Acrylics Shading Blue

[Patrick Kamsma]

Hello PF,

I have a quick question.
Painting with vallejo acrylics; what color do you use to make shadows for Dark Blue (70930)?
I don't want to use black (obvious reason).

Thnx
Patrick

 

[megroot]

With oilpaint i use orange. This is the complementaire color of blue.
It is based on this principle.
Because of the limitations imposed by the range of colors that were available throughout most of the history of art, many artists still use a traditional set of complementary pairs, including (as proposed by Goethe, cf. Goethe's color wheel):

• red and green
• blue and orange
• yellow and violet

The complement of each primary color (red, blue, or yellow) is roughly the color made by mixing the other two in a subtractive system:

• red complements (blue + yellow) = green
• blue complements (red + yellow) = orange
• yellow complements (red + blue) = violet

Marc

 

[Patrick Kamsma]

Hey Marc,
I know the principles of the color wheel and the comp. colors.
But when I mix dark blue with orange I get a lighter blue, more greenish.
My orange is probably too bright.
Hence my question. Oils and Acrylics don't have the exact same mixes.

To all:
So question still stands. Which color should I choose?

Grtz
Patrick

 

[kagemusha]

Hi Patrick, my personal choice would be 70814 Dark cadmium Red or 70859 Black Red. It usually depends on the surrounding colours as they can reflect in the hi-lites of darker colours and, conversely, in the shadows depending on the nature of the material depicted.

Regards

Ron

 

[megroot]

Patrick, If it turn into a greenish color then there is to much yellow, and therefore the orange is to bright.
I think oils and acrylics has the same mix, but the acrylic form Vallejo and Andrea are (and i guess now) not pure pigments as oils. With Jo Sonja acrylic you can get the same mix as with oilpaint.

 

[Joe Hudson]

Hey Patrick,

I have used dark purple before mixed with a tad of black.

Joe

 

[BRIAN HOWARD]

Patrick
We just went through this at the Lone Star FIgure Show. We were paint the Andrea Teddy Roosevelt figure with Julio Cabos. As he was mixing the shadows and hi-lights for the blue shirt, he was adding brown lighten and a darker blue black to shadow. We were using the Andrea blue set for this combination. I am sure you can achieve the same effect with a combination of the Vallejo paints. Hope this helps.

Brian

 

[ChaosCossack]

If the base colour was straight Dark Blue... depending on the material represented, you could darken the base with black or dark brown ie German Camo Black Brown.

 

[Patrick Kamsma]

Thanx everybody.
Got some Nice tips I can work with.
Grtz
Patrick

 

[Einion]

I don't want to use black (obvious reason).

You might like to have a quick read through of my previous thread, Rules in colour mixing, are there any? Patrick. Black might actually be your best bet, it often is for dark colours.

If you didn't want to use black for any reason experiment with your browns; regardless of medium browns would be the first thing to try as they are the go-to neutralisers for blues (although there are other viable options, including oranges and some orange-reds).

The complement of each primary color (red, blue, or yellow) is roughly the color made by mixing the other two in a subtractive system:

• red complements (blue + yellow) = green
• blue complements (red + yellow) = orange
• yellow complements (red + blue) = violet

Got to remember Marc, paints are material things not colour in the abstract. So what works in practice is often quite different from what theory suggests (and Goethe is out-of-date theory to begin with).

This is a very important distinction to make because the fact that the orange Patrick tried produced a greenish result is not as simple as there being 'too much yellow in the orange' as you might expect theoretically but simply because the pigment or pigments it's made from don't work as a mixing complement to this blue - the same orange might work perfectly with a similar blue made from different ingredients... another dark blue is neutralised by Raw Sienna (!) which is obviously far more towards yellow than any orange paint and you would naturally expect that it would give some kind of green mixed with pretty much any blue.

Einion

 

[ChaosCossack]

I'm with Einion, keep trying different combos until you get the result you're looking for... then write it down for future reference.

Try- Fail- Try again- Fail better

Good Luck
Colin