Sci fi painting thoughts

[Outlawcarl]

Just started painting these and off the back of the painting competition clearly my 28mm painting experience is not helping too much

I feel at 10mm bright contrasting colours are a good move so you can see them from a far looking from about 20cm up on these things and they look really nice ( as you can see not so much up close lol, how are you all doing this 10mm models tiny brushes?)

But I don't want to go too crazy, so I do want some silver/greys for the guns however for the green guys I feel the green is washing it out... I could try a bronze/gold but I think that might also wash out, if I did the guns in a light blue that would give contrast but then it does start to look like they have nerf guns (or a bunch of those people I've seen with the anime covered guns...).
I could go with a lighter green darker gun?

Also if anyone else has started painting these would love some inspiration! 

[Leon]

We're about to paint all of the ranges ready for our Salute display game and we're going to go with big bright colours as well, so orange, green, blue, red, yellow, white, purple, etc.  I'm currently thinking of doing a white primer and then Xpress colours to save some time, so hopefully they look bright enough.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

What happened to " If I can see it I can hit. If I can hit it I can kill it ! " GW has much to be blamed for......Admitedly some of my 6mm Sci-Fi is bright

[Techno 3]

We're about to paint all of the ranges ready for our Salute display game and we're going to go with big bright colours as well, so orange, green, blue, red, yellow, white, purple, etc.  I'm currently thinking of doing a white primer and then Xpress colours to save some time, so hopefully they look bright enough.

I've got a couple of ideas on the colour scheme for the first of the 'non human' races currently sitting on my desk.   !

[Ithoriel]

What happened to " If I can see it I can hit. If I can hit it I can kill it ! " GW has much to be blamed for......Admitedly some of my 6mm Sci-Fi is bright

In the grim darkness of the far future, on a battlefield laced with scanners, bio-sensors, trackers and smart munitions it has become "If it breathes I can hit it. If it bleeds I can kill it!"

Optical camouflage is the least of your worries!

[Raider4]

In the grim darkness of the far future, on a battlefield laced with scanners, bio-sensors, trackers and smart munitions it has become "If it breathes I can hit it. If it bleeds I can kill it!"

So, the robots will rule then?

[Elliesdad]

In the grim darkness of the far future, on a battlefield laced with scanners, bio-sensors, trackers and smart munitions it has become "If it breathes I can hit it. If it bleeds I can kill it!"
Optical camouflage is the least of your worries!

I agree - if all the technical kit is so, so good then I suggest it doesn't matter what colour uniforms your guys are wearing.

Geoff 😉

[Ithoriel]

So, the robots will rule then?

Oh yes! Haven't you seen The Terminator or The Matrix?


After all, in our own solar system, humans have one planet and the robots have a planet and a moon

[paulr]

Some of the robots seem to be falling over themselves to get to the moon

[Ithoriel]

There's always some slacker lying down on the job!

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

There's always some slacker lying down on the job!

Get your coat......

[fsn]

In the far future, high tech sensors will be able to pick up midges smacking their lips seeing a freshly kilted Scotsman; will be able to see the provedbial black cat in a dark room at midnight; and be able to smell an upset tummy downwind at 1000 paces.

In other words, I just paint what I think looks good, and will come up with a rationalisation later.

So far, I've painted the brownforce (Army entry in the painting comp) which were brown 'cos the infantary reminded me of Star Wars sand people; black 'cos black looks cool and the blues 'cos many years ago I was taken by a Chinese Marine camouflage scheme. I try to add a contrasting colour for a bit of interest.



For aliens, they may have a different visual range from humans, so all bets are off. If the Aslan in Traveller are basically wolves, would they have a doggy sense of colour? All sorts of disruptive patterns in the red end of the spectrum will look monochrome to a dog.


Sharks apparently have very poor colour perception, but are great at contrast. How would a shark camouflage a tank? Possibly subtle contrast is whatever colour you like. (Probably grey.)

[Big Insect]

The Chinese are also using highly pixelated (is that a word) contrast camo - a bit like Berlin Camo (but on acid) and it seems to work ok.

Plus ... doesn't it depend very much upon the terrain you are operating in? I have a 6mm sci-fi force that is designed to fight on my Martian Terrain - so it is a combo of pinky-oranges and reds - as are the rocks & plants it will be deployed in. My 'Ice World' forces are all camo'd in white and light blue.

[Raider4]

How would a shark camouflage a tank?

This one sentence has just blown my mind.

[Ithoriel]

This one sentence has just blown my mind.

What? You haven't heard of Shark Tank? Not very well camouflaged from us humans .... alas!