idea out and decide to go with a light shade of gray to make the boys really jump out at you.
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Some triads work and some don't. The one's I think do I use, the one's I think don't, I manipulate to try and get some use out of the paint by incorporating it into something I do. I especially try and find a purpose for paints that have sat there for a very long time so they don't feel ignored and lonely.

"I dont think triads work at all. The "jump" between the stages is too strong for my taste. I like the technique of using colour steps, just prefer smaller steps not the huge strides of a triad scheme"

If you feel the jump is too strong, just mix the darker shade with the lighter shade for a more gradual transition. Start with one drop of the darker shade and one of the next lighter shade in the triad. Add more lighter or darker shade to taste.

These triads; they're just three different bottles of paint that are sold in a "package deal" or something else?

M.

I find this is quite helpful for identifying triads based on the Foundry system for other manufacturers paints:

link

Again, as combatpainter said, some work and some don't. Guess you just can't beat experimenting yourself!

Pete

Hi there,
i'm kind of new in this forum and i'm french so sorry for my english… @Fred12df : can you send me a scan of your triad sheet for Vallejo from Darkson Designs , i'm looking for Vallejo triads for a very long time. i don't know how to PM.

When I was still painting 25mm minis I used a variation on the triad system and wet blending. I would start with the base colour and slap a lot of it on to the pallet. I would blend a darker shade at one side and a lighter one at the other that way I knew the shades worked together as they were all based off the same core colour. If i wanted additional high or low lights i could blend as I went. Of course this was with enamels so the paint stayed workable for longer but maybe a drying inhibitor might help with acrylics?

Triads are not the be all end all of painting. Having said that, they are a nice way to make sure your highlights, main colors and shadows blend and do so nicely. It's also handy if you can't tell the difference between warm based and cool based greys, browns, etc etc etc.

Reaper developed the triad system. Foundry was not to far behind. I paint primarily with Vallejo. Having said that, I am working on reds for a competition piece -- and there are 6 bottles on my desk to work from shadow to upper edge highlight.

If you aren't sure about what matches what, there is a labor intensive way to do it.

First, go to Reaper's website and pull down the triad list with the individual paints listed in the triad. Then go to the Vallejo website and down load this conversion chart.

PDF link

It's in English and Spanish, so it should be OK. Now you can cross reference between the 2 lines and build your set from there.

Hope this helps.