Nomad Paint Options

As I have cleaned, assembled, and basecoated my Nomads, my mind turns of course to paintschemes. I like to have a good idea before I start putting paint to model of what I will end up with, otherwise I tend to get bogged down at the halfway point trying to decide what to do for a certain section. In this case, it's especially important with the model count being so few, and the look of the models being so clean.

Luckily, I managed to snag the last copy of the art book from my FLGS and have plumbed it for fun things (I am a sucker for art books). I scanned a few photos of models I know I have, and put 'em in Photoshop to colour. I have a tablet that doesn't see as much use as I wish it did, but for things like this it is ideal. I can test out schemes quickly, imitate paint effects, and not worry about having to soylent green any models after too many applications.

As a preamble: I love the Ghost in the Shell series. The look of the combat armour, suits, 'tanks', etc. I love that even with opticamo, they still have nice drab outfits, and am leaning towards a look like that.

With that, here's what I have been musing over:

First up is a variation on the default scheme of Corregidor. Most of my models are (and will be) from this ship, so having a good strong red scheme seemed like a good idea. While I understand the mentality of "it doesn't matter their armour colour: Adaptive camo will take effect", to me, there's no reason to strain your poor camo computer by making it red to start!

With that in mind, you can see the three-part scheme above. I've done default bright red for the really noisy big things that aren't hiding: Hellcats, TAGs, possibly remotes, etc. Next up are the "support models". Represented here by a Custodier, this class would include Daktari, engineers, and the like, and feature a nice distinct white scheme.

Finally the black on the far right, while technically a hellcat in miniature, is meant to represent the more stealthy soldiers: Intruders, Zeros, and the like. Black on grey sets them up nice and dark, with red influences to tie them together. The advantage of this scheme is it follows the classic colour design combo of red-black-white, the disadvantage is it is nowhere near camo-like or Ghost in the Shell.

Holding to the white theme; One of my first wonders was an all-white scheme with either orange or red as accent colours. On this one I've also added a digital camo pattern, which if I do, I may do as hexes instead of squares. Being consistently white gives this one the advantage of being arguably more in line with the Ghost in the Shell feel, while maintaining Nomad similarity and allowing me to distinguish Bakunin and Corregidor. I'm not entirely sold though on HOW white this one is. I tend to find pure white schemes tough to make look really slick. Any mar, any inconsistent thickness in the paint, and the effect is ruined.

I've also toyed with one borrowing from above, but replacing the default white with a more urban drab. I would still heavily theme the white in patches, especially on the support models, but any of the 'line troops' would have a nice pale colour, not specifically indicative of any one background, but neutral enough to make it hard to distinguish features. I keep the red belts and details, and above have the digicam and non digicam versions.

Finally, a more olive colour. This one appears a bit minty-green, but I'd play with that colour to make it nice and neutral, using Russian Uniform as the base. In this one, white is used sparingly (and again almost exclusively on support models), and the red is limited. The mild green influence would help them be complimentary.

Overall I'm leaning towards the last two, with digital camo only applied if, once the model is painted, it feels like it wouldn't be too busy.

Currently you'll notice all the helmets with a shiny black. This is because the 'eyeslit' arrangement is not good for binary vision. My first solution of course is to turn them into up-armoured plexi, but I may decide to do them in standard colour, and just claim that where you can't see an eye slit, it's really a complex polymer/fibre-optic cable grouping that gives a better range of view, still protecting the face and allowing for a HUD.

Now comes the part where I sit with the various schemes, seeing if one starts to intrigue me more. Then I do a test model, and if I like that, paint the rest of the force!

I can't recommend this method of scheming out colours enough though. You can set up one, then do the "adjustment layer> hue/saturation" to pull around and get wildly different colours you may not normally think to use, but once you see them on the model, look right.