"Browns" Topic

The color not the team.

I find browns odd.

1. you can use the same triad of browns on a horse, wood or brown clothing. it will look diffrent, the brown clothing will name make it look like it's made of wood even if its the same brown you use on wood

2. hard to make look good. I have very hard time making brown look good.

I am not much of a horse painter….brown clothing and wood however…
Brown clothing, pick the highlight color, and even go a shade brighter. Thin your brown and use it as an ink. This works great on clothes, gloves, baskets and bags.
Wood is dependent on the detail in the mini.
Wood, pick what you want your "wood grain" color to be.
Base paint with a brighter color and dry brush the grain using progressively darker colors.

I agree. Browns are kind of odd. I mix in Flesh to lighten for rifles, Tan for other uses.

I mixed up a whole progression starting with charred brown – whatever the game color version of Citadel that was around last time. Made up a bottle by adding black to that. Then a series of others bridging khaki, all the way up to off white. That gives me many tricolor palettes starting any where along the line.

For one offs I sometimes just mix a little of that, with a little of this. Mix in white, or yellow, or pale green, lots of stuff works.

Using glossy or semi-glossy brown for wood and leather makes it look different from brown clothing or horse hair.

Using a different dry brush (highlight) makes the same base brown look different.

And remember that browns in the medieval period were actually several dyes applied, so more expensive, ergo more rare or even non-existent. You don't have to paint any of your medievals with brown clothing. Well, unless you are painting Templar serjants, I guess….

I go back and forth between "mix my own browns" moods and "spectrum of ready mixed browns" moods.

I think highlighting and washes are important for browns (and organic greens).

= Using a dark brown wash on some surfaces and a black wash on others will give you different effects.

= I always use mu current brown with a dash of white when highlighting a color for consistency's sake (there are warm and cool browns, bright and deep browns, etc.; lots of different types that look wonky with each other).

*WARNING* I am a horrible painter (though I am fairly well schooled in color theory). I hope your mileage varies with these ideas.

Who'd have thought a topic called "Browns" could be so interesting. But it is…

Doug