Well sort of in a way I have gone a little ancient with this rather lovely and wonderful vignette of Julius Caesar and the great Gallic warrior Vercingetorix from Wargames Illustrated Moments in History. Now this is another buy for Mrs PK as she does seem to have a thing for powerful men in history, like Napoleon, Caesar, Henry VIII, and actually this was something that I have been waiting to paint.
So I decided that for this vignette I would do something different for me and actually use a triad colour scheme as supplied by the great Loki from Loki's Great Hall as appeared in Wargame Bloggers Quarterly, the free quarterly eZine. Now firstly I have to say a big thanks to Loki for this and the help he has supplied with recent question I have asked of him about how to paint, so cheers mate.
I dont usually use the triad way of painting as I usually mix my colours and paint using thin layers and slowly build up the colours that way but following a conversation about the different ways of painting I thought I would give it a try, after all I dont have anything to lose. So armed with my triad guide in WBQ Issue 1 and set about the task in hand.
So I actually started with Caesar first and painting the face and his skin using the suggested colours for Mediterranean skin and I have to say that I was very impressed with it, the colours used not my painting skills. It gave a nice warm colour to the skin and a good transition that blended very way and not a wash in sight. Next I worked upon the cloak, deciding to go with a Imperial Purple colour and before anyone points out he was not Emperor at the time and the cloak should be red, well I wanted to paint it purple as it is a colour that I have always found difficult to paint and I wanted to see have the Triad system would work. Well what can I say, I was knocked over with just how nice it can out, the colours worked seamlessly together, giving a subtle yet rich colour that I have been looking for and I loved it.
Then to work on Vercingetorix and the base as Vercingetorix was glued to this as it seemed to make sense when I started it and it helped me giving the base a focal point while painting it. Now Vercingetorix I went for that typical Celtic/Gallic look with colour, strips and checks but at the same time trying to keep it all linked together and not a riot of colour. So I decided that I would echo some of the colours used in Caesar and what he is sitting on in Vercingetorix.
I first painted Vercingetorix skin but this time a used the triad for Northern European which is actually a little more brown and pale than the Mediterranean skin tone and I think it works well and makes Vercingetorix skin stand out as different to Caesars. Again I was surprised with just how well the colours blend together and subtle they are. I was also surprised just how quick it was to paint the skin using the triads, especially when combined with using a water palette.
All is all I have to say that I am impressed with the way that the triad system works and also how quick it is to use. I think that is a good way of getting the right colours though I have to say I am not totally convinced that the colours are in the correct order of some of them but thats minor and when you have the bottle of paint in front of you you can see which order, from dark to light, they should be anyway. The other thing I have noticed is the brightness of the colours and subtlety of the shades, which might be a problem for some. Now I am a strong believer is strong shadows and strong highlights in the way I normal paint, but with these the steps and closer together but actually they give a more natural range and feel to them. In future I with be mixing the colours to give me five bands of colour from the three and see how that works but it might be a step thats not required and the thin layers will already sort of do that. So I have to say I like the triad system and I will be using it again.
surprises her grandmother on her 80th birthday.
