I Hate Painting Yellow

Yellow – the bane of nearly every mini painters existence. I wanted a few panels in yellow as it a great accent color for all the reds and whites across this model. So I started where I always start – the Internet!

After an hour or so of research I had a plan. It seems the only really good way is to layer from dark to light, something I’m not afraid of doing. I dug through my collection of aging paints and pulled out this selection to get me there.

I’m not a big fan of the Bad Moons shade of yellow – to light and bright for me, I prefer a Golden Yellow, something a bit warmer to go with the reds, less contrast. Aaaand, of course, since I haven’t actively painted in some time, my Golden Yellow has dried up hard as a rock So, with what I have on hand that’s salvageable, I try to mix up my own version to limited success.

Here are the steps I used to create my yellow panels. All paints were thinned, even the base paints.

Starting with a black primer, I blanketed the panels with Scorched Brown, then stepped up to Calthan Brown, finishing up my brown base layers with Snakebite Leather.The first real yellow color was the Iyanden Darksun base paint. This went on extremely well and I was really happy at where it was at this point. I figured it would be an easy layering of the other yellows to what I wanted but things didn’t work out that way.

I tried to approximate the Golden Yellow color by mixing Sunburst Yellow and Blazing Orange but this only created a weird orangy/yellow mix that frankly didn’t look good, so I tried simply working up to the Sunburst Yellow, hoping to add the warm tone through inks/washes.

It took about 4 layers total of Sunburst Yellow to get a somewhat smooth, even coating. I didn’t have the new Casandra Yellow wash so I did what I always do, improvise. I mixed Yellow Ink with Flesh Wash, thinned it down and washed the panels with it. While it does add depth, it really didn’t tint like I thought it would – leaving the panels looking “washed” and not Golden Yellow. Oh well.

I have since picked up the new replacement for Golden Yellow, Yriel Yellow, and the Cassandra Yellow wash and will be trying them out on a couple other smaller panels soon. Hopefully I can crack the yellow code and make it work.

Here’s the pics of progression – enjoy!

Later!